How War Shapes Humanity

 

[God] shall judge between the nations

    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    neither shall they learn war any more.

                                Isaiah 2:4 NRSV

On Monday evening I watched a Zoom conversation with Margaret MacMillan, the esteemed Canadian historian who teaches at Oxford. She was asked questions to elicit her thoughts on war. Her most recent book is War: How Conflict Shaped Us (2020) which was a New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year. She also wrote The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. Throughout the interview she was insightful and simply brilliant in her observations. 

She reminded us that war is organized violence which usually has motives. When asked her opinion on what provokes wars she offered three key areas: greed, fear, and ideology. In her expansion on the third, ideology, she included both religion and patriotism, noting that the later is often quasi-religious. 

It occurred to me that there is an uncomfortable amount of smiting and war and even calls for genocide in scripture, particularly in the Older Testament. It has led many to dismiss the Judeo/Christian tradition, because of the bloodier passages and the participation of the Christian church in wars which simply can't be justified -- think of the Crusades. 

It is important to note that there is also the promise of peace in both testaments, as the verse from Isaiah suggests. 

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was put to death by the Roman Empire which expanded across the ancient world through military might and ruled in Palestine with regular exhibitions of power. 

The conversation with Margaret MacMillan was unsettling food for thought. She reminded us that since the end of World War II there has been a war somewhere on the planet in every year. She admitted that she hadn't foreseen a war on the scale of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She also made some intriguing observations about the key role of women in war. 

We are a strange species, aren't we, seemingly incapable of living without belligerence at every level of our existence? 

And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

Matthew 24:6-8 NRSVue