How Much Tolerance Can Christians Tolerate?

Church discipline appears to be a thing of the past.

We place such a high value on being open minded and non-judgmental that we tend to look the other way when fellow members are involved in wrongdoing, either pretending its none of our business, that it isn't really a problem, or that it will just take care of itself.

Everyone's favorite proof text used to support this is the oft quoted "Judge not that you be not judged." Never mind the fact that Jesus certainly never meant this to mean we shouldn't discern between right and wrong, or that we should never confront another when he or she is guilty of a wrong. 

In fact, in its Sermon on the Mount context, Jesus goes on to say that we are to first remove the large log of wrongdoing in our own eye so we can then see clearly in order to help another remove the unwanted "speck" in theirs. He also insists we are to know others by their fruit (their behavior) and later gives instruction about how to confront a fellow member of our congregation when he or she has gone astray (see Matthew 18:12-20).

I do believe there are limits to what even the most tolerant among us consider tolerable. We each draw a line somewhere as to what we would never find acceptable in our community of faith, things like child abuse, bigamy, embezzlement or other criminal behaviors, or such actions as the following:

breaking and entering

lying and other forms of deception

physical, psychological, or other forms of torture and abuse

armed robbery

malicious wounding

organized acts of terrorism

using explosives to destroy people or property

destroying land or other natural resources

stabbing or strangling 

forcing people from their homes or communities

committing mass murder

Without question, most believers would speak out against members of their congregations engaging in such behaviors--and would disapprove of their supporting or belonging to any groups or organizations that do.

But with one huge, glaring exception. 

Most Christians raise no objections to members joining military forces routinely encouraging, training and/or commanding its enlisted members to do all of the above and more whenever commanded to do so.  Thus we are in danger of accepting, on a mass and organized scale, what we could not accept or allow on any other basis. 

Not only do many Christ-followers condone bombing and other forms of destruction in their nation's name, they often pray for the success of its mission, even if it involves actions that reflect anything but love for God and neighbor.

How have followers of Jesus come to tolerate, and even bless, such violations of the most basic ethical codes of our faith? Unlike legitimate police force, necessary in human societies to maintain order within national boundaries (and intended to preserve life and bring individuals to justice under laws designed to protect individual rights), military forces have a long history of plundering and destroying without benefit of such civilized restraints.

True, we pacifist Christians must repent of the many "beams" of self righteousness, materialism, and cowardly indifference that impair our own moral vision. But remove them we must, all of us, lest history write off the church as having been irrelevant and mute in one of the most pressing moral issues of all time.

****************************

The regenerated do not go to war, or engage in strife. They are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and they know no war. Since we are conformed to the image of Christ, how then can we kill our enemies with the sword? Spears and swords made of iron we leave to those, alas, who consider human blood and swine’s blood as having well nigh equal value.

- Menno Simons 16th century reformer