The Acerbic Wit of Mark Twain
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : October 2, 2007
The following is from the War Prayer by Mark Twain. It clearly demonstrates Mark Twain’s antipathy towards the Philippine-American War. But it also stands as a darkly humorous reminder that any time we pray for success in war, we’re praying for the destruction of our foes. It reveals what we might actually praying for when we, the Church, stand in solidarity with the troops.
After the quote, I have some questions for your reflection:
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Those of you who reject pacifism, do you believe it is ever just to kill in the name of Jesus? If not, then shouldn’t it be the goal of every Christian to do everything as unto the Lord? If yes, then what is the criteria we apply to determine whether Jesus endorses our killing? Please quote from the Gospels…ok, I’m willing to entertain any passage from the New Testament. I’d even entertain an Old Testament passage if you can demonstrate how it pertains to followers of Jesus in 21st Century North America.
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I never understood how the current landscape of American Evangelicalism has become so pro-war, without much questioning or criticism for the philosophy of miltarism and violence and how it blatantly contradicts with the teachings of Christ. Part of it is because Republicanism has become so interwined with Christianity in this country that many Christians confuse each system’s values.
Good post, thanks for the reminder of the radical message of Jesus to love those who would do us harm, to bless those who curse us, and to live in peace with all men.
From Jeff (via Facebook):
Jesus has a lot to say about peace. The question is how the Kingdom of God relates to the various states. I’ve addressed some of the passages you mention here on my blog:
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=585
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=594
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=604
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=607
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=622
http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/?p=645
Basically, I believe that Jesus sets up a clear contrast between the Kingdom of God and the “Domination system.” The other NT writers, particularly Paul, continue to set up a conflict between the Church and the Powers that Be. We usually miss this conflict because we are reading the NT through the eyes of empowered affluent Americans living in a democracy. But if you read the NT with the understanding that we are disempowered marginal Christians who are being persecuted by Rome, different patterns of meaning emerge.
For a good take on the misuse of that Romans text, one of the old downloadable pamphlets from Pendle Hill is #49, “Christ in Catastrophe,” Emil Fuchs’ account of his years under the Nazi regime. I’ve found it resonates intensely with my feelings about the Reign of Bush, and what that implies about America’s collective karma.
see http://www.pendlehill.org/resources/files/free%20downloads%20pages/php049.php
Let us not forget that the Romans 13 passage follows immediately after Saint Paul’s declaration that we should never repay anyone “evil for evil.” And, if we keep in mind that the texts originally had no verse or chapter breaks, it would have flowed clearly from chapter 12 to chapter 13.
Oh, and I recently came upon your blog via Jesus Radicals, and I must say I really enjoy it.
Thanks Dustin!
- Francis Schaeffer
I think that is the only “just war” theory I can respect. I don’t agree with it, but I respect it. What if violence were only reserved for the defense of the innocent? There would certainly be less war.
But for me, as I seek to follow Jesus in all things, I am not at all convinced that he would ever have me lift a hand of violence against my neighbor.
But I don’t want anybody shot full of holes in a misguided effort to “help” me.
I can’t love my neighbor as myself simply because somebody told me I should do that–but if I know that my neighbor is myself, it gets easier… And if I know that my enemy is also myself, I know that I can’t “defend myself” by hurting him.
If I know that God is my protection, I know that earthly weapons aren’t.
Thich Nat Hahn defended the local village near his monastery, in the most “impractical” way: He took the villagers into his monastery, then went to the nearest rebel leaders he could find, and the nearest American officers, and asked them both to please leave them alone.
The practical Americans helped their Vietnamese faction in the “practical” way, by killing, maiming and imprisoning their enemies (& bystanders) wholesale.
The village was spared (at the risk of Hahn’s life) but all our “help” accomplished was the killing, maiming and imprisoning it started and ended with.
If your neighbor doesn’t now Jesus, and was being brutally raped, I’m sure they would see the love of Christ in your inaction.
There is this aspect of ‘laying down your life’ that I think is missed here. I don’t think Jesus meant for us just to get our heads knocked when we see the poor, helpless, oppressed being taken advantage of, raped, mutilated…
Yeesh! That is usually where these discussions go.
Let us indeed suppose my neighbor is getting raped. Do I really need to exercise “violence” in order to stop the rape?
Just to be clear: I am ok with physical restrain. I am not quick to draw a line between appropriate force and violence. Each situation is unique. But to me, “violence” is using destructive force.
Blowing the guys brains out is hardly ever, ever, ever, the only option. And in the off chance that it is, to kill him is sin.
Because you didn’t introduce the concept of ‘appropriate force’ in the original treatise, you baited me! If you know that this is where the conversation ends up, then maybe you should have brought it up before.
Ha ha!
Actually, if you read my post and my comments, I only make a strong stand against “killing.” I think there are certainly other ways of doing violence besides killing. But I think every pacifist draws the line between violence and physical restrain somewhere. I think it depends on each situation. I think I’d be willing to go further than most pure pacifists.
Getting back to the subject of modern warfare–where the harm is certain and the benefit pure pipedreams…
We have a cultural blind spot–what Walter Wink calls “The Myth of Redemptive Violence.” It goes back a very long way (He traces it to the Babylonian creation myth) and it’s being constantly reinforced by our contemporary culture, whether on tv or in our books.
How else could we imagine that violence could redeem anything? We imagine that because we see it happen, over and over again, both in our fiction and in the fantastic misinterpretations that flavor our daily newsslop.
A hero is someone who (eventually) kicks the Bad Guy’s ass and saves the day! We want to be heroes, don’t we? Able to save nine women from being raped with a single blow?
There was a policeman here in San Diego a few years back; he fired an appropriate shot at someone truly dangerous–But he missed, killed a young woman across the street instead. That was the end of his police career, as surely as if he’d shot himself; he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wasn’t a bad shot; he certainly wasn’t a bad man, but sometimes, you know, what we want to do isn’t what happens.
Jesus did not ride into town on a big white warhorse; he did not summon up legions of angels to save him from the cross and kick the Romans back to the Tiber; that wasn’t what he was called to do.
Jesus wasn’t killed as a sacrifice to God; he was killed as a sacrifice to human fears of God. God himself did not think that overcoming the oppressors by force and violence would do us any good–but knowing that God restrains his power, for our sakes, makes a great difference.
Should we trust God’s wisdom in this?–or keep defending our own?
Just a quick note: I shouldn’t post on controversial topics when I’m running a high temp:). I’m not really a dumb hick just blindly pulling out the ‘raped neighbor’ card. If I had taken time to think, I wouldn’t have done that. Err…Sorry. I didn’t mean to degrade a great thread.
I do stand with the comment that there is an aspect of laying down our lives that is missed. I think sometimes we have may actually have to place ourselves in harms way to show the love of Christ.
There will always be stories of how the use of force went wrong, but we also need to pay attention to were it worked. In our fallen world, things just don’t always work out the way they were hoped to.
Are you feeling better? Sorry to hear that you’ve been ill.
You are right, Dave. It is about laying down our lives. And we should never have a rigid formula for that that looks like. The world is a complex, fallen place.
And don’t worry about pulling the “raped neighbor” card. Provocative examples still serve the purpose of provoking conversation.
You know, if God puts you in a situation & you feel called to deal with it, we aren’t going to settle here how you ought to act. That is going to be between you and the Big Guy.
There’s a (possibly untrue) story about George Fox and William Penn, who as the son of a ranking British Admiral naturally wore his sword everywhere, but was beginning to have his doubts. Fox is supposed to have told him, “Wear it as long as you can!”
My own experience in the hero biz… About 20 years ago when I had the bookstore, I see a fuss starting out front. I come out and find an old white man lying in the gutter with a strong-looking black man kicking at him. I’ve seen the black guy around, generally behaving himself; I figure the old man has probably said something ignorant that got him righteously pissed, but this won’t do. So I ask him, “What’s a man like you doing, pounding on an old man?” He says, “Get out of my face!” and raises his fists; I step back and get into a tai chi stance. I get the stance wrong but he turns and runs off anyway.
About a week later, it’s a pair of small scrawny women, one chasing the other, who falls in that same gutter, a little up the block, where her assailant is kicking her viciously while I’m on my way home. I’m carrying a light briefcase, thinking it should help for blocking blows, as I tell her “What’s going on.” She hits me so hard and fast that I don’t have time to move, and my head feels fuzzy the rest of the evening. Her friend is up out of that gutter and running as this happens, and they disappear off into the night.
Not only were these events a week apart, nothing anything like them has happened to me before or since. It may not be wise to put too much faith in one’s own strength–but if we do, God has ways to remind us. And if the events of our own lives can be so meaningfully connected, are we sure that other people’s situations need our input?–or that physical means are likely to be the means of choice for responding?
It may not be that a physical response is needed. When we encounter a situation and we step in because we see a need (Do we need a prompting from God for every need we see? Did the Good Samaritan wait for the Holy Spirit to fall and Angels to sing?) What if you’re downtown handing out water and food to the homeless when someone pulls a knife on you and demand your money. I give it to him because I personally don’t like getting stabbed or other wise beaten. If I see him do it to someone else, I may offer my own wallet to get the guy to go. I may even bless him if I can. Then call the coppers. If I see someone knifing someone and I can prevent a brutal attack by picking up a baseball bat and kneecapping the guy? Yeah. I’ll do it. But I don’t see myself yelling “In Jesus Name” as I swing.
Thats a long way to come for a guy who used to believe that anything I owned was worth someone else’s life.