October 25, 2019 • 15 mins
- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- Phillip Mast
- patrick H
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:06):
Welcome back to the 4th Ray podcast. We are going to
look at another rebuttal toChristian Nonviolence today, and
we are specifically going tolook at early examples of
soldiers in the Roman Army. Theargument goes something like
this (00:24):
the early church identified that there were
indeed soldiers who wereChristians in the Roman army.
And we see this as early as thethe, like, middle of the second
century, so the 100 AD. And ifit's the case that we see
(00:46):
soldiers, Christian soldiers, inthe Roman army, then that seems
to directly fly in the face ofthe the nonviolent assertion.
And specifically, if we're goingto look at the early church
writings and their, unanimitywhen it comes to, non violence,
(01:08):
then that's going to seem toundercut that early argument.
So, what does the nonviolentposition have to say in response
to this argument? First, theearly church problem with
soldiers was not necessarily thefact that someone was a soldier
(01:30):
per se, but it had more to dowith the actions of soldiers.
And we see this in in John theBaptist, in the Bible, before we
even have to, to utilize anyearly church texts, we see John
the Baptist saying, not tellingsoldiers to get out of the army,
but saying, hey, don't extortpeople and don't do violence to
(01:53):
people. Pretty simple.
Being a soldier isn't aninherent problem, but what you
do as a soldier is. Now, youmight say, well, well, isn't a
soldier, according to pacifist,isn't being a soldier inherently
(02:13):
problematic like being aprostitute would be inherently
problematic? No. And we'll getto that in in point number 3.
But also, we see that some ofthe early church documents
declare that, the actions ofsoldiers are problematic.
(02:34):
So, in the apostolic tradition,for example, it says that, if
you're a soldier, don't kill. Sothey don't they don't have a
problem saying, you can be asoldier so long as you don't
kill, which might be hard for usto imagine today. Although,
maybe it's not that hard for usto imagine because there are
(02:55):
many individuals, most peoplewho are in the armed forces
today do not kill and may noteven be directly responsible for
killing actions. You know, ifyou're, if you're doing some
sort of logistics work, or ifyou're building an army base,
or, I don't know, some someother sort of stuff. You're a
(03:16):
National Guard and you'rehelping hurricane victims.
There are lots of things thatyou can do that don't either
have you directly or indirectlyleading to the death of
somebody, or doing violence. Andso that's what the apostolic
tradition said. It said, hey, ifyou're a soldier, don't kill.
So, the problem was not being asoldier, the problem was the
(03:38):
actions that soldiers tended todo. 2nd, the early church even
did have a problem with peopleas soldiers.
But the problem was not withindividuals remaining soldiers,
the problem was with individualsbecoming soldiers. We see we see
this in several early churchdocuments. Canon 12 in the
(04:02):
Council of Nicaea is is oneexample where I think it kind of
highlights what what the earlychurch's issue was. They said,
in that document it says thatanyone who returns to the army,
should they should have somesort of sanctions against them.
(04:22):
So you had, at this time, a lotof people in the army, and you
had a lot of people who werebecoming Christians while in the
army.
And, kinda like the mafia, or atleast what I imagine the mafia
is from movies or gangs, youcan't really get out once you're
in. That's just not feasible.And so, if you became, a
(04:46):
Christian while in the army, goahead, finish out your term.
That's great. But if your timeis up and you get out and you
try to go back in, that's aproblem.
You like that a little bit toomuch, and you shouldn't really
want to be a soldier. So ifyou're a soldier, that's great.
Finish your term. But onceyou're out, get out, stay out.
(05:10):
And if you can get out, get out.
And if you're not in, don't goin. That's what the church had a
problem with, people pursuing,the army, not people who
remained in the army. So long asthey were remaining in the army
without performing particularactions, like killing, doing
(05:31):
violence to people. And whywouldn't they want people to
become soldiers if we know frompoint number 1 that it's
possible to be a soldier withoutcompromising actions? And my
guess is that, it's probablylike some of the other
professions that were,reprimanded, that that, some
(05:53):
individuals said you can't dothis as a Christian.
Actors was 1, sculptors, andthere were other forbidden
practices. But let's just takesculptors as an example. You
know, to sculpt something is notbad. Like, why why would you not
be able to be a sculptor?Because you could be a sculptor
(06:13):
and not do anything bad.
But my guess is that in theRoman world, to be a sculptor
essentially meant you were goingto sculpt idols. You were going
to be asked to sculpt idols. Andso they said, don't do it. Don't
don't become a sculptor. Andprobably because of the
(06:37):
association.
You know what sculptors do. Ifyou're a Christian and a
sculptor, people are gonna lookat you and you're gonna lose
your distinctiveness. And that'sa problem. We don't want you to
do that, so don't be a sculptor.It could also be because maybe
there would be some, somerequirement if the Roman
(06:58):
government said, hey.
We need all sculptors to comeand work here, and and sculpt
some deities for us. Maybe you'dbe obligated to do that, and so
they recognized that, the statehad too much control over your
life if you were a sculptor. Idon't know. I'm not a historian,
to that extent. And so, but butwe see that you have these
(07:23):
professions that we know don'thave inherent problems in them,
where the church said, youshouldn't really do that.
Now, soldiers, we know, wereassociated with various sorts of
of issues for the early church.Killing was one that we
mentioned that people hadproblems with, and violence. But
we also know that there wereother things. John the Baptist
(07:45):
shows us that theft or extortionwas, the soldiers were well
known for that. We know thatthey had lots of, feasts and
such.
There's a lot of debaucheryinvolved with being a soldier.
And idolatry. We see that therewere several Christians in the
early church, who were soldiersand, who we know faced,
(08:10):
persecution and executionbecause of their refusal to to
to participate in God worship oremperor worship. And being a
soldier was really problematic,not just for the violence
aspect, but for the idolatryaspect and and whatnot. And so,
just the early church, for youto become a soldier, just don't
(08:35):
do it.
Like, that's a problem. We knowwhat goes on with soldiers, and
it's gonna be really difficultto remain to maintain your
distinctiveness, so just avoidit. And don't don't go back into
it if you get out. But if you'rein, avoid the acts that you know
(08:55):
are are wrong, and as soon asyou get out, just stay out. Now,
you're you're probably stillasking yourself, well, yeah.
But the the job of a soldier isto kill people. So how are you
gonna avoid this non violencething? It seems like they'd
probably be telling people notto become soldiers strictly for
(09:17):
the the god worship. Because ifthey were okay with people being
a soldier, as long as theyavoided bad actions and we know
that soldiers kill people. Like,like, being a soldier and not
killing somebody is is just,like, that's an oxymoron.
But you have to remember thatduring the early church, from so
(09:39):
from 27 BC to 180 AD, that isthe official, those are the
official dates of the PaxRomana, the the Peace of Rome.
And you have to understand thatat this time there was a very
large peace, era of peace. Itdoesn't mean that there were no
(10:01):
wars, it doesn't mean that therewere no capital punishment, no
executions, it doesn't mean thatthere were no skirmishes, but
this was an era where there wasrelatively little fighting, and
a lot of the Romans wereessentially construction
workers. The Roman soldiers werebuilding things, the aqueducts
(10:23):
and such. So it's it was quitefeasible for an individual at at
the time the early church is iswriting and dealing with this.
It is quite possible that youcould be a Roman soldier and
never have to deal, or neverhave to face doing violence to
(10:43):
somebody else. And there is a,there's one one, early church
document that makes this seemlike it it, or kind of helps to
point to this notion, and Ibelieve it's from the Synod of
Arles. And what it does is itsays, in a time of war, it
essentially releases a Christianfrom the, from being a soldier.
(11:09):
And, a lot of people read thatand they're like, no, it's gotta
mean the opposite. It means,Christians can get out of the
army in peacetime, but in timeof war, like, they need to stay
in because that's when we needthem.
But this document actuallyindicates the opposite, and that
would likely be because, youknow, if you're a Christian and
(11:29):
you're a soldier, then, and youdon't have to kill, you can be a
Christian and a soldier. That'snot antithetical, necessarily.
But to be a Christian in a timeof war and to be faced with
doing violence isn't compatible.And so they they had an
(11:49):
allowance to to get out of thearmy at that point. Point number
4.
And this is kind of a sidepoint. It's something that I
would just argue. It doesn'tprove, my point on soldiers, but
just it gives us some sort of aframework to understand how
soldiers could have been viewed.I think Paul gives us a
(12:11):
precedent for how soldiers canbe nonviolent in the way that he
he handles the, the issue ofslavery. So, essentially, he
tells slaves to, hey, if you canget free, get free.
But, I mean, honestly, it's theposition that you're in, you're
kinda stuck there, and it's nota big deal. Obey your masters.
(12:35):
Don't sin. Right? You submit toto masters, but that doesn't
mean that you, they're yourultimate master.
God is your master, and you'renot gonna sin. And He
essentially calls them toobedience within their position,
but to remember what their trueimage is. Well, that seems to be
(12:56):
the same sort of advice thatthat the early church is giving.
Hey, look. If you find yourselfin in a position of being a
soldier, your image is in God.
Your your value is in God, andthat's okay. This is the
position that you're in when youbecame a Christian. If you can
get out, great. If you can't,that's okay too, even though
(13:20):
it's not ideal. But just in yourposition, don't sin.
Your your ultimate master isGod, not Rome. And I think it's
it's really the exact same sortof thing that we see. We're not
gonna upend the socialstructure. We're gonna we're
gonna find our value in JesusChrist, obey Him, and submit to
(13:42):
whatever position we're in. Inthe end then, finding that there
are soldiers in the army, in inthe early church isn't really a
a revolutionary concept that isgoing to upend the nonviolent
case.
I would hope that you would findconverts in the army. And
(14:06):
knowing what we know of theobligations that people had to
the army, what do you expect?That, that people wouldn't
remain in the army? No. It justdoesn't just doesn't make any
sense.
What we do see is that therewere indeed people who remained
in the army who, when faced withthe choice of serving Roman
(14:29):
battle, left, sometimes, most ofthe times, at the cost of their
own lives. And so we see that.We see that very thing, and we
see other evidence of of thisbeing a problem in the document,
the sonata of Arles. So,hopefully that clears some
(14:52):
things up for you. And that'sall for now.
So peace, and because I'm apacifist, when I say it, I mean
it.
Welcome back to the 4th Ray podcast. We are going to
look at another rebuttal toChristian Nonviolence today, and
we are specifically going tolook at early examples of
soldiers in the Roman Army. Theargument goes something like
this (00:24):
the early church identified that there were
indeed soldiers who wereChristians in the Roman army.
And we see this as early as thethe, like, middle of the second
century, so the 100 AD. And ifit's the case that we see
(00:46):
soldiers, Christian soldiers, inthe Roman army, then that seems
to directly fly in the face ofthe the nonviolent assertion.
And specifically, if we're goingto look at the early church
writings and their, unanimitywhen it comes to, non violence,
(01:08):
then that's going to seem toundercut that early argument.
So, what does the nonviolentposition have to say in response
to this argument? First, theearly church problem with
soldiers was not necessarily thefact that someone was a soldier
(01:30):
per se, but it had more to dowith the actions of soldiers.
And we see this in in John theBaptist, in the Bible, before we
even have to, to utilize anyearly church texts, we see John
the Baptist saying, not tellingsoldiers to get out of the army,
but saying, hey, don't extortpeople and don't do violence to
(01:53):
people. Pretty simple.
Being a soldier isn't aninherent problem, but what you
do as a soldier is. Now, youmight say, well, well, isn't a
soldier, according to pacifist,isn't being a soldier inherently
(02:13):
problematic like being aprostitute would be inherently
problematic? No. And we'll getto that in in point number 3.
But also, we see that some ofthe early church documents
declare that, the actions ofsoldiers are problematic.
(02:34):
So, in the apostolic tradition,for example, it says that, if
you're a soldier, don't kill. Sothey don't they don't have a
problem saying, you can be asoldier so long as you don't
kill, which might be hard for usto imagine today. Although,
maybe it's not that hard for usto imagine because there are
(02:55):
many individuals, most peoplewho are in the armed forces
today do not kill and may noteven be directly responsible for
killing actions. You know, ifyou're, if you're doing some
sort of logistics work, or ifyou're building an army base,
or, I don't know, some someother sort of stuff. You're a
(03:16):
National Guard and you'rehelping hurricane victims.
There are lots of things thatyou can do that don't either
have you directly or indirectlyleading to the death of
somebody, or doing violence. Andso that's what the apostolic
tradition said. It said, hey, ifyou're a soldier, don't kill.
So, the problem was not being asoldier, the problem was the
(03:38):
actions that soldiers tended todo. 2nd, the early church even
did have a problem with peopleas soldiers.
But the problem was not withindividuals remaining soldiers,
the problem was with individualsbecoming soldiers. We see we see
this in several early churchdocuments. Canon 12 in the
(04:02):
Council of Nicaea is is oneexample where I think it kind of
highlights what what the earlychurch's issue was. They said,
in that document it says thatanyone who returns to the army,
should they should have somesort of sanctions against them.
(04:22):
So you had, at this time, a lotof people in the army, and you
had a lot of people who werebecoming Christians while in the
army.
And, kinda like the mafia, or atleast what I imagine the mafia
is from movies or gangs, youcan't really get out once you're
in. That's just not feasible.And so, if you became, a
(04:46):
Christian while in the army, goahead, finish out your term.
That's great. But if your timeis up and you get out and you
try to go back in, that's aproblem.
You like that a little bit toomuch, and you shouldn't really
want to be a soldier. So ifyou're a soldier, that's great.
Finish your term. But onceyou're out, get out, stay out.
(05:10):
And if you can get out, get out.
And if you're not in, don't goin. That's what the church had a
problem with, people pursuing,the army, not people who
remained in the army. So long asthey were remaining in the army
without performing particularactions, like killing, doing
(05:31):
violence to people. And whywouldn't they want people to
become soldiers if we know frompoint number 1 that it's
possible to be a soldier withoutcompromising actions? And my
guess is that, it's probablylike some of the other
professions that were,reprimanded, that that, some
(05:53):
individuals said you can't dothis as a Christian.
Actors was 1, sculptors, andthere were other forbidden
practices. But let's just takesculptors as an example. You
know, to sculpt something is notbad. Like, why why would you not
be able to be a sculptor?Because you could be a sculptor
(06:13):
and not do anything bad.
But my guess is that in theRoman world, to be a sculptor
essentially meant you were goingto sculpt idols. You were going
to be asked to sculpt idols. Andso they said, don't do it. Don't
don't become a sculptor. Andprobably because of the
(06:37):
association.
You know what sculptors do. Ifyou're a Christian and a
sculptor, people are gonna lookat you and you're gonna lose
your distinctiveness. And that'sa problem. We don't want you to
do that, so don't be a sculptor.It could also be because maybe
there would be some, somerequirement if the Roman
(06:58):
government said, hey.
We need all sculptors to comeand work here, and and sculpt
some deities for us. Maybe you'dbe obligated to do that, and so
they recognized that, the statehad too much control over your
life if you were a sculptor. Idon't know. I'm not a historian,
to that extent. And so, but butwe see that you have these
(07:23):
professions that we know don'thave inherent problems in them,
where the church said, youshouldn't really do that.
Now, soldiers, we know, wereassociated with various sorts of
of issues for the early church.Killing was one that we
mentioned that people hadproblems with, and violence. But
we also know that there wereother things. John the Baptist
(07:45):
shows us that theft or extortionwas, the soldiers were well
known for that. We know thatthey had lots of, feasts and
such.
There's a lot of debaucheryinvolved with being a soldier.
And idolatry. We see that therewere several Christians in the
early church, who were soldiersand, who we know faced,
(08:10):
persecution and executionbecause of their refusal to to
to participate in God worship oremperor worship. And being a
soldier was really problematic,not just for the violence
aspect, but for the idolatryaspect and and whatnot. And so,
just the early church, for youto become a soldier, just don't
(08:35):
do it.
Like, that's a problem. We knowwhat goes on with soldiers, and
it's gonna be really difficultto remain to maintain your
distinctiveness, so just avoidit. And don't don't go back into
it if you get out. But if you'rein, avoid the acts that you know
(08:55):
are are wrong, and as soon asyou get out, just stay out. Now,
you're you're probably stillasking yourself, well, yeah.
But the the job of a soldier isto kill people. So how are you
gonna avoid this non violencething? It seems like they'd
probably be telling people notto become soldiers strictly for
(09:17):
the the god worship. Because ifthey were okay with people being
a soldier, as long as theyavoided bad actions and we know
that soldiers kill people. Like,like, being a soldier and not
killing somebody is is just,like, that's an oxymoron.
But you have to remember thatduring the early church, from so
(09:39):
from 27 BC to 180 AD, that isthe official, those are the
official dates of the PaxRomana, the the Peace of Rome.
And you have to understand thatat this time there was a very
large peace, era of peace. Itdoesn't mean that there were no
(10:01):
wars, it doesn't mean that therewere no capital punishment, no
executions, it doesn't mean thatthere were no skirmishes, but
this was an era where there wasrelatively little fighting, and
a lot of the Romans wereessentially construction
workers. The Roman soldiers werebuilding things, the aqueducts
(10:23):
and such. So it's it was quitefeasible for an individual at at
the time the early church is iswriting and dealing with this.
It is quite possible that youcould be a Roman soldier and
never have to deal, or neverhave to face doing violence to
(10:43):
somebody else. And there is a,there's one one, early church
document that makes this seemlike it it, or kind of helps to
point to this notion, and Ibelieve it's from the Synod of
Arles. And what it does is itsays, in a time of war, it
essentially releases a Christianfrom the, from being a soldier.
(11:09):
And, a lot of people read thatand they're like, no, it's gotta
mean the opposite. It means,Christians can get out of the
army in peacetime, but in timeof war, like, they need to stay
in because that's when we needthem.
But this document actuallyindicates the opposite, and that
would likely be because, youknow, if you're a Christian and
(11:29):
you're a soldier, then, and youdon't have to kill, you can be a
Christian and a soldier. That'snot antithetical, necessarily.
But to be a Christian in a timeof war and to be faced with
doing violence isn't compatible.And so they they had an
(11:49):
allowance to to get out of thearmy at that point. Point number
4.
And this is kind of a sidepoint. It's something that I
would just argue. It doesn'tprove, my point on soldiers, but
just it gives us some sort of aframework to understand how
soldiers could have been viewed.I think Paul gives us a
(12:11):
precedent for how soldiers canbe nonviolent in the way that he
he handles the, the issue ofslavery. So, essentially, he
tells slaves to, hey, if you canget free, get free.
But, I mean, honestly, it's theposition that you're in, you're
kinda stuck there, and it's nota big deal. Obey your masters.
(12:35):
Don't sin. Right? You submit toto masters, but that doesn't
mean that you, they're yourultimate master.
God is your master, and you'renot gonna sin. And He
essentially calls them toobedience within their position,
but to remember what their trueimage is. Well, that seems to be
(12:56):
the same sort of advice thatthat the early church is giving.
Hey, look. If you find yourselfin in a position of being a
soldier, your image is in God.
Your your value is in God, andthat's okay. This is the
position that you're in when youbecame a Christian. If you can
get out, great. If you can't,that's okay too, even though
(13:20):
it's not ideal. But just in yourposition, don't sin.
Your your ultimate master isGod, not Rome. And I think it's
it's really the exact same sortof thing that we see. We're not
gonna upend the socialstructure. We're gonna we're
gonna find our value in JesusChrist, obey Him, and submit to
(13:42):
whatever position we're in. Inthe end then, finding that there
are soldiers in the army, in inthe early church isn't really a
a revolutionary concept that isgoing to upend the nonviolent
case.
I would hope that you would findconverts in the army. And
(14:06):
knowing what we know of theobligations that people had to
the army, what do you expect?That, that people wouldn't
remain in the army? No. It justdoesn't just doesn't make any
sense.
What we do see is that therewere indeed people who remained
in the army who, when faced withthe choice of serving Roman
(14:29):
battle, left, sometimes, most ofthe times, at the cost of their
own lives. And so we see that.We see that very thing, and we
see other evidence of of thisbeing a problem in the document,
the sonata of Arles. So,hopefully that clears some
(14:52):
things up for you. And that'sall for now.
So peace, and because I'm apacifist, when I say it, I mean
it.
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