By David Von Drehle; David Von Drehle is a reporter on The Post's national
staff.
Sunday, September 30, 2001; Page B05 Washington Post
During the last campaign for the presidency, Al Gore and George W. Bush often
disagreed. But not on the meaning of a Christian's experience of salvation.
Gore seemed to speak for both men when he said that, in times of difficulty,
he asked himself, "What would Jesus do?"
As a Christian believer, I too feel that this is a useful way to frame many
of the most important questions in life. The devotional writer Thomas a
Kempis got at the same idea long ago in his meditation "The Imitation of
Christ." If we seek Jesus's example humbly and with a keen awareness of our
manifold sins and wickedness, the image of that wise, peaceful, brave and
merciful man can be an inspiration and a model for our lives.
But I've come to the conclusion that this question -- What would Jesus do? --
is often the wrong thing for a president to ask himself in conducting the
business of the nation, and may be dangerously wrong in time of war. The
churches of America and around the world -- and the synagogues, temples and
mosques -- have echoed these recent awful days with sermons and admonitions
concerning the proper responseto the recent terrorist attacks. Whether the
preachers support him or oppose him, President Bush should not pay much
attention.
The chief concern of a president should not be the condition of his own
immortal soul. His job is clearly stated in his oath: to "faithfully execute
the office ofthe President" and to "preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution." These are secular responsibilities, and very serious ones.
While Christians, and others of faith, surely hope that our civic and
spiritual lives will not conflict unbearably, Jesus himself drew a clear
distinction between the two, saying: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's,
and render unto God what is God's." This distinction is perhaps most clear in
the terrible business of war. If the president concludes, and Congress
agrees, that American troops must go to war for the "common defense," then
his duty is simple:to win. If a war is just -- and few wars have been as
widely justified around the world as the new American war on terrorism --
then it must be won, though the details may be unsavory, and even
un-Christian.
I have been brought to this view by reading a good deal recently about
Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, the two men who
saved the Union and its Constitution by waging the bloodiest and perhaps the
most vicious war this nation has experienced. Lincoln was a great man --
decent and honorable, possessed of uncanny political acumen, and one of the
finest writers the country has produced. Though he belonged to no sect or
denomination, Lincoln wasa deeply religious man, a student of the Bible,
sensitive to its nuances, who prayed and repented and humbled himself before
his Maker.
Grant was not pious by any account. But he had many of the qualities one
might hope to find in a person seeking to follow Christ. Among soldiers,
Grant was the embodiment of the golden rule: He treated others as he wished
to be treated. He was unassuming, full of forgiveness, bore no grudges and --
though he exercised enormous power for more than a dozen years -- was among
the "meek in spirit" to whom Jesus promised the Earth.
And how did these two gentle, humble fellows conduct themselves in saving the
Union? As warriors.
For much of the Civil War, Lincoln vainly sought generals who would attack
and decimate the enemy. More often, he found men who favored defensive and
gentlemanly tactics, minimizing losses. One can imagine that these fine
Christian gentlemen had no trouble sleeping at night. Gradually, the
nightmare-haunted Lincoln realized that he had a soul mate in Grant, who
believed that war was essentially about attacking the enemy and destroying
its forces. At the cost of thousands of lives, Grant hounded his adversary,
Robert E. Lee, to Appomattox. Among the ghastly inventions of Grant and his
disciples was William Tecumseh Sherman's brutal and fiery March to the Sea.
Now, I realize that some Christians anticipate a Second Coming of Jesus that
will make Sherman look like a social worker. But it is hard to imagine the
Christ of the First Coming -- Jesus of Nazareth, the
carpenter-turned-itinerant preacher of the Gospels -- destroying homes and
burning crops, or filling the skies with canister and grape, or riding the
little colt of Palm Sunday from one corpse-strewn field to the next, urging
his troops onward to kill and be killed.
Lincoln and Grant did not ask what Jesus would do. They asked which tactics
would win. I believe that Lincoln and Grant -- and Lee, on the other side of
that appalling mutual slaughter -- tried, with great success, to remain
decent men through it all, because that was their nature. At every surrender
he accepted, Grant took pains to be humble and merciful. Having burned the
South, Lincoln immediately began thinking of ways to rebuild it.
Similarly, I believe that the current president's father did not exult in the
strategy of burying Iraqi soldiers in their trenches with bulldozers. Nor had
evil seized Harry Truman's heart when he decided to obliterate two of Japan's
cities with atomic bombs. Still, I'm fairly sure it was not what Jesus would
have done.
The problem is war itself. No matter what side you're on, it is a product of
evil -- the existence of war comes not from God (this is my own theology and
feel free to disagree) but from someone's repudiation of God. That is to say,
war arises directly or indirectly from the sinfulness of man, not from the
hand of God. There is no war in the Kingdom of God; there, lions lie down
with lambs and every tear is gently wiped from all eyes.
And so the best a leader can expect, when going to war, is to be on the
better side, morally and spiritually, of what will always be a bad business.
Lincoln understood this profoundly. Shortly before the end of the Civil War,
when the outcome was already plain, he took the oath of office a second time,
and in place of a traditional inaugural address, he delivered a sermon -- one
of the greatest sermons in English. You can find it carved into stone down on
the Mall.
In his concise, poetic way, Lincoln gave a clear accounting of his own
spiritual journey at war. He noted the irony that when the war began, both
sides invoked the blessing and support of God, and he justified his own
reasons for feeling that his side was closer to God's will than the other.
Ultimately, he acknowledged, neither Blue nor Gray found God's complete
favor: "Both pray to the same God. . . . [The prayers] of neither [were]
answered fully."
Thiswas very wise. The nature of God -- by definition -- is that He (or She
or It) isbeyond human comprehension. We may think we know exactly what God
wills and wants; some day we may find out how often we've been correct. I
doubt many of us will score terribly well on that test. I'm sure I won't.
Nowhere are God's intentions more obscure than in war, which consumes lives
and destroys hopes even in a good cause. The United States rightly respects
conscientious objections. But not in a president. If he is fortunate, his
duty during war will not be the occasion for too many sins, nor too grave.
But that is not his primary concern until after it is all over. He can worry
over that in retirement and plead his case come Judgment Day.
None of this implies cynicism, much less nihilism. Indeed, the fact that war
is hell should make us more resolved to elect essentially decent people to
the presidency, because we don't want to go down into the pit behind anyone
who will feel comfortable -- or worse, at home -- there.
But if we must go, it is the job of the president to make sure it's not a
wasted trip. This is true even if his own soul gets singed.
) 2001 The Washington Post Company
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