Who Is My Enemy? by Lee Camp

Author:Lee Camp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012110, REL067070, REL017000, Islam—United States, Christianity—United States, Islam—Relations—Christianity, Christianity and other religions—Islam, Ethnic conflict—Religious aspects, Violence—Religious aspects—Islam, Violence—Religious aspects—Christianity, Political messianism—United States
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

12

The Western Tradition of Terror

War is hell.

—Attributed to William Tecumseh

Sherman, Union general

in the American Civil War

After a lecture to the Nashville Chapter of the United Nations Association in which I had discussed some of the similarities and differences between the Christian and Islamic traditions on war and peacemaking, an elderly man stood and said that he had been an airman in World War II, a navigator who flew over Japan soon after the dropping of “the bomb.” “I will never be able to forget what I saw,” he said. “We killed 186,000 people in an instant with the bomb. What does your ‘Just War tradition’ have to say about that?”[135] “If one takes all the criteria of the Just War tradition seriously,” I replied, “then the tradition can only say that the dropping of the bomb was immoral.” He nodded his head in sad satisfaction with my answer and sat down.

Some minutes later, an elderly, silver-haired woman, sporting a knitted, hot-pink hat, raised her hand. She began in a pleasant voice: “You probably remember the story of Noah, and when God got so angry that he wiped everyone out?” “Yes,” I said. Her voice gradually grew more tense, “And you said the dropping of the bomb was immoral?” “Yes,” I said. “Well,” she replied, “I thank God for Harry Truman dropping the bomb, and when I think about the Japanese and the Bataan marches, I just wish I could get my hands on some of those Japanese” —and she began a ripping and strangling motion, voice angry—“and I think when you get a little older, you’ll get a little wiser and think differently.”

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