Mennonites and War

[JohnH]

Are you saying that God does not judge nation states for their actions? Or that all nation states are judged the same way?

In the rapist scenario, the victim, the policeman, and the perpetrator are all human beings, but their roles in the situation are not the same. I do not think God sees them as morally equivalent. I think the same holds for nations.

The Bible says each man will be judged according to his deeds.

I don’t see the Bible really talking much about the modern nation-state at all.

You're right that the Bible doesn’t speak directly to modern nation-states as we understand them today. But it speaks a lot about empires, kings, and what happens when those in power use violence, exploit the weak, or place their trust in chariots instead of God.

Which is why I’m quite skeptical of the American empire and do not immediately agree it’s right and its enemies are wrong.

[ken_sylvania]

I would recommend to President Zelensky that he repent and believe the Gospel, and turn away from clinging to power as a ruler of this world. I would recommend to President Trump that he repent of his sins, beg God for forgiveness, and practice purity, honesty, holiness and amendment of life.

Ken, can I ask—do you think either of them is likely to actually do what you're recommending? Or is this more of a hypothetical to clarify your convictions?

I ask because I often wonder what faithfulness looks like when we’re not speaking to Caesar, but to one another. Most of us don’t have a platform to call world leaders to repentance. But we do have the calling to live faithfully ourselves, to bear witness to the Kingdom, and to care for those wounded by the powers of this world.

I don't expect to talk to Zelensky or Trump. So yes, in that sense you could call it a hypothetical. It's not a hypothetical to clarify what my convictions are, though. It's a description of what God is calling these men to - it's what obedience to Jesus Christ demands, and the only way to be saved.
If we believe what God says about what we must do to be saved, I cannot understand why we would spend time and energy trying to quantify who in this whole conflict is the biggest sinner. If we believe what God says, Putin, Zelensky, Trump and Biden are all unrepentant sinners who will face eternal judgement if they don't repent.

I don't think that we have a responsibility to call out every sin and injustice we see in the world, but when I see professing Christians object to calling out certain sins because other people are sinning greater sins, I think that they have a compromised understanding of what is required for salvation.

I think that our calling is to speak to those we interact with personally, encouraging the righteous to faithfulness, exhort the sinners to repent, share the truth with those who do not know it, minister to physical needs where we can, and so forth.

[Bootstrap]

I don't expect to talk to Zelensky or Trump. So yes, in that sense you could call it a hypothetical. It's not a hypothetical to clarify what my convictions are, though. It's a description of what God is calling these men to - it's what obedience to Jesus Christ demands, and the only way to be saved.

Ken, I appreciate your clarity and your desire to call all people—high or low—to repentance and obedience to Christ. That’s essential.

But I’m still wondering how this became a conversation with world leaders like Zelensky or Trump. The original post wasn’t addressed to them. It was written to us—as a Christian community, many of us from Anabaptist traditions—to reflect on how we talk about war, violence, and moral clarity in light of our shared convictions.

Here’s the section I think you’re responding to:

As Mennonites, we don't believe in "just war" theory. We don't divide wars into good ones and bad ones, or believe that violence becomes righteous if the cause is. We’re called to a different path—to reject violence, even when others see it as justified.

But that doesn’t mean we pretend all violence is equal. Saying Russia and Ukraine are two sides of the same coin is like saying Hamas and Israeli civilians on October 7 were two sides of the same coin. In both cases, one side carried out a brutal and unjustified attack; the other was attacked. That doesn't make the victims—or their governments—blameless. But it does mean the situations aren’t morally equivalent.

The same goes for Gaza now. Hamas committed atrocities. So has the Israeli military. Thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed—many of them children. That should break our hearts. We don't need to excuse or justify any side to grieve the victims or call the violence what it is: evil.

Refusing to participate in war doesn’t mean refusing to name wrongdoing. It means refusing to join the cycle. We can condemn all violence without pretending all sides are the same. And we can mourn every victim without denying the difference between an aggressor and the attacked.

The point here wasn’t to excuse any government, or to suggest that salvation comes apart from Christ. It was to say that as Christians—especially those serving in ministries that walk alongside prisoners, victims, or refugees—we often need moral clarity in order to serve well. That includes naming injustice and recognizing who is suffering and why.

For example:

• If I’m ministering to refugees who have come to our country, I need to know who fled, who was attacked, and who attacked them. That’s not to justify any side politically—but to understand their trauma and offer meaningful help.
• If I’m visiting prisoners here at home, their crimes matter. Most are not innocent victims, though they are clearly made in God's image and beloved.
• If I’m working with victims of rape or abuse, I need to name the violence for what it is.

Ministries should be careful not to blame the victim. But they should also work to help perpetrators take responsibility for their wrongdoing.

If we believe what God says about what we must do to be saved, I cannot understand why we would spend time and energy trying to quantify who in this whole conflict is the biggest sinner.

That’s fair—but to me, this isn’t about tallying sins. It’s about compassion. We’re called to serve the oppressed and the vulnerable. And to do that well, we sometimes have to identify who is being crushed and who is doing the crushing.

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat… I was a stranger and you did not invite me in…” (Matthew 25:42–43)

That’s part of the Gospel too—the part we live out when we walk alongside the wounded, the displaced, and the forgotten.

We do not walk alongside perpetrators and oppressors in the same way. We can love them, call them to repentance, and pray for their redemption—but we don’t confuse their position with that of their victims. To serve the oppressed rightly, we must be willing to name oppression.

[Bootstrap]

Which is why I’m quite skeptical of the American empire and do not immediately agree it’s right and its enemies are wrong.

John, I don’t think anyone here has claimed the American empire is righteous or that its enemies are automatically evil. That’s a strawman—and I think you know that.

When we raise concerns about military invasion, torture, or the crushing of civilians, it’s not because we’ve decided one global power is “the good guys.” It’s because we believe all violence is subject to God’s judgment, and some actions—whoever commits them—are clearly evil.

Naming specific injustices doesn’t mean endorsing anyone’s empire. It means bearing truthful witness.

[barnhart]

Boot, I get the impression this thread is less about clarifying the Mennonite approach to war and more about your view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[Bootstrap]

Boot, I get the impression this thread is less about clarifying the Mennonite approach to war and more about your view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Actually, I really do think this is about the Mennonite approach to war, not mainly about any one war.

My concern isn’t just about the Russian invasion of Ukraine — that’s only one example. In fact, there are other examples in the original post, this is just the one people seem to be picking up on. What really troubles me is a recurring pattern I’ve noticed, especially among some Mennonites, of describing both sides in a conflict as if they’re morally equivalent, “two sides of the same coin.” This seems to be related to their view of Two Kingdom Theology and war in ways that I don't understand.

Ukraine happens to be one situation where I hear this a lot, but I’ve seen the same framing applied in other conflicts too. My strong reaction is to that equivalence itself, not to any one particular war.

Of course, there certainly are wars where the two sides are morally equivalent. That's not what I'm talking about. To me, Nicaragua and El Salvador was a good example of that.

To me, it’s like treating a rapist, the police officer who arrests them, and the victim as though they are all morally the same. That kind of framing creates false equivalencies and encourages us to ignore very real differences in responsibility and justice.

[ken_sylvania]

I don't expect to talk to Zelensky or Trump. So yes, in that sense you could call it a hypothetical. It's not a hypothetical to clarify what my convictions are, though. It's a description of what God is calling these men to - it's what obedience to Jesus Christ demands, and the only way to be saved.

Ken, I appreciate your clarity and your desire to call all people—high or low—to repentance and obedience to Christ. That’s essential.

But I’m still wondering how this became a conversation with world leaders like Zelensky or Trump. The original post wasn’t addressed to them. It was written to us—as a Christian community, many of us from Anabaptist traditions—to reflect on how we talk about war, violence, and moral clarity in light of our shared convictions.

Here’s the section I think you’re responding to:

As Mennonites, we don't believe in "just war" theory. We don't divide wars into good ones and bad ones, or believe that violence becomes righteous if the cause is. We’re called to a different path—to reject violence, even when others see it as justified.

But that doesn’t mean we pretend all violence is equal. Saying Russia and Ukraine are two sides of the same coin is like saying Hamas and Israeli civilians on October 7 were two sides of the same coin. In both cases, one side carried out a brutal and unjustified attack; the other was attacked. That doesn't make the victims—or their governments—blameless. But it does mean the situations aren’t morally equivalent.

The same goes for Gaza now. Hamas committed atrocities. So has the Israeli military. Thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed—many of them children. That should break our hearts. We don't need to excuse or justify any side to grieve the victims or call the violence what it is: evil.

Refusing to participate in war doesn’t mean refusing to name wrongdoing. It means refusing to join the cycle. We can condemn all violence without pretending all sides are the same. And we can mourn every victim without denying the difference between an aggressor and the attacked.

The point here wasn’t to excuse any government, or to suggest that salvation comes apart from Christ. It was to say that as Christians—especially those serving in ministries that walk alongside prisoners, victims, or refugees—we often need moral clarity in order to serve well. That includes naming injustice and recognizing who is suffering and why.

If you want to know what section I was responding to, one way to get a good idea would be to go back and read what I quoted in my first comment in this thread. Here's a link to make it easier for you. viewtopic.php?p=279520#p279520

You're saying the two sides are not morally equivalent, which feels correct - but I'm not sure how correct that is. You're suggesting that we are treating the abuser and the victim the same - but the victim who kills his abuser isn't just a victim, he's also a perpetrator of violence. When we say that both the invading soldier who kills his enemies and the defending soldier who kills his enemies both need to repent, it's because both of them are violating Christ's commandment. For some reason, you seem determined that defensive warfare should not be criticized, and I cannot understand why. You say that for conscience sake you couldn't be in charge of government, which suggests that you know in your heart that wielding the levers of government is sinful, yet you're unable or unwilling to call out that out as sin. To me it seems like horrible muddled mess of moral contradictions.

[mike]

This discussion is a good illustration of the general difference between the way conservative and liberal Anabaptists treat the subject of war, and really, involvement with government in general.

[Neto]

Regarding violence between individuals (not nations), something I hear a lot is that "Hurting people hurt other people." In that sense, perhaps most perpetrators of violence are victims as well, just involving different instances or crimes. I think it is helpful to consider that when dealing with people who are guilty of violent crimes.

(My mind goes to the one really up-close interaction I have had with a murderer. I had known both him and the one he killed since they were young children. After the killing, I worked with the guilty man to get him to turn himself into the authorities, and at one point I had my arm around him. Is it wrong to show compassion to a killer? Treating him otherwise seems to me to be, in some way, wasting the death of the other. I could not bring him back, although I would have wanted to. But I like to think that perhaps showing compassion to the killer may have 'saved his soul'. He was/is also loved by God. He was also a victim of the abusive talk of his mother, and her lack of compassion and caring for him when he was a young boy. I had seen all of that, and had tried to show concern for him in daily interactions before the terrible event that ended a life, and changed his forever.)

Some years ago I had a sudden thought that a certain public figure might be the AntiChrist. My emotional response really surprised me. I plead with God to draw that man back from that path. (Now I am again having that same thought about the same person - but not that I have ever really thought that these 'end times events' would be in my life time. It's all rather weird.)

[barnhart]

Boot, I get the impression this thread is less about clarifying the Mennonite approach to war and more about your view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Actually, I really do think this is about the Mennonite approach to war, not mainly about any one war.

My concern isn’t just about the Russian invasion of Ukraine — that’s only one example. In fact, there are other examples in the original post, this is just the one people seem to be picking up on. What really troubles me is a recurring pattern I’ve noticed, especially among some Mennonites, of describing both sides in a conflict as if they’re morally equivalent, “two sides of the same coin.” This seems to be related to their view of Two Kingdom Theology and war in ways that I don't understand.

Ukraine happens to be one situation where I hear this a lot, but I’ve seen the same framing applied in other conflicts too. My strong reaction is to that equivalence itself, not to any one particular war.

Of course, there certainly are wars where the two sides are morally equivalent. That's not what I'm talking about. To me, Nicaragua and El Salvador was a good example of that.

To me, it’s like treating a rapist, the police officer who arrests them, and the victim as though they are all morally the same. That kind of framing creates false equivalencies and encourages us to ignore very real differences in responsibility and justice.

I think there have been times when Mennonites offered more care, support and compassion for repentant sex offenders than for their victims. This has troubled me, it feels like a double victimization. Sometimes hard consequences are part of affirming the value of the victim and the sinfulness of the offence.

Maybe something similar could happen on a national level, I don't know... Acting as if the victims of invasion are the moral equivalent of the invaders does does down play sin. But I still don't see a need for statements about such things.