Today’s
Scripture Reading (May 16, 2017): Jeremiah 51
“Now I will
tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War
makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent
people.” The words belong to Ben Ferencz who holds the title of being “The Last
Living Nazi War Crimes Prosecutor.” The implication is terrifying. There is no
defense against War Crimes. All conflicts will produce them, no matter how good
might be the people involved. For Ben Ferencz, the reality is that a natural
outgrowth of the various Nazi War Crimes Tribunals is that they have convicted decent
men who did something terrible.
Personally, I
struggle with how far we have taken the prosecution of war crimes, especially
Nazi War Crimes. There is no doubt that those at the top of the chains of
command needed to pay for their crimes. But now, when it comes to Nazi trials
that have grown out of World War II, it seems that we have no one left to
prosecute other than those who were victimized
in a very different way – those who never killed, but stood aside and did nothing
as others killed. Men and women who were
scared to death that if they spoke up, they would find themselves prisoners of
a concentration camp or could even be put to death for their treason of not
following orders. Morally, there is no doubt that they too are guilty, but at some
point, we have to acknowledge that we may
have done the same thing if we were
forced to stand in their shoes. And many, at least those among Ben Ferencz’s
decent people, pay a price every day for
the things that they did not do to help those who were being killed. No court can absolve them or punish them more than
they have already been punished. Maybe, for
the last of these war criminals, now all in their nineties, it is time to stand
up and say, “Yes, you are guilty, but the matter ends here. We are not going to
prosecute; we are going to forgive.” It
is far easier not to forgive, but easy is
not the path that we need to follow.
Violence always
begets violence, even when that violence is done to enforce the morality of the
society. It has always been that way. God’s words to Jeremiah, “I will stir up
a destroyer” is actually a good
description of how the world works. Assyria did violence to the world in which
she lived. Babylon received the violence and in the end passed it on to Assyria
and the rest of the Near East. Babylon’s violence
would result in a destroyer being stirred up to react against Babylon, this
time it would be a Persian response. Persian violence would stir up a destroyer from Greece, and Greek violence
would stir up a destroyer from among the Romans.
In the last century,
we have watched the same principle over and over again. German violence in World War I stirred up a destroyer from
among the France, the United States and British Commonwealth. The violence of these powers set the stage for
Hitler who once again brought German violence
to the international arena. German
violence stirred up the destroyers of the countries we consider to be the
Super-Powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, now Russia. The reaction
to these powers has stirred up a
destroyer from among the Islamic nations. At some point, we have to be able to stand up as a world community and say
enough. There can be no more violence if our fragile planet is to survive. Because
even violence of a moral nature just stirs up another destroyer, and that we
just can’t afford.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Lamentations
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