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Originally Posted by Jedi Padawan
With Jesus telling us telling us what to do concerning our *neighbor* and who that is, and all what He says about what we are to do with our enemy...does it only apply when the enemy is a singular entity...an individual?
Or is it negated when a group of individuals choose a side opposing yours?
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First, it would seem that Jesus was speaking of your enemies, whether they are your personal enemies or even enemies of the church. And His teaching is that we should not be partial in doing good to others, even as God brings rain and sunlight on both good and bad.
Yet, we aren't ever gonna be nicer than Jesus. God's love for all (including His enemies) does NOT rule out judicially punitive actions under certain circumstances.
Second, a Biblical view of war isn't popular with most Americans at this time. Biblically, war is not sinful in and of itself, in all cases whatsoever. God Himself commanded war at certain points. He also uses war, and warmongering nations, as a means of executing judicial punishments against not only Israel but other nations as well. This is clear from the Biblical record.
Moreover, God gave commandments concerning waging war. So, clearly, under certain circumstances, war is Biblical, righteous, holy, sanctified, and godly. See
Revelation 19:11, for example, which states that Christ both judges and "makes war" righteously.
In some cases, even total genocidal war is Divinely commanded (Amalek, the seven Amorite nations, etc). Although it should be pointed out that such an extreme case requires extreme confidence in the Divine Will, to the point I would argue that such would require another Sinai-on-fire type of revelation of the will of God.
Third, the Biblical view of war is realistic, in acknowledging the common occurrence of what are nowadays considered unlawful atrocities (which occur anyway during war). In fact, the Bible is not necessarily condemnatory of some of those actions (for example, the sentiment expressed in
Psalm 137:8-9 concerning the psalmist's looking forward to the slaughter of Babylonian children by Babylon's enemies as payback for the oppressions and abuses Babylon inflicted upon Judea).
So, yes, war is terrible, horrible, atrocity-ridden. All cultures throughout history have decried war as madness and insanity, dark and evil. Yet, it this imperfect and wicked world, it is sometimes necessary to wage war. All nations aren't led by Care Bears, any nation of Care Bears becomes dinner for the wolves. But because of technology, war is now much more long distance and non personal. Coupled with our remote location here in America, most non-veterans have no clue what it's really like. We haven't had a war on home soil since the 1860s, and the wounds from that one are STILL tender in quite a few parts of the nation.
As a result, many can "get behind" a war they only hear about on Pentagon/CIA controlled media outlets like CNN or Fox or whatever. Which makes unlawful, illegal, and ungodly wars much much easier to pull off.
Trump had a huge grassroots support base because part of his campaign was on ending all this "foreign intervention" and "endless war" the democrat Bolsheviks and republican Trotskyites are so fond of. Unfortunately, that campaign rhetoric was just that - rhetoric for the masses. Meanwhile, Da Bizniss goes on, and the juggernaut of endless conflict continues. Way too much money to be made for the Racketeers to give it up.
Pulpits are largely silent because nobody knows or cares what God actually says about it. God's rules for war - which provide a framework in which to decide if any campaign is righteous or not - are found back there in that dusty Old Testament Book of the Law. And churches by and large have embraced antinomianism and rejected Kingdom theonomics, so nothing is left except slogans, platitudes, and the whim of men. And thus people are led like lemmings to cheer, finance, and most importantly NOT RESIST AND SPEAK AGAINST unrighteousness no matter who does it or whose "policies" it goes against.