Bryan Fischer
Staying out of Syria is the Christian thing to do
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
For moral, ethical and biblical reasons, the United States should not drop bombs on Syria.
To cross Syria's boundary, a country which has not attacked us, is to show a profound lack of respect for its national sovereignty. Had Syria attacked us, we would of course have the moral right to use whatever military force is necessary to neutralize the threat to our own sovereignty. But absent the moral justification of self-defense, we have no right to be there.
The Scriptures are clear that the boundaries of the world's nations are established by God (Acts 17:26), and those boundaries should only be crossed either by permission of the host country or in self-defense as a response to a military attack. The government of Syria has certainly not invited us in, nor has the government of Syria attacked us. We have no national interest at stake in Syria, and no ethical justification to invade.
As 9/11 so horrifically illustrated, we do not want foreign armies or militants crossing our borders, no matter how just their cause may be in their own eyes. The Golden Rule would dictate that we show the same courtesy to the other nations of the world.
This, of course, is not to say that what is going on Syria, the use of chemical weapons to gas innocent civilians, is not a humanitarian catastrophe. It is. But the same folks arguing with such urgency for immediate bombing runs showed no compassion when the first 100,000 victims fell through conventional means. Where is the moral consistency here? Dead is still dead, whether it's a bullet to the brain or a toxin to the nerve system.
And at this point, we do not have the smoking gun that even proves which side used these neurotoxins. There is as much, if not more, reason to believe the militant Islamic rebels gassed their own people as there is to believe that Assad is behind it. It is impulsively premature to act absent clear and convincing proof.
But the reality is that even if we know who is responsible, we still have no right to intervene. Syria is wrapped up in a brutal civil war, and the Syrian people are the ones who are going to have to resolve this, just as we were forced to do with our own Civil War.
Not every humanitarian crisis in the world demands a military response from the United States. The number of such crises around the world is virtually unlimited at any point in time, especially in Muslim countries with 1400 years of Sunni-Shia tension feeding contemporary atrocities. We simply do not have the resources, let alone the moral right, to stop and frisk the entire world.
There is also the matter that every time we have intervened in Muslim countries, we, as a Christian nation, have made things worse for the Christian minorities who live in those countries. We intervened in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of Christians have since been forced to flee. Tragically, the Christian church had more protection under Saddam than under the flag of the United States.
We intervened in Afghanistan, and on our watch the last church in that godforsaken land closed its doors in 2010. We intervened in Egypt to topple Mubarak, who provided a certain level of protection for Christians, and Coptic Christians have since come under relentless assault from Muslim fundamentalists, who actually graffiti Christian homes and businesses with red "X"es so that the militants know which structures are to be burned to the ground.
We are now intervening in Syria in an effort to weaken Assad, who without question is a brutal dictator. And yet were you to ask the Christians in Syria (which has had a Christian presence since the days of the apostle Paul), they would tell you they much prefer Assad to the Muslim goons who will replace him if the rebels are successful. We've just read this week of a rebel attack targeted at a Christian village, resulting in the beheading of priests. It would be one thing if our interventions in these benighted lands were doing any good, but they are resulting in actual harm to the locals who share our Christian heritage.
The sad, tragic reality is that because Islam is a religion of darkness and death, there are no good guys to back in Syria.
Bottom line: we should just stay out of Syria. It is the Christian thing to do.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
September 7, 2013
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
For moral, ethical and biblical reasons, the United States should not drop bombs on Syria.
To cross Syria's boundary, a country which has not attacked us, is to show a profound lack of respect for its national sovereignty. Had Syria attacked us, we would of course have the moral right to use whatever military force is necessary to neutralize the threat to our own sovereignty. But absent the moral justification of self-defense, we have no right to be there.
The Scriptures are clear that the boundaries of the world's nations are established by God (Acts 17:26), and those boundaries should only be crossed either by permission of the host country or in self-defense as a response to a military attack. The government of Syria has certainly not invited us in, nor has the government of Syria attacked us. We have no national interest at stake in Syria, and no ethical justification to invade.
As 9/11 so horrifically illustrated, we do not want foreign armies or militants crossing our borders, no matter how just their cause may be in their own eyes. The Golden Rule would dictate that we show the same courtesy to the other nations of the world.
This, of course, is not to say that what is going on Syria, the use of chemical weapons to gas innocent civilians, is not a humanitarian catastrophe. It is. But the same folks arguing with such urgency for immediate bombing runs showed no compassion when the first 100,000 victims fell through conventional means. Where is the moral consistency here? Dead is still dead, whether it's a bullet to the brain or a toxin to the nerve system.
And at this point, we do not have the smoking gun that even proves which side used these neurotoxins. There is as much, if not more, reason to believe the militant Islamic rebels gassed their own people as there is to believe that Assad is behind it. It is impulsively premature to act absent clear and convincing proof.
But the reality is that even if we know who is responsible, we still have no right to intervene. Syria is wrapped up in a brutal civil war, and the Syrian people are the ones who are going to have to resolve this, just as we were forced to do with our own Civil War.
Not every humanitarian crisis in the world demands a military response from the United States. The number of such crises around the world is virtually unlimited at any point in time, especially in Muslim countries with 1400 years of Sunni-Shia tension feeding contemporary atrocities. We simply do not have the resources, let alone the moral right, to stop and frisk the entire world.
There is also the matter that every time we have intervened in Muslim countries, we, as a Christian nation, have made things worse for the Christian minorities who live in those countries. We intervened in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of Christians have since been forced to flee. Tragically, the Christian church had more protection under Saddam than under the flag of the United States.
We intervened in Afghanistan, and on our watch the last church in that godforsaken land closed its doors in 2010. We intervened in Egypt to topple Mubarak, who provided a certain level of protection for Christians, and Coptic Christians have since come under relentless assault from Muslim fundamentalists, who actually graffiti Christian homes and businesses with red "X"es so that the militants know which structures are to be burned to the ground.
We are now intervening in Syria in an effort to weaken Assad, who without question is a brutal dictator. And yet were you to ask the Christians in Syria (which has had a Christian presence since the days of the apostle Paul), they would tell you they much prefer Assad to the Muslim goons who will replace him if the rebels are successful. We've just read this week of a rebel attack targeted at a Christian village, resulting in the beheading of priests. It would be one thing if our interventions in these benighted lands were doing any good, but they are resulting in actual harm to the locals who share our Christian heritage.
The sad, tragic reality is that because Islam is a religion of darkness and death, there are no good guys to back in Syria.
Bottom line: we should just stay out of Syria. It is the Christian thing to do.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
