Reflections on killing for the hell of it on March, 09, 2005 |
Last month [February, 2005], Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis famously said, "Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot…It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling…You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil…You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
Marine Corps Commandant General Mike Hagee, wishes Mattis had chosen his words more carefully. World Magazine columnist Gene Edward Veith, on the other hand, concluded that: "As in other vocations, so in the military, there is nothing wrong with enjoying one's work."
To Dr. Vieth, Martin Marty poses a few questions:
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If a Christian believes that humans are made in the image of God, should it be "a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them"?
World Wars I and II, and many other wars, had Christian fighting Christian, sometimes because they were drafted to do so against their will. If a Christian believes that another Christian is a child of God, should it be a "hell of a lot of fun to shoot" and kill him?
If a Christian is an evangelical -- like those to whom World magazine is directed -- and he must kill someone who is as yet unevangelized, thus cutting short his potential for salvation, should it be a "hell of a lot of fun" to shoot him?
If a Christian is a grandson, son, father, husband, brother who knows that survivors of his killed counterpart will suffer all their lives because of his necessary act of killing, should it still be a "hell of a lot of fun" to shoot him?
If a Christian is to pay special attention to the weak, and he decides that someone "ain't got no manhood left anyway," should he do Darwin's work and eliminate the unworthy, taking a "hell of a lot of fun" in doing it?
Can the unconvinced -- and I don't mean just the "What Would Jesus Do"-types -- at least ask how finding it a "hell of a lot of fun to shoot" those who "ain't got no manhood" squares in any way with "love your enemies"?
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It just startles me what people who claim to know something about God are willing to put their name to in 2005.
So, with a line from someone who didn't claim to know much about God, I'm out:
"When I began as a prayerful student to study Christian literature in South Africa in 1893, I asked myself again and again, ‘Is this Christianity?’ And I could only say, ‘No, no. Certainly this that I see is not Christianity.’ And the deepest in me tells me that I was right; for it was unworthy of Jesus and untrue to the Sermon on the Mount."
Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas: Including Selections from His Writings, C. F. Andrews; pp93-95 The Macmillan Company, 1930
