So the battle has commenced...a live TV war is underway...and it’s hard to comprehend what is happening in Babylon.
First...a little history. The bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil, back in the Middle Ages, saw the deaths of 40,000 people in one day. Roman historian Tacitus records a Roman battle where 80,000 people were slaughtered in one day.
It goes without saying that back in these times there were no weapons of mass destruction.
To acheive 80,000 deaths in Roman times, imagine how many more tens of thousands escaped wounded. Now imagine that each death came brutally as a direct result of face to face, hand to hand combat. No machine guns...no mortar bombs...just sheer bloodlust.
Now let me take you forward in history to World War One and the Battle of the Somme. One million troops died in that battle.
One million lives snuffed out.
Then there’s World War 2. Even the six years of conflict there doesn’t match the sheer force of firepower brought to bear on Iraq. Yet 55 million people died in that war. 55 million.
Averaged out...that’s 30,000 people a day dying every single day for six years.
But even that doesn’t illustrate the true scale of bloodshed in World War 2.
Take the Battle for Stalingrad in January 1943. Of the civilian population of more than half a million people...only 1 thousand 500 survived. 1,500 men women and children left standing out of an innocent civilian population of 500,000.
In total, the Battle for Stalingrad claimed two and a half million lives. 2.5 million.
Now..let’s look at the Battle for Baghdad. In the first six days of the conflict, the civilian death toll, according to Iraq, stood at 88. That’s just 15 people a day in a country of 22 million. That’s less than the Iraqi road toll and regular crime rate. It is less than the number of people executed by the Hussein regime every day.
Yes, death is utterly tragic, and our hearts and prayers should extend to all those Allied and Iraqi families who have lost loved ones in this conflict...but Jesus himself recognised and taught that the most important thing in life is not to seek a long life on earth but an eternal life in Heaven. For what shall ye gain, he warned, if you gain the world but lose your soul?
It is hard, watching the 24 hour TV war...not to be touched by the images of injuries and casualties...but it is equally important for all of us not to lose sight of how restrained this war is when compared with those that have gone before it.
In one day, a Roman war fought with spears and swords claimed 80,000 lives. In six days, a US war has killed 88 civilians...and admittedly higher numbers of military personnel.
The Technology of War has come a long way.
Of course, the presence of war raises that thorny issue of the problem of evil in our world. Where is God when it hurts? How could God let this happen?
People look at World War 2’s 55 million dead and use it as proof of God’s non-existence.
I look at the same figures and rejoice that the Allies won. Because if Adolf Hitler had won the war and achieved world domination, the final death toll would not have been 55 million but arguably one or two billion. After all, Hitler believed impure races should be exterminated. The gas ovens would have been burning for decades in a hellish form of global warming if Adolf had won.
Saddam Hussein models himself on Hitler, and says so in his biographies. He admired Hitler both for his power and his attitude to the Jews. Hussein has killed 2.5 million people since coming to power in 1979. He has had children tortured and executed in front of their parents as a punishment to the parents for not following his instructions.
Saddam Hussein demands to be idolised and worshipped...and the promise by his war cabinet to pledge their eternal souls to Saddam Hussein is more proof of the man’s evil.
Yes, it can be hard as a Christian to watch all this violence and work out where we should stand. Some protestors carry placards saying, WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?
Others carry signs saying “Christ was a pacifist”.
But Jesus also warned that the world would be judged for its evils, and that armies would mete out some of that judgement in a physical sense ahead of the spiritual judgement. Those Christians who quote selectively should also read Revelations for an idea about God’s tolerance of evil.
As this war unfolds, with so far miraculously small loss of life, we as Christians should continue to pray for lives everywhere to be spared, and for God’s will to be done.
As I’ve said before, I have no idea what God’s will is in this, and I cannot claim that Jesus approves of this particular war because neither I nor anyone else alive is privy to the Lord’s views. For that reason equally, protestors who invoke Jesus’s name against the war also overstep their boundaries.
Instead, I can only judge the morality of this war by the totality of God’s word to us, and by the measurement of evil that the Iraqi regime manifests, as tested against God’s word.
I pray for a quick and merciful ending to this conflict...and I leave its resolution entirely in God’s hands...We may not yet see the full picture of what must happen. In time, I’m sure we will.
Comments