God Redeems Nations and Persons

For years, it was a cliché to remark that President Donald Trump was an isolationist who “hates war.” For Christians, this would seem to be an unambiguously positive description of the president’s motives. After all, Jesus said, “[A]ll who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 26:52) and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matt 5:9). While a good instinct in many ways, it’s also true that Christianity has a long history of thought related to the ethics of when and how war can be waged. The Old Testament in particular has a rich tradition of realist statecraft, where the use of force is an inescapable element of political leadership in ancient Israel. Yet, especially in combination with a postnationalism that questions nations as worth preserving, the tendency to read Christ’s words as an exhortation to pacifism or effectively pacifism reflects a kind of functional Marcionism.