"The war in the Gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war, or a Moslem war--it is a just war," President Bush recently told a group of conservative religious broadcasters, "and it is a war with which good will prevail."  Only a portion of churches within the United States would support this assessment.  The American Christian community has been divided over the morality of the Gulf War, with the split taking place along largely predictable lines.

The Spectrum

Conservative Protestant churches have been most supportive of the administration, with some fundamentalists choosing to view the war as an apocalyptic struggle between the forces of good and evil.  The parallels between Baghdad and Babylon are obvious for those who wish to see them, and Saddam Hussein fits nicely into the role of Antichrist.  The majority of the evangelicals and moderate fundamentalists, however, have adopted a more balanced and restrained approach, arguing that American policy is defensible on traditional just war grounds.  (The just war tradition, a Catholic doctrine by origin, holds that the use of force may be morally justified under certain conditions.)  Yet, in light of their sympathy for traditional values such as duty, honor, obedience, and love of country, evangelical support for the war has been surprisingly tentative and conditional.  An editorial in the leading evangelical journal, Christianity Today, held that any line in the sand should be drawn "only with tears"; the author then warned against the dangers of chauvinistic nationalism, ethnocentric pride, and the seductive euphoria of techno-war.  Dr. Richard D. Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest conservative Protestant denomination, sounded a similar note of caution.  Warning emphatically that jobs and oil are not a sufficient or legitimate cause for military action, he continued:

Is America's motive to help erect a stable, just peace in the post-cold war world in which all people have a reasonable expectation that aggressors will be restrained by the world community of nations?  If so, then perhaps this is a just cause....The American citizenry does not have the information to answer many of these questions.  We have the responsibility to ask them, however, and to demand that our elected leaders assess the crisis in light of them, and to provide affirmative answers before resorting to armed force--always a last resort.(1)

Catholic thinking on the Gulf War has also reflected a balanced assessment of the pros and cons of the conflict in light of traditional just war theory.  Last November, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops endorsed a letter by Archbishop Roger M. Mahony outlining their moral qualms about the developing crisis.  It voiced concern that the Bush administration had not adequately fulfilled several criteria, such as the principles of just cause, last resort, and proportionality.  By a vote of 129-15, the bishops urged the Bush administration to "stay the course" of non-military solutions to the crisis.  The president of the NCCB, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, expressed similar concerns the day before the outbreak of hostilities, but subsequently refrained from passing moral judgement upon the U.S. position after the fighting started, maintaining that "History will judge whether or when this war should have been launched."  Individual Catholic leaders have ventured a range of opinions over the past few months.  Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law argued that the war is legitimate according to traditional just war doctrine, whereas Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of Detroit and head of the Catholic peace group Pax Christi, has been critical of American military involvement.

Traditional peace churches, such as the Quakers, Mennonites, and Moravians, have actively opposed all phases of American military operations in the Gulf.  Drawing their inspiration from the Sermon on the Mount, these churches have historically rejected the moral legitimacy of any form of organized violence.  In the current war, they have been joined by new allies, who--although from a different theological point of departure--have arrived at the same conclusion.

Protesting Protestants

One of the most striking, if not unexpected developments surrounding the American Christian community's response to developments in the Gulf has been the rapid condemnation of U.S. policy by mainline Protestant denominations and the church bodies who represent them (such as the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches with which it is affiliated).  Although these groups were initially critical of Iraq's invasion and supportive of UN sanctions, they quickly became uncomfortable with the perceived militarization of American policy.  By mid-September, many church leaders were openly questioning the deployment of U.S. troops in the region and campaigning against the inclusion of food or medicine in the blockade.  After President Bush's decision to deploy additional American troops in November, many mainline churches moved to actively oppose administration policy.

A number of clerics journeyed to the Middle East in December for a "peace pilgrimage" under the auspices of the NCC.  Traveling throughout the region, they spoke with Iraqis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Cypriots, and Jordanians (no mention of meetings with Kuwaitis).  Upon their return they produced a document titled "War is Not the Answer" that strongly condemned current U.S. policy, arguing "The resort to massive violence to resolve the Gulf crisis would be politically and morally indefensible."

As the UN deadline approached, mainline churches increased their efforts to prevent the outbreak of hostilities.  On January 11, the chief social action executive of the United Methodist church called on Congress and the president to "stop the rhetoric of war" and pursue political and diplomatic solutions.  Four days later, the leadership of thirty-two mainline denominations and ecumenical organizations sent a letter to President Bush urging him to delay military action and not to lead the nation into "this abyss."  After the outbreak of hostilities, the United Methodist bishop in the Washington, DC area stated that he was "very saddened by President Bush's decision," while the president of the NCC characterized the resort to war as "a failure for the human spirit."  A January 17 statement by the general secretary of the World Council of Churches "regretted" the failure of the Iraqi government to respond to international appeals, but "deplored" the U.S. government's decision to initiate hostilities.  (In contrast, the WCC had been quite tolerant of the Soviet Union's decision to invade Afghanistan eleven years earlier, virtually blaming the Soviet invasion on American imperialism.)

Such strong opposition is remarkable because mainline Protestant churches have not been historically pacifist.  On the contrary, by tradition they reject pacifism in favor of just war theory.  And when the NCC issued its condemnation of Operation Desert Storm, it deliberately used the language of the just war tradition.

Although precise formulations vary, just war theory essentially focuses upon two different sets of principles: jus ad bellum and jus in bello.  Jus ad bellum, literally "right towards war," provides specific precepts governing the outset of any armed conflict.  Such criteria include: (1) the war must be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense or the defense of a third party; (2) war must be declared by a duly constituted authority; (3) there must be a reasonable chance of winning or achieving one's objective; (4) the use of war must be a last resort; (5) the participants must have right intentions (i.e., to establish a just and lasting peace); and (6) the expectation of good through winning the war must be greater than the expected evil from waging the war itself.  Jus in bello, literally "right in war," specifies criteria governing the conduct of the war, and includes principles such as: (1) the seriousness of the injury inflicted on the enemy must be proportional to the damage suffered by the virtuous, and (2) the means used must be moral (i.e., killing innocent people must be avoided and international law must be upheld to the greatest extent possible).

Although a legitimate subject for debate, it is not our purpose to address whether Operation Desert Storm satisfies all of these criteria.  What is at issue is why many mainline denominations, as well as the NCC and WCC, never bothered to engage this subject in a serious or systematic fashion.  Without explicitly rejecting traditional just war criteria, they offered extreme and unsubstantiated assessments about the likely dangers of combat.  They then used these assessments in a highly polemical fashion to argue that the criteria for a just war could not possibly be satisfied.

Typical of these allegations is the NCC's observation that "military experts predict casualties in the tens and hundreds of thousands."  Although there is a remote possibility of casualties in this range, expert testimony before the House Armed Services Committee suggested the actual numbers would be far lower, ranging from 300 American dead and 1500 wounded under the most optimistic scenarios to 3,000 dead and 15,000 wounded under the most pessimistic.

Predictions of massive civilian casualties also appear to be overstated.  In the early weeks of the war the actual number of civilian casualties, always regrettable, has apparently been modest, thanks in large measure to many of the smart weapons systems whose funding and deployment the mainline denominations opposed.

Diplomatic solutions are almost always preferable to military solutions, yet one searches the position papers and press releases of mainline denominations in vain for any constructive solutions.  In a spirit of heroic evenhandedness, the NCC's general secretary-elect returned from the Middle East convinced there would be no peace in the region until all outstanding issues were resolved.  She therefore called for a regional peace conference under UN auspices to address not only the Gulf War but Israel's occupation of Palestine and the presence of foreign troops in Lebanon and Cyprus.  It is difficult to imagine a more ill-conceived strategy than lumping together four problems, each so far incapable of solution in its own right.  Not only would such an approach be a recipe for guaranteed failure, but it would give credence to Saddam Hussein's argument that his invasion of Kuwait was intended to strike a blow for the liberation of Palestine--a thin post-hoc rationalization that did not surface until several days after the Iraqi invasion.

Many mainline churches also tend to believe mistakenly that international law, diplomacy, and military power are contradictory, not complementary elements of any constructive diplomatic solution.  In a fashion remarkably similar to anti-war activists prior to World War II, they devote great attention to proclaiming lofty principles while giving relatively little thought to the tradeoffs, complexities, and hard choices involved in implementing these principles in a fallen world.  Even inherently defensive actions, such as the initial deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia to deter an Iraqi attack or the use of U.S. naval vessels to enforce the blockade, were criticized as dangerously escalating the crisis.  In a November resolution on the Gulf and Middle East Crisis, the NCC went on record opposing any sale or transfer of arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia as "morally irresponsible"--although these states faced the very real threat of an Iraqi attack.  Mainline Protestant thinking regarding the efficacy of the United Nations betrays similar confusion.  NCC calls to reduce American troop deployments in the Gulf "except those which might be required and explicitly recommended by the Security Council of the UN" are based upon unfounded assumptions regarding the UN's ability to function as an objective, apolitical body interested only in the common good.

Catholic theologians display a more sophisticated understanding of the interaction between power and diplomacy.  Writing in the liberal journal Commonweal, the Reverend J. Bryan Hehir argued that the initial deployment of forces in Saudi Arabia was "justified politically and morally" in that it forestalled war and provided time for diplomacy and economic sanctions to work.  Archbishop Mahony's letter acknowledged that a strong military presence can give credibility to a vigorous pursuit of non-violent solutions to the crisis, but expressed legitimate concern that the pressure to use military force may grow as the pursuit of non-violent options dragged on.

In the final assessment, the judgement of the mainline Protestant leadership regarding the morality of the Gulf War owes less to a carefully reasoned application of just war theory than to two deeper and more firmly held beliefs peculiar to the members who sit on the peace and justice committees of mainline Protestant denominations.

The first is an overwhelming sentiment against any use of force in international affairs.  A 1980 survey of United Methodist bishops, for example, revealed that 92.6 percent rejected the use of war as an instrument of national policy, even though the church itself remained committed to traditional just war doctrine.(2)  Similar views can be found in many denominations and find expression in a variety of outlets, such as the NCC's November 1990 resolution on the Gulf which warned that Christians must witness against "weak resignation to the illogical pursuit of militarism and war."

Mainline denominations have now formed de facto coalitions with traditional pacifist groups.  Eleven religious organizations recently united to form "Churches for Middle East Peace," a group that includes representatives from the American Friends Service Committee (the Quaker church's political action wing) and the Mennonite Central Committee as well as the NCC and several mainline denominations.  At the December press conference summarizing the results of the NCC's mission to the Middle East, mainline church representatives deferred the question of whether a Gulf War would satisfy traditional just war criteria to Jim Wallis, who asserted that these principles have not and cannot be met.  Wallis was essentially playing the role of a sheep in wolf's clothing.  Reporters were not told that, as a devout pacifist and the leader of the radical Sojourners community in Washington, DC, he had concluded long ago that every war is immoral.  Indeed, in 1980 he argued that the entire notion of a just war represents "a warped and twisted" view of Christian theology.

The second theme running throughout mainline thinking on the Persian Gulf War is a thinly disguised anti-American bias (or as the New York Times more elaborately put it, "a deep distrust of the United States' capacity to act constructively overseas").  Many clerics argue that, because of various sins of omission and commission, the United States lacks the necessary moral authority to address this crisis.  Others have advanced the notion of moral equivalency.  The General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist church, for example, released a statement on the Gulf that mourned the "questionable policies of all nations which would seek superiority over others."  Still others have placed primary responsibility for the conflict squarely upon the United States.  United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, who chaired the committee that drafted the NCC resolution on the Gulf, recently urged other bishops to demonstrate against American policy, arguing that the United States is the "real aggressor."(3)

Radical Councils, Pacifist Counsel

How did this shift away from traditional just war theory to a radical, pacifist position come about?  The answer to this question can be found in an interrelated series of theological, historical, demographic, and organizational developments that occurred during the 1960s.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, American Protestantism was dominated by the thinking of several leading theologians, including Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr.  These thinkers, and many of the classic Protestant understandings upon which their work was grounded, came under withering attack in the social turmoil of the 1960s.  In the wake of this assault, liberal seminaries, churches, and denominations found themselves adrift theologically.  No dominant figure emerged to provide coherence and vision, and many theologians and seminarians ceased to believe that systematic theology was either feasible or desirable.  A pronounced theological eclecticism sprang up that led to the fragmentation of theology or, more accurately, the creation of multiple "sub-theologies" catering to particular grievances.  Many of these theologies, such as liberation theology, feminist theology, black theology, and eco-theology, have borrowed heavily from secular progressive movements, and in some instances represent little more than an attempt to provide a spiritual component to distinctly non-theistic (or even atheist) concepts.

Much of the historical optimism that infuses these secular movements has found its way into mainline churches.  They have largely abandoned the "prophetic realism" of Reinhold Niebuhr, with its emphasis upon the fallen nature of humanity and the imperfectability of human institutions.  Instead, following the teaching of Jurgen Moltmann and others, they have come to embrace a "theology of hope" that views human nature as malleable.  Freed from the burden of reproducing the sins of its fathers, humanity is now capable of radically transforming itself.  As Moltmann noted in his 1969 book Religion, Revolution and the Future, the means of realizing this utopia could well be a violent revolution along Marxist lines.

Without going that far, many liberal churches remain convinced that humanity can be changed for the better by eliminating the roots of oppression.  Because of the historical experience of the 1960s, these roots have become closely associated in their thinking with American military, political, and economic institutions.

Until recently, church involvement within American politics was characterized by long periods of inactivity punctuated by occasional, frenetic crusades around particular issues.  Before World War II, only the Methodist church had established an office in Washington, and this was primarily intended to keep an eye on temperance issues.  Even as late as the 1960s, very few denominations maintained any presence in Washington or viewed it as their goal to influence social legislation.

The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War changed all this.  The successful mobilization of many churches on behalf of civil rights legislation convinced many religious leaders that mainline denominations could be an effective force in national politics.  At the same time, growing disillusionment with the war in Vietnam brought many clergy to reconsider their fundamental assumptions regarding America's role in the world.

Initially supportive of the war, mainline churches suddenly found themselves under attack as a part of the "establishment."  They watched their college and young adult membership decline precipitously.  Church leaders began to question the morality of the American position, and by 1967 many had shifted decisively against the war.  These sentiments intensified as the war dragged on.  By the early 1970s, the depth of the disillusionment many Protestant leaders felt towards American institutions and values was readily apparent.  The United Methodist church produced a study guide in 1975 that argued "Profit, military might, and alliances with power interests in the world" had made the United States "the hub of a vast network of `economic plunder.' " In 1979, an NCC task force concluded that the American legal system is designed "to suppress non-violent political dissent, to cope with social problems, and to provide cheap labor."  During that year, Methodist Bishop Dale White responded to the seizure of American hostages in Iran by noting that "all of us really, are hostages...to a vast political economic system of the cruelty structures which are preordaining that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

While churches and academic institutions were becoming more ideologically polarized and alienated from American political and economic institutions, attendance at many of the major seminaries shot up.  From 1964 to 1973, enrollment at Harvard Divinity School increased by a third, and other institutions posted similar gains.  War protesters sought refuge in the draft's education exemption clause, and other young men and women enrolled in search of values they felt were lacking elsewhere in American society.  Thus, many current pastors and denominational leaders spent their formative years in seminary at the height of the social unrest of the 1960s and retain much of the world view that they developed during this period.  A recent poll revealed that over half of the pastors of mainline denominations believe that the basic institutions of the United States need a complete overhaul.(4)

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many mainline churches underwent significant restructuring in which the central church organs were strengthened.  Liberals, who were generally more adept at church politics, obtained almost all of the key managerial appointments.

The Pulpit and the Pew

As a result, conservative mainstream churches are being led by liberal activist clergy.  Opinion surveys document the growing political gap between pulpit and pew.  The majority of mainline Protestant leaders have consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections: 80 percent voted for Humphrey in 1968, 74 percent voted for McGovern in 1972, and 79 percent voted for Carter in 1976.  The 1980 election provides a particularly useful point of comparison.  While 72 percent of mainline clergy voted for Carter, 69 percent of all Episcopalians voted for Reagan, as did 67 percent of all Presbyterians, 56 percent of all Lutherans, and 53 percent of all Methodists.(5)  One recent survey of seventeen Washington mainline church representatives revealed that ten placed themselves either at the same place as, or to the left of, Ted Kennedy; three placed themselves to the right of Kennedy; and three declined to answer the question.(6)

Many liberal seminaries and denominations preach a political orthodoxy of a particular left-wing variant.  Nowhere was this peculiar witness of mainline church leaders more evident than the March 1990 meeting of the World Council of Churches in Seoul, attended by liberal theologians and social activists from both North and South.  The delegates from Eastern Europe received only tepid support for their recent democratic revolutions.  Stony silence greeted the only participants--a Russian Orthodox leader from Moscow and a Hungarian theologian--who suggested that market economics had virtues as well as vices.

Many pastors would argue that because theirs is a prophetic role, they should not be bound by the atavistic norms and prejudices of their parishioners.  Ministers are indeed called upon to provide both solace and leadership to their flocks--to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted."  Like Burkean representatives, they owe their charges not only their industry but their judgement.

Yet it is disingenuous for national religious bodies or the leaders who represent them to purport to speak as one voice when their membership would not support them or is deeply divided over a critical issue.  To do so compromises the authenticity of the church's witness and in essence dooms it to irrelevance.  As a leading historian of American Protestantism noted, "Everyone knows that when the mainline churches take a position, it is only six people in a room on Riverside Drive" (the headquarters of the NCC and several mainline denominations in New York).(7)

There is no tradition of infallibility within the Protestant church.  In both the Old and New Testaments, many of the prophets were false.  Although leaders of the former mainstream churches speak passionately, and sometimes eloquently, they bear witness to ideologies and traditions that most American Christians rightly reject.  Anti-Americanism is not a useful paradigm for U.S. policy-makers who turn to the church for moral guidance.  Pacifism is a noble heritage and unquestionably based on selected biblical principles.  But it is by no means the only authoritative Christian voice and, as an absolutist philosophy, it is not very useful for statesmen who must craft policy in a fallen world.  Peace is clearly an important biblical goal, and Christians should be slow to respond to cries for the use of force.  Yet peace must be tempered with justice, which in turn must be evaluated in a more balanced and objective fashion than has recently been the case with many Protestant peace and justice committees.  Until mainline denominations are willing to undertake this task, we may be wise to heed Jeremiah's warning against false prophets who cry " `peace, peace' when there is no peace."

Robert P. Beschel, Jr., a consultant for the Carnegie and Ford Foundations, is an adjunct fellow at Harvard's Center for Science and International Affairs.  Peter D. Feaver, an assistant professor of political science at Duke University, is a post-doctoral fellow at Ohio State University's Mershon Center.

1.  "The Crisis in the Persian Gulf and `just wars,' " Commentary: The Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, December 21, 1990.

2.  James Foyle Miller, A Study of United Methodists and Social Issues (General Council on Ministries, United Methodist church) 1983, pp. 8-9.

3.  See Lawrence E. Adams and Fredrick P. Jones, "Are These Angels Really Heralds of Peace?" Religion & Democracy (February 1991).

4.  Robert Lerner, Stanley Rothman, and S. Robert Lichter, "Christian Religious Elites," Public Opinion (March/April 1989), p. 56.

5.  See Lerner, Rothman, and Lichter, p. 56.  Data on denominational voting is from the University of Michigan's 1980 National Election Survey, cited in A. James Reichley, Religion In American Public Life (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985), p. 273.

6.  See Reichley, p. 276.

7.  Martin Marty, interview with A. James Reichley, February 19, 1982.  See Reichley, p. 280.