Whither Witherington?

Ben Witherington has written a favorable review of Spielberg’s new movie “Munich.” This leads Witherington to venture some comments on warfare generally, and the “war on terror” in particular:

“Secondly, clearly enough the intention of much terrorism is simply to create terror in the heart of one's enemy, so they will enormously over-react, spending money, time, energy, manpower in defensive maneuvers to try and protect one's self from further acts of terror. When one responds in fear like this, the terrorists have already won. It is a good question whether this describes the American response to 9-11. Are we really that much safer with all the billions we have spent since 2001 on airport security and the like? Or would we have been better served pouring the money into eliminating the root causes of terrorism-- injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, lack of a safe homeland in the Middle East, and the like? There are no easy answers to these questions. And what about a Biblical perspective on terrorism in general and vengeance taking in particular? I will leave you with one thought.”

i) I’m all for a Biblical perspective on terrorism. But what Witherington has written could have been torn from the pages of the New York Times. How does it reflect a Biblical perspective on terrorism to parrot the way in which the liberal secular news media has chosen to frame the debate?

ii) Have we overreacted? Maybe, maybe not. But in what sense have the terrorists won if we fight back?

Does he apply this same reasoning to, say, medical science? If my body is attacked by cancer, and I fight back by undergoing cancer therapy, has the cancer won?

If a region is prone to flooding, and residents combat the problem by taking flood-control measures (e.g., dikes and drainage systems), has the flood won?

This mindless mouthing of other men’s slogans hardly represents a prophetic voice.

iii) The reason airport security is still a joke is because men like Witherington resort to pop sociological theories rather than taking the enemy at his word.

iv) In general, it is arguable that we are safer. When you drive terrorist networks out of their safe havens, pick off high-ranking members of their command structure, dry up their sources of funding, and monitor their communications, surely that does make us safer than if we were doing none of the above.

v) Why does Witherington assume that the root-cause of terrorism is “injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, lack of a safe homeland in the Middle East, and the like?”

Are those the reasons the terrorists give? Witherington is one of those men who writes about people, and presumes to speak on behalf of others, without bothering to listen to what they themselves are telling us.

vi) Why should American workers be forking over their hard-earned wages to Arabs? Does Witherington think that the paycheck of a middle class American is just play money? That he doesn’t need this to live on and provide for his family?

“I was busy writing a commentary on Matthew when I got to the famous passage in Matthew 18 when Peter asks Jesus how many times must he forgive someone who sins against him. Peter doubtless saw himself as being generous when he said--- seven times, which in Hebrew numerology stands for completion or perfection. Jesus responds by saying not seven times but seven times 70 (or possibly 77 times)-- in other words, continually, as many times as it takes.”

For a skilled commentator, this is remarkably poor exegesis:

i) Peter didn’t ask Jesus how many times he must forgive “someone” who sins against him. Rather, he asked him about a “brother.” A fellow believer.

ii) Moreover, Mt 18 doesn’t teach unconditional forgiveness. It explicitly distinguishes between the treatment accorded to a penitent offender and an impenitent offender.

iii) It is not authorizing third-party forgiveness. Rather, the offended party has the obligation, assuming other conditions are met (a penitent fellow believer), to forgive the offender.

This doesn’t mean that I have the right, much less the obligation, to forgive the killers of the 9/11 victims, or the killers of our soldiers in Iraq. They didn’t wrong me personally. I’m not the injured party. I’m not a surviving family member.

‘This is of course an ethic for the followers of Jesus, not for governments, but still it is a remarkable ethic since the OT is famous for saying "an eye for eye....". It is even more remarkable when one realizes that Jesus is deliberately inverting Gen. 4.24 when Lamech says that if Cain was avenged seven times, he would be avenged 77 times. Jesus' ethic involves stopping the cycle of violence and revenge by forgiveness. Instead of payback, it is a matter of paying it forward, and trying to build a new healed situation. This, unfortunately is not an ethic "Munich" mentions even in passing. Instead, the movie ends with Avner with his family but always looking over his shoulder, and deeply troubled by what he has done. Rightly so--- as the Bible says "vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay". Those humans who sow the wind, will one day reep the whirlwind. Let us all ponder these things.’

i) Why does Witherington cast the issue in terms of revenge? The war on terror is not an act of revenge? Rather, it is an act of national self-defense.

ii) How would forgiveness break the “cycle of violence”? If we forgave all the jihadis, would they lay down their arms?

iii) Is Witherington so ignorant of history as to suppose that the use of force never breaks the cycle of violence? To take a stock example, WWII broke the cycle of violence, did it not? No more Third Reich. No more imperial Japan.

“I can conceive of seeing a war like WWII as a lesser of several evils, though I do not think war should ever be glorified. There have however been no wars of this sort in my lifetime so far as I can see, that meet the criteria of 'just war' theory.”

It may be that no war in our lifetime fully satisfies just war criteria. Let us remember that just war criteria were formulated by theologians, not by generals. Maybe we need to revise just-war criteria.

“I have however been on record as saying there are many things worth dying for, but few if anything worth killing for when you are a follower of Jesus. After all, love your enemies can't be construed to ever mean 'love them to death at the point of a gun'. "Thou shalt not kill/murder" is after all a commandment even in the OT.”

This is an amazingly inept argument:

i) Witherington is an Arminian. He believes that God loves everyone. Indeed, that God loves everyone equally. Yet God kills people all the time.

ii) The Mosaic Law had provisions for holy war as well as 18 capital offenses.

iii) The problem is that you can’t be equally loving to everyone. You can’t be equally loving to the child and the child rapist. If you love the child, you must protect the child from the child-rapist.

“ I agree with Merton that I personally would much rather suffer violence than being guilty of the sin of perpetrating it.”

This begs the question of whether an act of violence is always a sin.

“And to Q, I understand the distinction you want to make in regard to counter-terrorism. You may want to call it a lesser evil, but it is still evil.”

This is very confused. When we talk about the lesser of two evils, that doesn’t mean the lesser of two wrongs or the lesser of two sins.

“I think what Jesus requires of his disciples is one thing, public policy another. The individual Christian will have to decide then whether being a soldier or a policeman is compatible with being a follower of someone who instituted an ethic of non-violence and forgiveness. In my case, I don't think it is compatible. Furthermore, I don't believe there is such a thing as a just war, just more and less injustice.”

i) A Christian shouldn’t be a policeman or own a gun? How is it loving to my family to let a rapist break into my home and stand by as he forces himself upon my wife and kids?

ii) Is a military intervention to prevent genocide or a war of liberation to free a brutalized populace an act of injustice?

“Three things--- in the case of the response to Munich, the Israelis first killed 200 innocent Palestinians in a refuge camp in Lebanon BEFORE they went after the terrorists. There is no way you can justify this, even with a proportional response theory.

If I recall the historical allusion, it was Lebanese Christians, not Israeli soldiers, who killed the refugees.

“Thirdly, it is by now clear that Iraq had nothing to do with what happened on 9-11. Remember Osama ben Laden? He does not reside in Iraq. And by the way we found no weapons of mass destruction or any of the perpetrators of 9-11 in Iraq.”

i) Can Witherington quote any member of Bush’s war cabinet who predicated the Iraq war on a direct connection with 9/11? Was WMD the sole reason for going to war?

All you have to do is Google the Congressional war resolution to learn about the official causus belli. Witherington does a lot of research for his commentaries. Is it asking too much that he mouse over to the White House website and familiarize himself with the primary source documents, available online, before he forms his opinions?

ii) BTW, the fact that we didn’t find WMD doesn’t mean they weren’t there before the war. Saddam had 4 months’ lead time to spirit the incriminating evidence out of the country. Were we looking in the right place? What about across the border?

iii) This is not a personal vendetta against bin Laden. Rather, this is a counteroffensive against global jihad.

iv) One of the arguments for war was to drain the swamp, to dry up state sponsors of terrorism. It’s a preemptive war, remember? To prevent the next 9/11.

Witherington may or may not agree with that strategy, but he could at least address himself to the real argument instead of burning down straw men.

It is really inexcusable for intellectuals like Witherington to be so clueless.

This is a developing story which we are seeing in real time. We enjoy saturation coverage. Moreover, every public speech and news story has been archived. You can pull up the record at the click of a mouse.

If Witherington is that ignorant about public events unfolding before his very eyes, for which we have an abundance of documentation, it does make you wonder how reliable he is at reconstructing the past from the scanty state of the evidence.

I say this as someone who is not a big time fan of the Iraq war. But let us at least get our facts straight.