Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about a famous quotation from Edmund Burke. He was an English statesman and writer at the time of the American and the French Revolutions. He once stated that, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Right-wing evangelicals often quote his statement to justify their participation in war and politics.
In fact, that quotation is often thrown in the face of non-resistant Kingdom Christians to chide us for not participating in war or in politics. So what should we say in reply? Well, my first reply is, "So you think that praying and fasting is doing nothing?" You see, even though Edmund Burke was a professing Christian, his statement shows that what he really believed is that humans are in ultimate control of what goes on here on earth. But we aren't. God is in ultimate control.
What is ironic is that evangelicals would all say that very thing: God is in ultimate control. But then, by their actions, they show that they don't really believe it. They think the only thing that can stop evil is for Christians to get mixed up in the wars and politics of this world. They don't really believe that prayer and fasting accomplishes much in world affairs. My second reply to that statement would be, "You know, it's interesting that you've brought that up.
Did you know that the pagan Romans similarly reproached the early Christians for not participating in war and politics?" Because that is exactly what they did. Actually, the fact that Kingdom Christians are criticized today for not participating in war and politics is reassuring that we are on the right path. It shows we're living out the same faith as did the first Christians. One of the pagan Roman critics who reproached Christians for not getting involved in government and in war was a writer named Celsus.
In fact, he wrote an entire book against Christianity. Origen, the most famous Christian writer of the third century, was asked by a number of Christians if he would write a reply to Celsus, and he did that. Now, Celsus criticized Christians for far more things than just not participating in politics and war, but we're going to just look at those two issues tonight. First, let me read you what Celsus said about Christians and politics.
He said, "Christians should take office in the government of the country if that is necessary for the maintenance of the laws and the support of religion." And here is Origen's reply to him: "The reason we don't is because we recognize in each state the existence of another national organization that was founded by the word of God," and he means the person, Jesus Christ, "and we exhort those who are mighty in word and of blameless life to rule over churches.
It is not for the purpose of escaping public duties that Christians decline public offices. Rather, it is so they may reserve themselves for a more divine and necessary service in the church of God for the salvation of men." In other words, Christians already have a government, the Kingdom of God. Those Christians who have the gift of leadership should devote that gift to God's service. Because there is a great need for gifted leaders in the Kingdom of God, both in churches and in wider ministries.
What a terrible waste when a gifted Christian uses his or her abilities in the service of a temporal government instead of for the Kingdom of God. I mean, it's not as though we have an excess of Kingdom workers and Kingdom leaders. No, we don't at all. I just recently finished a project that I've been working on for eight years. It's entitled The Myth of Christian America.
Most of those eight years were spent on research, and then I finally recorded a series of 14 messages, beginning with the early Christian stance on government and then tracing history from the first settlers in America, the first European settlers, through the American Revolution and the passage of the United States Constitution. During my research, I couldn't help but recognize the enormous number of gifted men who were involved in founding the United States.
None of them were Kingdom Christians, but a goodly number of them were what I would call conventional Christians. And I couldn't help but mourn the fact that these men used their enormous abilities primarily for their earthly country, not for their heavenly one. Among the founding fathers, three of the men who were devout conventional Christians were Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Alexander Hamilton. Samuel Adams was a master propagandist. He almost single-handedly engineered the birth of the American Revolution.
He truly knew how to sway public opinion. Now, what if he had used his exceptional talents to work for peace instead of war? What if he had been spreading the gospel of the Kingdom instead of propagating half-truths and incendiary articles? Well, I think he could have had a great impact on saving souls and helping to spread the Kingdom of God. Patrick Henry was another devout Christian in the conventional sense. He was a gifted orator as well as a good leader.
Again, what if he had given great speeches to stir the colonists towards reconciliation with England instead of war? What if he had used his golden tongue to lead people to Christ and his Kingdom? He could have done so much eternal good with his gifts instead of devoting his life to his earthly country. I mean, he easily could have been another John Wesley or George Whitefield. A third founding father, Alexander Hamilton, was simply a genius.
I mean, when he was still a teenager, he graduated from college and became a local leader of the Revolutionist Party in New York. George Washington quickly recognized Hamilton's gifts and made him his aide-de-camp. An aide-de-camp is the person who handles correspondence, business, and other matters essential to the maintenance of a war. But he serves out in the field with the commanding officer, not back in an office somewhere.
Although he was so young, Hamilton handled this huge responsibility in a brilliant manner. Later, he also played a major role in the drafting and passage of the United States Constitution. He was this nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, and he put America on a sound financial footing that has remained to this day. During Washington's term as president, Alexander Hamilton was Washington's most trusted advisor. Much of Washington's policies, both nationally and internationally, came from Alexander Hamilton.
And all of this was before he even reached the age of 40. Again, I can't help but think what a man of his genius could have done working for the Kingdom of God. The great wave of world missions was just beginning during his lifetime. Imagine if he were organizing, financing, and overseeing missions. What I'm trying to say is that God doesn't give Christians like Alexander Hamilton these special gifts to merely use for the world's temporal benefit or for our own benefit.
No, he endows us with gifts for service in his Kingdom. As Jesus said at Matthew 9:37, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Christ needs us to use our gifts in his Kingdom if we can possibly do so. Another thing, let's look at the example of Jesus and his apostles when it comes to getting involved in politics and civil government. We read in John 6:14-15, this is when Jesus was preaching to a crowd.
It said, "Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, 'This is truly the prophet who is to come into the world.' Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone." So Jesus did not let the people make him a king. And think of what he could have done as a ruler here on earth. Of course, people will reply, "But Jesus came to earth for a different purpose.
He came to die as a ransom for us." If he had become king, he would have been ignoring the reason he was sent to earth. And that's certainly true. But at the same time, he could have told the crowd, "Look, I'm unable to serve as your king, but Peter here, he can. I'll give him my complete backing. Make him king." But he didn't do that. Yet if we ordinary Christians can make a difference in earthly governments, think what a difference an apostle like Peter or Paul could have made.
If that's what Jesus wanted, he could have easily set it up. But as he told Pontius Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world." He has given us Christians a much higher calling. We are called to serve as ambassadors of his Kingdom. Because the answer to this world's problems is not any earthly government, but rather it's the Kingdom of God. Again, this isn't some peculiar interpretation of scripture or merely my personal opinion. This is part of the historic faith.
I've already read you Celsus's criticism of Christians for not participating in government. And Origen didn't reply to him by saying, "No, actually we do serve in government." Rather, he explained why Christians don't. It's there in the historical record for everyone to see. But other Christians commented on that issue as well. For example, Tertullian. Let me just read to you a couple of passages from his writings.
In one of his works, he said, "The Caesars, too, would have believed on Christ if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world or if Christians could have been Caesars." In other words, the kingdoms of this world need rulers. No one disputes that. But it's not Christians who can serve as those rulers. Or if a ruler becomes a Christian, then he needs to resign from his post.
Later he wrote, "We have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings, nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us, speaking for all Christians, than affairs of state." But for the sake of argument, let's just suppose that it's all right for a Christian to become politically involved. Let's just look at the basic level of participation, voting. Now, I'm not going to say it's a sin to vote because there's nothing in the New Testament that directly addresses the matter.
For one thing, when the New Testament was written, the Roman Empire was no longer a republic. Instead, it was ruled by an emperor who was not elected by the people. So voting was really not an issue in New Testament times. So unless his church forbids voting altogether, I think that's up to the Christian's individual conscience. But let's say we're going to vote. Who are we going to vote for? In our day, the Christian right votes almost entirely Republican. But the Republican Party doesn't equate to Christianity.
I mean, I like their position on abortion and homosexual marriage and their general friendliness to Christians and to religion in general. But they don't uphold Jesus's teachings on divorce, and they're usually much more prone than Democrats to want to go to war. And you know, sometimes the involvement of Christians in politics has ultimately had some very evil consequences. For example, Baptists were very vocal after the American Revolution in fighting against any state support for churches.
They had suffered religious persecution and discrimination from both the Congregationalists, the ones who our textbooks call the Puritans, and from the Anglicans or Episcopalians. So they were strong supporters of Thomas Jefferson, both in the passage of a bill in Virginia to basically put a wall of separation between church and state and in helping get Jefferson elected president.
I would like to read to you a letter from the Danbury Baptist Association in the state of Connecticut written to Thomas Jefferson, congratulating him on his election to become president. The letter is dated October 7, 1801, and it reads, "To Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States of America.
Sir, among the many millions in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office, we embrace the first opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity since your inauguration to express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief Magistracy in the United States. And though our mode of expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their addresses with, we beg you, Sir, to believe that none are more sincere.
Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty, that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But, Sir, our Connecticut Constitution of Government is not specific.
Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government. At the time of our revolution, and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are, that religion is considered as the first object of legislation and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy as a minor part of the state, we enjoy as favors granted and not as inalienable rights.
And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, these are inconsistent with the rights of free men. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men, should reproach their Chief Magistrate as an enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dares not assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ.
Sir, we are sensible that the President of the United States is not the national legislature and also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the laws of each state. But our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved President, which have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and forever prevail through all these states and all the world till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth.
Sir, when you reflect on your past services and see a glow of philanthropy and goodwill shining forth in a course of more than 30 years, we have reason to believe that America's God has raised you up to fill the chair of state out of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which you preside over.
May God strengthen you for the arduous task which Providence and the voice of the people have called you to sustain, and support you in your administration against all the predetermined opposition of those who wish to rise to wealth and importance on the poverty and subjection of the people. And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his heavenly kingdom through Jesus Christ our glorious Mediator." Well, that's quite a letter, isn't it?
If someone had told me that letter was written by the Baptists, I would have never believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. So Baptists back in the early 1800s gave their full support to Thomas Jefferson, even though he was a non-believer, even though he was a deist, because he was strongly in favor of a totally secular government that left religion alone. Now, at that time, this worked in favor of the Baptists because they were not a majority in any of the states where they lived.
And they didn't want to just be tolerated; they wanted a complete absence of religion in the government. But the sad consequences over the centuries of placing Jefferson in the presidency have been that our Supreme Court has tended towards his views of separation of church and state. And today, it has essentially banned religion of any kind from our schools and our courthouses. Cities can't even have a Christmas display on public property if someone complains.
You see, the Baptists were naive in thinking that Jefferson was actually a solid Christian who merely wanted separation of church and state because he knew Christianity could better thrive without interference from the government.
But since he's long been dead and now all of his private papers, his letters, everything are open to view, we know in fact that he was no Christian at all, that he belittled the Bible, that he believed in Jesus as only a good man, and he even took the blasphemous steps of going through the Bible and taking out, this is in the New Testament, every mention of miracles or any mention of the deity of Christ.
Now, today, Southern Baptists decry these government policies that want to make our state essentially officially atheistic. But it was their ancestors who were instrumental in putting into power the very man who started the United States down that road. The Baptists would have ultimately done God and the Kingdom of God a great favor if they had simply voted on their knees, praying that God would put into office the man of his choice. Now, let's talk about war.
Here, the early Christians once again received the same criticism from the pagan Romans that Kingdom Christians receive today from other professing Christians. Here is what Celsus demanded of the Christians. He said Christians were to help the King with all their might, to labor with him in the maintenance of justice, and to fight for him. Or if he demanded, they should fight under him or lead an army along with him.
Well, again, Origen replied to that on behalf of the entire Christian church, saying this: "Our answer is that we do give help to kings when needed. But this is, so to speak, a divine help, putting on the whole armor of God.
And we do this in obedience to the commandment of the Apostle, saying, 'I exhort therefore that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all men, for kings and for all who are in authority.'" So the more anyone excels in godliness, the more effective his help is that he renders to kings. This is a greater help than what is given by soldiers who go forth to fight and kill as many of the enemy as they can.
And to those enemies of our faith who demand us to bear arms for the empire and to slay men, we reply, "Don't those who are the priests at certain shrines keep their hands free from blood so that they may offer the appointed sacrifices to your gods with unstained hands that are free from human blood? Even when war is upon you, you never enlist the priests in the army.
If then that is a praiseworthy custom, how much more so that when others are engaged in battle, Christians engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their hands pure." Now, Origen's reply might sound like pie in the sky, some unrealistic dream. However, the Roman Empire remained at peace for centuries and safe from its enemies so long as Christians guarded it with prayers and fasting alone.
And then after Constantine, when Christians eventually decided that they would guard the empire with swords and spears as well as prayer, well, in less than a century, the empire was overrun by its enemies. So prayer and fasting does work. Now, I realize that in human affairs, sometimes it seems like the only way to stop evil is to fight force with force. The problem is that this invariably means returning evil for evil, which the scriptures specifically forbid Christians to do.
But what war has ever been a simple matter of good versus evil? In every war, both sides invariably feel like they are the good guys and the other side are the bad guys. If they believe in God, both sides always believe that God is on their side. Let's just take a look at three of America's wars that are typically painted as good versus evil. We'll begin with the American Revolution. In our history books, the revolutionists are painted as the good guys fighting the evil English.
Most professing Christians believe that God was on the side of the revolutionists. But what caused the war in the first place? What was the issue between the two countries? It was taxes, wasn't it? And what did Jesus tell Christians about paying taxes? He said, "We are to pay Caesar's things to Caesar and God's things to God." However, perhaps you'll say that the British taxes weren't just. Well, let me ask you this: Were the Roman taxes just? What gave the Romans the right to tax the Jews?
The answer is nothing except sheer force. They imposed their rule on the Jews, and then they taxed the Jews to pay for the very Roman legions that kept them in subjection. Some of the taxes were even used to build pagan temples. So in saying, "Pay Caesar's things to Caesar," Jesus was telling us that he wants us to pay taxes even in the worst situation. So even if the British taxes had been unjust, as Christians, we are commanded to pay them.
We don't have the moral right as citizens of God's kingdom to refuse to pay taxes, let alone to take up arms and overthrow the government because we don't like their taxation. But the truth is that the British taxes on the colonists were not unjust. The purpose of the taxes was to pay for the French and Indian War that had been extremely beneficial to the American colonies. But that war had bankrupted Great Britain.
The British people were being taxed heavily to pay for the war, and they had reached their limit on how much they were going to bear. It was only fair that the American colonists share part of the tax burden since they were sharing in the benefits of the war. In fact, they had reaped the greatest benefits. But even if the colonists had paid the taxes that Parliament had levied against them, they still would have been paying only a small fraction of what the British people were having to pay for that war.
But actually, there was another issue that came out of the French and Indian War that the colonists were fighting about. At the end of the French and Indian War, Britain entered into a treaty with the Indians who had fought on the side of the British and the colonists, saying that the colonies would not expand west of the Appalachians. This provision was certainly morally right. The Europeans had already snatched from the Indians most of the land east of the Appalachians.
The least they could do is to say, "Okay, we won't take any more. The rest of this continent is yours." But the American colonists didn't want any restrictions on how much land they could take from the Indians. They wanted to keep taking and taking. But perhaps you'll say, "But it wasn't fair that colonists had taxation without representation." Well, you know, most people in England had the same thing.
Only a minority of British people were able to vote because in order to vote, you had to own a certain amount of land or have a certain amount of wealth accumulated. And most British people didn't meet the limits there, and so they weren't allowed to vote. But that slogan, "No taxation without representation," was only a smokescreen. It's not really what the colonists mainly argued about in their petitions to Parliament.
Because what if Parliament had said, "Okay, we're going to give you representation in Parliament"? Well, the American vote would still have been a small minority. And yet, because they had representation in Parliament, they couldn't have said, "Well, this isn't fair because we're not represented." So actually, they really didn't push that at all.
In the beginning, when the Americans first complained about the Stamp Act, that was one of the slogans, but that was dropped fairly quickly for fear that England might actually grant them what they said, and then they would be locked into taxation. In fact, Britain tried to work with them.
The colonists, they sent Benjamin Franklin to Parliament, and he argued there that the British nation did not have the right to levy direct taxes on the colonists, but they could levy indirect ones, that is, tariffs on different goods, because if the colonists didn't want to pay the tax, then they didn't have to buy that particular good. Well, Parliament backed down. They repealed the Stamp Act, and they went ahead and did these indirect taxes. Well, did the colonists honor their word?
No, they complained about them and ultimately went to war. So all of these different things were really smokescreens. From a Christian standpoint, I'd have to ask, how were the colonists in the right in the American Revolution? They were acting in direct defiance of Jesus's teachings. The British soldiers certainly believed that God was on their side, and they had the scriptures to back it up. They felt like they were the good men who were fighting to keep evil from triumphing.
And the revolutionists, of course, believed that no, they were the good men who were fighting to keep evil from triumphing. And that's the way it always is. Again, the American Revolution wasn't some unique situation. You have that same scenario in every war. Perhaps you'll say, "But look at what good came out of the founding of the United States." And indeed, a lot of good has come from the United States, and I'm very glad to be an American.
But the question is, was it God's will for America to be an independent nation? Personally, I believe it was His will. So this means that the United States would have gained its independence without an armed insurrection. I mean, if it was God's will for America to be independent, then we don't have to use the world's means to bring that about. When something is God's will, all we need to do is to approach the situation with all of the weapons that God has given to us as Christians.
You know, if you think about it, practically all of Britain's former colonies are now independent nations. And virtually all of them gained their independence without a war. India fought a non-violent war of passive resistance, but Canada, Australia, none of those countries fought a war to gain their independence. When we truly trust in God, we use His methods, not the world's methods.
The scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. We never have to use evil means or carnal weapons to accomplish God's purposes. But it's a matter of whether or not we have the faith to believe that the weapons He has given us, such as love, prayer, and fasting, really are mighty, that they really can pull down strongholds.
Now let's look at another American war that our history books portray as a black-and-white good versus evil conflict: the U.S. Civil War, the war that ended slavery in America. Today, I think nearly everyone would agree that slavery is wrong. So that should have been an easy situation for those Christians who believe that we must be even willing to kill others in order to stop evil.
We should be able to assume that all of the Christians in the Civil War were fighting against slavery and that they were fighting against unbelievers. But it didn't happen that way at all, did it? No, there was roughly an equal percentage of Christians on both sides of the Civil War. Both sides were emboldened by their ministers and churches to fight for their cause. Both sides prayed to the same God. Each side thought of themselves as the good men who were stopping the triumph of evil.
Sadly, the issue of slavery split many churches right down the middle, such as the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and Methodists. Other churches, like the Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran, didn't split, but they had men on both sides of the war killing each other. In the final analysis, the members of virtually all conventional churches felt that their highest loyalty belonged to the region where they lived, whether it be north or south, not to their fellow Christians.
Even the Church of Christ, which had taught non-resistance in its beginning, saw its members kill one another in the Civil War. And all of this raises a question: since there were approximately an equal percentage of Christians on both sides, why couldn't the differences be worked out without the horrible carnage of the Civil War? Paul said that we shouldn't even take a brother to court, but here were brothers slaughtering each other. So yes, it sounds good.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. But when it comes to war, the application is invariably absurd. That's because both sides believe that they are the good men stopping the triumph of evil. Interestingly, it was only the churches of non-resistant kingdom Christians who didn't split or fight each other with either guns or words over the issue of slavery.
Long before the Civil War, the churches of the kingdom Christians, churches like Quakers and Mennonites and Amish and Brethren, they all eventually recognized slavery is wrong, and they abolished it among their members. No guns were needed, no threats or anything else. And their passionate loyalty wasn't to the region where they lived, but to the kingdom of God. They saw each other as fellow citizens of the same kingdom. So their members had nothing to hate or kill each other over.
Why couldn't it be that way for all Christians? Before we leave the issue of the Civil War, I should explain that I realized that the war wasn't as simple as many textbooks make it out to be. Slavery was definitely one of the main underlying issues between North and South, and most likely there would not have been a Civil War without it. But it was not the only issue. The North and South had very differing views on the role of the federal government on exactly what these United States were.
And because those differences were so great, the South felt that they had the right to leave the Union, just as the 13 colonies believed that they had the right to leave the British Empire. What ultimately started the Civil War was the South's seceding from the Union. I mean, let's suppose that six months after the war had begun and there had already been horrible casualties. In fact, in those first six months, more Americans had died than all of the previous wars put together that Americans had participated in.
So let's suppose that after six months, the Southern states had all said, "Look, let's not have any more killing. This is horrible. We will lay down our arms and come back into the Union if you let us keep slavery." Would the North have agreed to it? I think every historian would say yes to that question. Yes, the North would have agreed if the Southern states came back into the Union peacefully, that they would have been allowed to continue slavery.
So although slavery gave the North a sense of a righteous cause, the immediate issue that brought on the war was the South seceding from the United States. Let me give you another hypothetical to further bring this out. Let's say six months after the war had begun, the Southern states had all said, "Look, let's not have any more killing over this. We will free all of our slaves. We will abolish slavery forever.
And you can even inspect and make sure that we're good to our word if the North will just recognize our independence." You think the North would have agreed to that? Again, I think every historian would say no, the North would not have agreed to that. So again, the ultimate issue they were slaughtering each other over was the South gaining its independence, which the North was not going to allow. So like every other war, the Civil War was a bit more complex than just one simple good versus evil issue.
And yes, good was accomplished that the slaves were freed. I think there were maybe around 2 million slaves at the time in the United States South. But you know, it cost the lives of 600,000 men. There were probably another 600,000 who were wounded and lame the rest of their life because of the war. That's quite a high price to pay. And because the North used evil means, used force to bring this about, it took over another hundred years for all of the issues to be settled.
And I don't know that they're fully settled today. No true good rarely ever comes, if ever, from using evil means. Let's now talk about World War II. If there ever was a war of good versus evil, World War II would probably come close to being it. We all know how horrible the Nazis were. And then here was Japan overrunning country after country and trying to build up an empire, not caring how many native people were killed in the process. Let's talk about Japan for just a moment. We'll get back to Nazi Germany.
How was what Japan did at the time of World War II any different from what England, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and America had done in the previous centuries? England, Spain, and Portugal had built up empires all across the world. They overran country after country, not caring how many native people died in the process. If we're honest with ourselves, the only thing that was different about Japan's would-be empire was the timing of things.
By the time of World War II, America and the European countries were beginning to see the evil of colonialism. What had been acceptable in 1840 was no longer acceptable in 1940. But in the minds of the Japanese, they weren't doing anything different than what England had done. They had missed out on the big land grab of the previous 400 years. Furthermore, many of the countries they overran were colonies of some European power.
In fact, they tried to paint themselves as liberators, and it's possible that the people of Japan actually believed that that's what they were. And even though the United States never built up an empire like the European powers did, it didn't have clean hands either. Do you think the Native Americans, the Indians, felt any different when the white settlers took over their land than the Filipinos or Koreans or Indonesians felt when the Japanese took their land?
The only difference is that the American Indians had no neatly defined boundaries as to each tribe's land. Most of them were hunter-gatherer societies who moved around. But they had regions that they stayed in. They knew among themselves which area was some other tribe's area and which area was their own. But the results to them were the same when the white settlers took over. In their eyes, the white settlers were no less brutal than were the Japanese of World War II.
Yet when the white Americans defeated Indian tribe after Indian tribe, they saw themselves as the good men who were fighting evil. Virtually all white Americans believed that God was on their side. Americans weren't satisfied in being landlocked just in the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. And later, they weren't happy to be landlocked just in the area east of the Mississippi River. No, they wanted it all. They saw nothing evil in taking all the land from sea to shining sea.
They even convinced themselves this was God's will. It was their manifest destiny. Yet when the Japanese weren't satisfied with just an island home and they wanted more land and natural resources, then we say, "Oh, that's evil. You had no right to do that." Now, I'm not saying these things to justify the Japanese of World War II. I'm saying that what is good and what is evil seems to change dramatically depending on which side you're on.
As Senator Hiram Warren Johnson famously said, "The first casualty of war is truth." The soldiers in most wars rarely know what the war is really all about. Normally, there's very complex reasons and sometimes, or maybe I should say most of the time, some very dishonest ones, some lies involved. But the soldiers don't know that. The story presented to them is always that they are the good guys. If they're invading another country, they're doing it for a good cause.
They're either protecting their homeland or they're overthrowing an evil regime or something like that. On the other hand, if they are defending against invaders, well, they're merely the noble defenders fighting for the survival of their own country. Either way, they're always the ones who are the good guys. What about Nazi Germany? The circumstances surrounding the German part of World War II were a little different than that of the Japanese. The European theater of World War II was an outflow of World War I.
And World War I was an outflow of the European race for world domination and colony building. Like the Japanese, Germany arrived a bit late for that party. When England, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands were colonizing the world, Germany was still a collection of small states, not a united country. By the time it became a strong European power, most of the land around the globe had already been grabbed by the other European powers. And Germany wanted its place in the sun.
But when the Allied powers won World War I, they imposed very harsh and humiliating terms on Germany, put the entire blame for the war on Germany. And it was this humiliation of Germany that enabled Hitler to come into power in the first place. Now, there's no question that Hitler was the very embodiment of evil. But if so-called Christian countries had been acting in accordance with Christ teachings, there never would have been a Hitler in the first place.
And please don't say that we entered World War II to try to prevent the Holocaust. We didn't even know about it until the war was over. What's more, in order to defeat Hitler, the U.S. allied itself with someone just as evil as Hitler, Stalin. Hitler didn't invent mass exterminations in the 20th century. Rather, Stalin did.
Before World War II ever started, Stalin had brought untold millions of people to death through labor camps and in the forced collectivization of farms that ended up in millions of people starving to death with the complete acquiescence of the Russian government. So if the main purpose of the United States had simply been to stop evil, and if war is an acceptable means to God of stopping evil, then America should have declared war on Russia before World War II ever started.
But if we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit that America didn't enter World War II because it wanted to stop evil. Evil had abounded in Russia and was still abounding in Russia during the war, but it didn't threaten United States interests. Or at least at that time, we didn't think it did. So we did nothing about it. We went to war with Hitler instead because he did threaten our interests as well as the interests of our friends. Same thing is true of Japan.
And not only did the United States not go to war against Russia, it actually allied itself with Russia. Before the United States entered World War II, it supplied Russia with enormous military aid in the form of weapons and supplies. So it wasn't a matter of good men ganging up together to stop evil. It was a matter of good men, the Americans, joining up with one group of evil men, the communists, in order to stop other evil men, the Nazis.
But in the process, America not only allied itself with evil, it adopted evil means in order to win. For example, before World War II, it was not common for armies to bomb civilian targets. You didn't have much of that kind of thing in the American Revolution or the War of 1812 or the Civil War or even World War I. Now, in all of those wars, there were civilian casualties, but civilians weren't normally targeted. It was considered uncivilized to kill civilians just to erode support for the war.
But in World War II, it became the norm. Yet at the beginning, even Hitler did not intentionally target civilian targets. How the whole thing came into the war is that when Hitler was trying to bring England, or I should say Great Britain, to terms of surrender, he sent waves of bombers over to destroy the British Air Force. And so his bombers were bombing airfields and things like that. But on one of these raids, German pilots accidentally bombed part of London.
Well, Churchill immediately decided to pay evil for evil, and so he intentionally bombed Berlin. Well, of course, Hitler went into a rage over this, and in response, then he started deliberately bombing London. Well, soon bombing cities just to bring about civilian casualties became acceptable. It's a good illustration of what happens when we repay evil for evil. You know, in the end, the United States probably killed at least a million civilians in its bombings of German and Japanese cities.
Now, actually, I'm not criticizing America for doing that. This world runs by its own rules, and arguably the United States killing huge numbers of civilians during the war helped World War II come to a close sooner than it would have otherwise. At a minimum, it definitely saved the lives of American soldiers. I'm just saying that that's not the way of Christ, using evil to stop what we believe to be an even greater evil.
In a minute, we're going to talk about what the alternative is, because I realize you might be thinking, "Well, what alternative do we have except to use evil to stop evil?" But really, far worse than the civilian bombings was the United States backing up Russia in World War II, as we've already discussed. Because as a result of becoming allies with Russia, all of Eastern Europe fell under Russian control at the end of World War II. Churchill described this as an iron curtain that was pulled across Europe.
Russia emerged from World War II as a superpower, which it would not have if the United States had not allied itself with Russia. In fact, Germany might have ended up defeating Russia. Would Nazism have been any better than communism? We don't know. But we do know that because of Russia becoming a superpower through World War II, then next China, North Korea, Vietnam, and many other countries fell to communism. And think of how many millions of innocent people have died in those countries as a result of communism.
Again, things aren't always so black and white, good versus evil, even in a situation like World War II. And we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that our country, whether our country is the United States or Canada or whatever, that our country steps into conflicts purely to stop evil. Speaking now of the United States, there have been many evil situations in this world in which we have not intervened because it didn't threaten our interests. I've already mentioned this situation in Russia during the 1930s.
In more recent times, there's been the killing in Sudan in which we've not intervened. In Rwanda, 800,000 people died in tribal killings. Did the United States go over there with its army in order to stop these killings? No, we didn't, because it in no way threatened us. So let's be honest. We don't enter any wars for purely altruistic, unselfish motives so that we can stop evil. Rather, we enter a war because our interests or the interests of our allies are threatened.
We then paint the picture as a simple matter of good guys carrying on their responsibility to stop evil from triumphing. Now, I am in no way belittling soldiers and the sacrifices that they made. I realize that they are trying to do what they believe is their duty and what they believe is right. Unfortunately, the German and Japanese soldiers all felt the same things. Germany definitely believed that God was on their side. Most of the German soldiers were Christians, professing Christians, that is.
They didn't know about the evil things being done against the Jews and that sort of thing, not the average soldier. Both my father and my wife's father served as soldiers in World War II, and I appreciate the great sacrifice that those men made. And I know that the countries they liberated were extremely grateful for the sacrifice that American soldiers made during World War II to stop Japan and Germany. But what we're talking about now is, is there a better way?
Is this really God's system or does He have something else in mind? So am I saying that Edmund Burke was wrong? That it's not true that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing? Well, let me put it this way. I'd like to add another statement to what he said, and it's this: all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to use evil means to fight evil. You see, when good men turn to evil tactics, then evil is certain to prevail regardless of which side wins.
The Civil War was as big an evil as the evil it was trying to overcome. Now, I'm not saying that good men and women should do nothing. I'm saying that when they fight evil, they have to use the weapons of the kingdom, which are not carnal. We do have powerful weapons. We have prayer, we have fasting, we have peacemaking, we have sacrificial love for our enemies, and we have practicing kindness, mercy, and unselfishness.
And if we don't think those weapons really are powerful, if we don't believe that they can overturn strongholds, then we should quit calling ourselves Christians. For in essence, we're saying we really don't believe in the power of prayer or of fasting or of loving our enemies. But you know, if all Christians maintained the position that kingdom Christians take, then none of these wars we've been talking about tonight would have ever happened.
Because the soldiers on both sides in each of those wars were professing Christians. Hitler couldn't have raised an army if all the Christians in Germany had refused to bear arms. And Japan wouldn't have embarked on its empire building if it had not been operating in league with Hitler. Not only that, there would never have been a First World War because, again, there would have been no armies to fight it. For most of the soldiers in World War I on both sides were professing Christians.
And as we've already talked about tonight, if there had not been a World War I, then Hitler would have never come to power. But not just that, if there had not been a World War I, then there would not have been a Bolshevik revolution in Russia. And if there hadn't been a Bolshevik revolution, then there wouldn't have been a communist Russia. And if there hadn't been a communist Russia, there wouldn't have been a communist China or North Korea or Cambodia or Vietnam.
In short, in their eagerness to keep evil from triumphing, professing Christians have unwittingly been the instruments of evil themselves. But you know, if Christians were just willing to practice sacrificial love, so much evil could be averted in this world. Let's take the Civil War, for example. Now, let's suppose that this was as black and white as many textbooks paint it. The northerners were the good people and the southerners were the evil ones.
Now, I realize that no Southern Christian is going to accept that designation, but let's just suppose for the sake of argument. Now, how could the evil of the South have been stopped without having to use the evil of the Civil War?
Well, for one thing, the people of the North could have said, "Look, we realize that the economic system of the South was built around slavery and still depends upon slavery, and that if slavery were abolished, it would have serious economic consequences for slaveholders and for the South in general. Therefore, this is what we propose.
If you will work out a plan to end slavery, we will reimburse you for all economic costs you will suffer." Now, that would have been a tough proposal for the North to make, wouldn't it? That they alone would have to shoulder the economic costs of the South abolishing slavery. But of course, that's what they were asking of the South, that they bear the entire economic cost. But putting that aside, you see, that would have been an example of sacrificial love, the kind of love that Jesus practiced on our behalf.
Now, it wasn't the least bit fair that He had to suffer and die because of our sins, but He was willing to do it. And He calls us to have the same kind of love. If the North had been willing to practice such sacrificial love towards the South, I do believe the Civil War could have been averted and slavery could have been abolished at the same time. But you know, the South might well have been willing to end slavery merely if the economic consequences were borne equally by the slave states and free states.
The North wouldn't have necessarily had to say, "Look, we'll carry the entire burden." But carrying the entire burden should certainly have been preferable to the slaughter and carnage of the Civil War. You know, it's odd how countries will spend millions of dollars and sacrifice human lives to wage war, yet they're unwilling to spend the same kind of money to wage peace. Now, maybe it's understandable that the world thinks that way, but the sad thing is that professing Christians think that way too.
Or what if the North had said, "Look, we realize that the North and South have some very different ideas about the federal government and what is permitted or not permitted of the federal government under the Constitution." The North and South have been arguing about this for nearly half a century. So this is what we're willing to do. We'll agree to letting you peacefully leave the Union if you will abolish slavery. You know, I think the South might just have been willing to do that.
And certainly, if they were Christians, real Christians, they would have been willing to do that. But one way or another, there's no doubt in my mind that the Civil War could have been prevented and slavery still brought to an end if the Northern Christians had been willing to practice sacrificial love, or on the other hand, if the Southern Christians had been willing to practice sacrificial love. Yes, good men and women should do something to keep evil from triumphing.
But what they need to do is to overcome evil with good. That's what Jesus did, and it's what we can still do today.