However, when a friend of mine sent me the latest resolution from the Southern Baptists concerning their renewed belief in just war theory I was intrigued. Further, considering the very strong emphasis the SBC places on the formative nature of Scripture I felt I needed to respond. So, below are a couple of the statements from the resolution (in italics) and my thoughts are following.

• WHEREAS, Jesus assured us that “wars and rumors of wars . . . must take place,” teaching us that war is a sadly recurrent reality in this fallen world (Matthew 26:4); and

So, let’s start with the fact that this passage is in Matthew 24:6, not 26:4. But regardless, the disciples were asking Jesus about his return to establish his Kingdom. Jesus tells them that all kinds of calamities will be happening, including wars, famines, and earthquakes. Jesus is readying them to stay true in their faith despite these horrific events. Jesus was NOT trying to get them to justify certain wars just as Jesus never intended his disciples to justify famines or earthquakes! This kind of acontextual cherry-picking of Scriptures to support a pre-decided stance is seen throughout this resolution and points to a lack of serious biblical exegesis, which is often common among many denominations when they issue resolutions, but it is especially alarming for one supposedly so committed to biblical fidelity.

• WHEREAS, Scripture teaches that the government has been “instituted by God” and “does not bear the sword in vain” but is a “servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-7); and

Funny how conservatives love to cherry-pick the quotes above to talk about the war-making purposes of governments, but always seem to leave out entirely verse 7 in which Paul admonishes the Romans to, “Pay to all what is due them: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.”

But to focus on what the resolution authors want us to see, I will narrow my extraordinarily long critique of Romans 13 here to simply point out that, in my humble opinion, Romans is a very challenging text to base biblical truths on. It is for the simple reason that, unlike the overwhelming number of books in the Bible, particularly the New Testament, Romans was not written by an author who knew and spent time with his audience. No, Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome with whom he hoped to spend time with. There is no prior context because Paul was courting them. And as in all courtships I believe Paul, at the very least, exaggerated some things in order to impress them. Of course, the fact that he did not know his audience is a tremendous difference between this letter and the rest that he wrote and unfortunately, this point rarely gets much attention. Thus, for example, Paul makes a terrible mistake in verses 3-4 when he writes that the state is God’s means of doing good and as long as we individually do what is right, we will have nothing to fear from the state. That is categorically untrue, and Paul should know this above anyone. As a Jewish scholar, Paul knows well that the essence of God’s story with Israel was God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery. If the state – Egypt – was instituted by God to do good, then why did God feel the need to deliver the Israelites! No, we know that throughout history and even today, some governments are not doing good for those they govern and what angers me about this text is how it has been used by oppressive dictators, abusers of power, slaveholders, and others with nefarious intentions for those in their charge to biblically justify their evil actions.

This, my friends, is the danger of acontextually, ahistorically cherry-picking passages to fit a pre-decided position we might choose. Scripture is a powerful tool to transform us, but unfortunately, Scripture can easily become a tool we misuse to transform society into what we feel it should be. This is sadly the attempt here. We are called to follow Jesus and in so doing, we are called to be peacemakers. Jesus created peace by confronting injustice and incarnating his message of love to all people. Jesus calls us to do the same. Wars are simply not a part of following Jesus.