On September 10, 1939 at the beginning of World War 2 C. S Lewis wrote this in a letter to his brother, Warnie:
In
the Litany this morning we had some extra petitions, one of which was,
‘Prosper, oh Lord, our righteous cause’. Assuming that it was the work of the
bishop or someone higher up, when I met Bleiben [the vicar] in the porch, I
ventured to protest against the audacity of informing God that our cause was
righteous – a point on which he has his own views . . . I hope it is quite like
ours, of course, but one never knows with him.
And here is something by Lewis’ friend, Charles Williams, written in the middle of WW 2 (1942) when
the outcome was still unclear:
The
conversion, where it is demanded, of the wild justice of revenge to the civil
justice of the Divine City is the precise operation of the Holy Spirit towards
Christ. All we need to do is attend to the goodwill, to the civility; the
justice (in the personal relation) can be left to Christ. ‘Vengeance is mine; I
will repay, sayeth the Lord.’ It is perhaps desirable to notice that the
repayment is not limited to our enemy. We shall be unfortunate if we forget the
trespasses, the debts, which our enemies desire to repay with their wild
justice and are content to leave to his promise. It is important that we should
be ready to forgive the Germans; it is not unimportant to recognize that many
Germans (including Herr Hitler? Possibly; we do not very well know) may feel
that they have much to forgive us. Many reconciliations have unfortunately
broken down because both parties have come prepared to forgive but unprepared
to be forgiven. Instruction is as badly needed in this as in many other less
vital things; that holy light which we call humility has an exact power of
illumination all its own.
– The Forgiveness of Sins, p. 113
It is hard
to imagine saying such things about our enemies. I don’t want to. But, then, it was
hard to say them about Germany or Japan during WW 2. It was hard to say it about the Romans in Jesus' day. Do we dare to contemplate that people in the
Middle East just might have much to forgive us in the West? And we Americans in particular? That the actions of, for example, Al Qaeda of Iran,
however horrific and inexcusable, might be understood in some sense as acts of “the
wild justice of revenge”? That things have been done on our behalf in the Middle
East over the last 100 years that have contributed to the chaotic rage that
seems epidemic there? Even a little understanding of our history in the region over the last century would indicate that it is so. It might require a sort of severe
humility but I believe it is a faithful Christian approach to contemplate
such things in our day just as Lewis and Williams did in theirs. We need to disabuse ourselves of the myth of our own innocence. Everyone is complicit in the mess the world is in. Some more. Some less. But all.
A couple of
things strike me in the above quotes. Both Lewis and Williams refuse to get
caught up in nationalistic rhetoric that assumes that "God is with us" or that
their country is particularly blessed by God. Even in the midst of war, they
were compelled by their Christian convictions to accept the possibility that
their nation was (at least partly) wrong and that their enemies might well have
grievances of their own.
I am also
struck that this severe humility leads both Lewis and Williams to demonstrate an admirable reticence to claim to know overmuch about God's mind
or to assume their side is necessarily God's. Both recognize that all humans
are fundamentally bound to one another in a relational web and all humans are
caught in the sin that infects that web. We should thus be wary of presuming
our own innocence or consigning total blame to others – both are awe-full things to
contemplate if we recognize that we all live under the awesome gaze of
God's love and judgment.
I know
enough of both Lewis and Williams to know that neither would advocate anything
like a posture of moral equivalency. And that is not what I am suggesting. And neither of them was a pacifist. But, what both
do seem to advocate is a deep humility and reticence to assume the innocence or righteousness of their side. And I find both
refreshing. I am convinced it is a fundamentally Christian posture, however difficult.
"For our enemies and those
who wish us harm,
and for all whom we have
injured or offended,
we pray to you, O Lord."
(Book of Common Prayer, p.
391)
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