(AgapePress) - A conservative Methodist activist says mainline church leaders are ignoring biblical teaching when they claim Jesus was opposed to war in all circumstances.

As the "war on terror" continues in Afghanistan and is building toward action against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, other Taliban-like regimes are getting "antsy." Heritage Foundation terrorism expert Jim Phillips says these other governments can see the "handwriting on the wall." One of them is Iran.

"I think the Iranians are very nervous," Phillips says. "They had some young people demonstrating in the street after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and they were calling for the overthrow of Iran's Taliban -- that is, the radical revolutionaries, the hardliners that still remain entrenched in the Iranian bureaucracy, despite the growing strength of Iranian reformers."

Some reports of the "pro-American action" demonstration in Iran put the crowd at nearly one million people. Many experts on the Middle East believe that if Iraq's Hussein is ousted, other Muslim dictatorships will begin toppling.

With such a possible scenario looming in America's war on terror, liberal Protestant churches have denounced any possible military action against Iraq. For example, United Methodist Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher recently insisted that "followers of Christ" cannot be silent and should oppose U.S. military action against Iraq. [See Related Story]

In response, a conservative Methodist Activist says leaders of mainline churches are ignoring biblical teaching on war. Mark Tooley, with the Institute on Religion and Democracy, says mainline church leaders today take a completely pacifist approach, and are quick to condemn all U.S. military action regardless of the situation -- and he points out that none of those denominations is historically a pacifist church.

Mark Tooley

"Almost all Christian churches from all traditions acknowledge that war is never a wonderful thing, but sometimes it is preferable to the alternative," Tooley says. "Many churches refer to that as the so-called 'just war' teaching within Christianity. But unfortunately most of the mainline church leaders have chosen to ignore those historic teachings."

Tooley, who is chairman of the IRD's United Methodist Committee, says Christ spoke of using force to fight evil and uphold justice.

"Jesus Himself, in his encounters with soldiers during his earthly walk, never asked those soldiers to abandon their profession in the same way that he would ask thieves or prostitutes to abandon their professions because they were immoral," he says. "Also, both the apostles Paul and Peter, in their letters in the New Testament, make reference to the fact that God has equipped secular, civil governments with the authority of the sword."

Tooley's group has released a document titled Discernment Needed? What Mainstream Christians Need to Know about Possible War with Iraq.

© 2002 AgapePress all rights reserved.

E-mail this page to a friend Printer-Friendly Version