Watching Christians Celebrate Killing
Five hundred years ago, Desiderius Erasmus hoped that someday Christian leaders would help create a more peaceful world by thoughtfully applying their faith to questions of war. It’s safe to say he would not be encouraged by the leaked group chat featuring top Trump officials discussing airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
There’s been a great deal of reflection within Christian traditions, especially in the last century, about whether Christianity is more consistent with just-war theory (the view that Christians may resort to war under certain conditions) or some version of pacifism (the view that no war is consistent with the Gospel). But a rare glimpse of actual Christians in power making actual decisions about actual warfare revealed just how little they care about any of it. Instead, it exemplified how Christian leaders use empty religious gestures as window dressing for war-making.
True, not everyone who was in the chat is a Christian, but most are—including some who have claimed their religious beliefs guide their public service. Several even invoked their faith during the attacks on Yemenis. After detailing the sequence of planned bombing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote, “Godspeed to our Warriors.” (This seems consistent with his collection of tattoos that are commonly understood to celebrate religious warfare against Muslims.) Vice President J. D. Vance wrote, “I will say a prayer for victory.” And after the attack, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles wrote, “God bless.”
The chat’s language of “strike packages” and “targets” should not obscure that these Christians were hurriedly group-texting—with familiar crosstalk, loose grammar, dropped threads, and “typing too fast” apologies—about killing people. How many people? It’s hard to say, since war is one of those things that kills so many anonymous people that it’s difficult to keep accurate count. In that day’s bombing, it’s likely that more than fifty were killed, while twice as many were seriously wounded. Many were civilians, including children. In daily bombing over the following week, dozens more civilians, including additional children, died. Few noted this until after the chat leaked.
Even Christian doctrines that permit war demand respecting the distinction between combatants and noncombatants. Pope John Paul II (who Vance had just praised in a major speech) often lamented how war “destroys the lives of innocent people” and that so “many of the world’s children are innocent victims of war.” Those in the chat expressed no concern about dead civilians. They did have concerns about helping out Europeans, fuel prices, messaging, and timing. Vance even wrote, “And if there are things we can do upfront to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities we should do it.” No mention of minimizing civilian deaths or the deaths of children crushed by collapsed buildings.
Even Christian doctrines that permit war demand that it be undertaken with regret given the death and suffering it brings to those God loves and whom he commands his followers to love as well. There was no such sense of regret among Christians in the chat. Before the attacks, there was no sorrow over the killing that the group was planning. But afterward, when informed that the first residential building had been destroyed, reactions among the Christian participants ranged from “Excellent” to “a good start” to “Good job Pete and your team!!” to “CENTCOM was/is on point. Great job all” to “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great” to a series of celebratory emojis posted by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz. It reads more like a marketing team nailing a pitch meeting than a group coordinating large-scale human killing.
Finally, even Christian doctrines that permit war demand that its death and destruction be outweighed by its benefits. When Vance typed “I will say a prayer for victory” (Jesus, of course, instructed His followers in Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27-28 to say a very different kind of prayer), it’s worth wondering if anyone in this group of people who run American foreign policy have reflected on what counts as victory. Other than a vague need to “send a message” there is no indication that anyone in the chat ever wondered if killing people with airstrikes actually accomplishes anything. Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel have been bombing the Houthis for a decade now without meaningful effect. The Houthis have been bombing ships in the Red Sea and launching missiles at Israel itself, trying to force Israel to change its actions in Gaza, also with no effect. Same for Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks. Zooming out, the last several decades have seen a seemingly endless cycle of countries launching airstrikes against each other and non-state groups, killing lots of people but almost never actually changing how the targets act. Indeed, the few studies we have of whether this kind of military action actually works confirm that it almost never changes state and non-state behavior. So attacks like those planned in the chat almost always compound the moral tragedy of innocent people dying with the moral bankruptcy of their dying for nothing.
It almost makes one wonder: If self-proclaimed Christians act in such manifestly un-Christian ways when deciding who lives and who dies, then what’s the point of Christianity?
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