Tuesday, June 03, 2008

War... What Is It Good For?

Scott McClellan has recently written a book detailing various distortions of truth in the current Presidential administration.  Maybe you've heard of it?  There has certainly been a lot of reaction to it.  Some are calling McClellan a whistleblower, others are saying that he is a turncoat, and still others believe he should have spoken up or stepped down a lot sooner than he did. 

 

While the veracity of the book is certainly in question (how do you fully trust a man who tells you he is a liar?), there are some arguments that McClellan's voice merely adds more weight to.  One of these is the strength of the evidence that sent the United States into war with Iraq.  For years the left has been pointing to the weakness of the intelligence.  Now, McClellan confirms that the President wasn't as concerned with the truth as he was with supporting the decision he wanted to make.

 

APs in general take a very strong Pro-Life stance.  Sometimes this is the only issue that concerns them when choosing who to vote for.  But it has always amazed me how the definition of the term never extends beyond the abortion arena.  For instance, many who would feel comfortable protesting an abortion clinic would say of an executed murderer "He got what he deserved."  More importantly, where was the outrage from the AP community over going into a war where many thousands of lives have been destroyed?

 

The Manual for the UPCI actually states that, even though we are patriotic, as an organization we do not support the killing that occurs during war.  Additionally, many of the founders of the Pentecostal movement were pacifists of the strongest nature.  But even if you do not believe in pacifism, a true Pro-Life stance should should extend justice to more lives than just the unborn.  If Jesus were making decisions for this country, would this war have been waged?  If Jesus were in the position you find yourself today, how would he respond to the deaths of thousands based on an emotional reaction? 

 

Supporting Democrats or Republicans is easy.  Working for Justice and Mercy and Faithfulness is much more difficult.

 

Josh R

1 comment:

James Wilder said...

This subject is bigger than a single, brief, blog post. Your statements are identical to pacifists. It's an interesting conversation - one that separated a BIble college class I was in one time. Pretty emotional...