"The great discomfort among many secular Americans is that the religion that they have dismissed for the last half a century needs to be revisited because we are now being visited by religious fanatics. The fanatics sense that our secularism is a great weakness of character that makes us vulnerable to defeat, and they are correct." --Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse

We were asked why we wrote this book. We are a counter-force to those forces that want to re-define Christianity. Those who follow the traditional, dogmatic Church are now called fundamentalist Christians, or fanatics. You've heard anyone from Rosie O'Donnell to President Carter tell you that. This same group is trying to stretch and dilute the word Christian to include ideas that are not Christian, but sound like they may be.

If you are one of the many in our country who want to be a good person but who doesn't necessarily have a firm grasp of Christian teachings, or if you believe you are spiritual but not necessarily religious. Below is an excerpt from the Chapter on War in our book. It is a discussion with Father Hans Jacobse of the American Orthodox Institute.

Peter: Father Hans, The Orthodox Church accepts war as self-defense. Is there anything in Christian teaching that would totally condemn a war in self defense?

Fr. Hans: I don't see it. When you look at the Orthodox tradition and see how the terminology of warfare is used, it seems to me that conflict is central to the Christian understanding about how human affairs really work. We talk about the Christian life as spiritual warfare for example. We say that the Word of God is a sword or that God himself is a shield, and so forth.

What happens to Christians is that we get caught up in the current culture that labels warfare as the greatest of all evils and so we reflexively renounce it. There certainly are times when war should be renounced, but a more sober understanding sees warfare as a part of life that you just can't wish away.

Helen: The current culture doesn't have a firm foundation in Christianity, hasn't studied it to really know what it's all about. They assume the Christmas card ideal of Christianity promoted by the media such as Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men is all a Christian can say about war.

Fr. Hans: That's right. Then the proclamation is interpreted through the dominant cultural paradigm, which means that pacifism becomes its fulfillment.

Helen: Isn't pacifism the highest good a person could attain when faced with evil?

Fr. Hans: No, I don't think so. Let's turn away from war and just look at crime for example. The man who confronts the evildoer with a threat of greater violence and causes that evildoer to submit to that threat has ended the cycle of violence. Here a greater force confronts a lesser force to stop the misuse of force.

Helen: Yes, that's right. So if someone breaks into a home and threatens your loved ones, should a Christian just sit back and think, "Christ said don't use violence"? By doing so, this Christian might let their family be killed. Then the evil would continue.

Fr. Hans: Yes. Someone who holds to the pacifist ideal in those circumstances leaves the innocent defenseless. Pacifism is a solitary and individual principle and not something you can impose on your neighbor. Sometimes your neighbor needs defending.

Helen: Can someone be a pacifist by not defending themselves, but ask someone else to use violence to defend them? Don't you also have to be a pacifist in your heart and mind and even if you were facing death, love your tormentor?

Fr. Hans: I have trouble with that too. Sometimes the scriptural injunction "love your enemies" is interpreted sentimentally. People mistakenly think it means that they have to muster good feelings about their enemy. It doesn't mean that at all. Loving your enemy means that you will act in truth towards them.

Helen: When you say, "act in truth," please explain that using the example of someone breaking into a home.

Fr. Hans: If someone breaks into your home, to act in truth is to stop his violence, to stop his crime, to stop his unrighteousness, and to stand up for the innocents who need your protection. Resisting the evil-doer defends yourself and others threatened by his evil. At the same time, you affirm his evil-doing is just that - evil. Defense here is a righteous act and affirms that the evil is unrighteous.

Looking at it a little deeper, loving your enemy means that your response to him will not be infected by his evil. The scripture is clear here as well when it says "do not return evil for evil." Where the pacifist gets it wrong is that he assumes confronting the evil-doer with force is an evil in itself. It isn't.

Peter: Yes, just because you love your enemy doesn't mean you will confuse him with your friend.

Fr. Hans. Absolutely. It's great if you can make an enemy your friend, but the commandment doesn't presume this will happen and, frankly, usually it doesn't. So it must mean something more.

Get Serious, Whoever said Christianity was Nice? or the Church's Stand on Contemporary Culture, can be ordered from "http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-60696-301-2" or Amazon.com

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 [War: Excerpt from The Book Get Serious]

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