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As I sat in the library reading\u00a0The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/em>by Marc Livecche I wrote a question in my notebook: What do Christian theologians say to the warriors who are morally, spiritually and psychologically injured as a result of war? I also wrote down the following questions:<\/span><\/p>\n In full disclosure, I have little to no knowledge or experience with war or war veterans; my family has no background in the military; as I write this blog, I am still learning and asking questions.<\/span><\/p>\n In\u00a0The Good Kill,<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Livecche brings home a basic truth that war will remain a \u201chuman contest of national wills and policy, but one still fought by warriors who are human beings before they are combatants.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 The more I read, the more strongly I heard the author\u2019s overall thesis of proposing the future of ethics relating to war. \u00a0Yet, I also heard his profound empathy for the soldier, the warrior, the one whose character holds the victory and the guilt. \u00a0Or as Christian political thinker Reinhold Niebhur wrote, \u201c[They] strive for restoration for the broken places of our world and entangle [themselves] in webs of sin\u2013as [they] perform acts of necessary evil in search of justice.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Livecche quotes Jonathan Shay\u2019s view of moral injury comprising three elements: 1) The betrayal of what is right 2) by someone who holds legitimate authority 3) in a high-stake situation.[3]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 When these elements are present, the warrior\u2019s body codes what happened\u2013of which we are swiftly reminded of Bessel van der Kolk\u2019s The Body Keeps the Score<\/em>,<\/span>[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0who opens the first chapter describing his counseling groups of deeply troubled veterans struggling from memories. To read in detail the price human beings pay for moral injury is the undoing of the sensitive mind. \u00a0We call this \u201cmoral\u201d or \u201cethical\u201d injury. \u00a0Must a political leader or military leader who wants to govern effectively be prepared to behave immorally?<\/span><\/p>\n These questions are often discussed under the title, \u201cdirty hands\u201d from Jean-Paul Satre\u2019s play\u00a0Les Mains sales<\/span>.<\/em> \u00a0Although written sarcastically, Sartre\u2019s characters are distasteful and poorly represent what the term \u201cDirty hands\u201d means in leadership literature. The problem of dirty hands concerns the leader who for the sake of public purposes violates moral principles.[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0I became very curious about the correlation between dirty hands and moral injury. In fact, I was experiencing the tension of holding both the wounded warrior and the immoral leader together in my mind\u2013are we talking about a soldier\u2019s moral injury or a leader\u2019s unethical choices? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Believe it or not, it was Max Weber\u2019s essay, \u201cPolitics as a Vocation\u201d that provided some relevance to my questions. \u00a0Weber doesn\u2019t just say, \u201cYou are going to have to get your hands dirty, so be prepared to live with that.\u201d Instead he explores a distinctive political ethic that he calls the \u201cethic of responsibility\u201d that should govern the behavior of political leaders, which he distinguishes from \u2018an ethic of ultimate ends\u2019 that guides some individuals in their personal moral choices.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0 Weber takes this further by saying that no ethics in the world can dodge the fact that someone must be willing to pay the price of using morally dangerous means that will result in evil ramifications. In chapter 2 of The Good Kill<\/em>, LiVecche notes that military leaders will have moral regret for they cannot remain pure in a difficult and dangerous world.[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Last October, our pastor offered a lecture series titled,\u00a0Violence and the Bible<\/span><\/em>.8<\/em> Quoting from Deuteronomy 7:2, Pastor Adam McMurray presented an inductive argument for the problem that in the Old Testament, God is sanctioning the violence. \u00a0Citing atrocities from the religious conquests and the 100 million indigenous people who were displaced in the Americas, Adam laid before his audience optional ways to respond. \u00a0He said we could ignore it, accept it, spiritualize it, or reject it. \u00a0Then he offered a balanced, biblical response of humanity, God and Scripture. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Without reviewing his entire lecture, I thought it was profound where he started: He said we must begin with a clear picture of the nature and character of God: \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He is Absolute Goodness and He is Absolute Wisdom.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n As I continue moving through Holy Week, my heart and mind are still focused on the absurd violence the Prince of Peace experienced. \u00a0The injuries He endured are anti-creation, anti-life. Yet because God is Absolute Goodness and Absolute Wisdom, Shalom is now in our DNA. Shalom won. <\/span><\/p>\n How does the Truth about God\u2019s Goodness and Wisdom bring healing to a human being who suffers from war? I do not know. What I do know is that the heart of Jesus\u2019 Ethic is beyond my thinking and beyond human history. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0LiVecche, Marc, and Timothy S. Mallard.\u00a0<\/span>The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury<\/span>. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n \n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0P. 43<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a>\u00a0P. 25<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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As I sat in the library reading\u00a0The Good Kill: Just War and Moral Injury\u00a0by Marc Livecche I wrote a question in my notebook: What do Christian theologians say to the warriors who are morally, spiritually and psychologically injured as a result of war? I also wrote down the following questions: What is moral injury? What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3161,3162,3100,3170,3158,3159,3160],"class_list":["post-37153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dirtyhands","tag-jesusethics","tag-moralinjury","tag-riverwestchurch","tag-thebodykeepsthescore","tag-thegoodkill","tag-violenceandthebible","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37153"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37251,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37153\/revisions\/37251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}