One can infer from Hodge’s interpretation of the Westminster Confession that the recent wars in the Middle East were neither just nor necessary. Rather than being defensive wars as a response to an actual aggression that constituted a real threat to our national life, they were preemptive wars that tried to prevent the threat before it materialized.

In light of recent events in the news regarding our military withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan, and the resignation letter of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, I wonder if it might be helpful to re-read chapter 23 of the Westminster Confession of Faith which describes the Christian’s relationship to the civil magistrate.

As I re-read this chapter I found it to be not only in-forming, but re-forming. Of particular interest is paragraph two:

It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate, when called thereunto: in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth; so, for that end, they may lawfully, now under the New Testament, wage war, upon just and necessary occasion.

From this paragraph, several things become obvious. First, a Christian can serve as a civil magistrate. Second, when a Christian becomes a civil magistrate he should execute his or her duties in a pious, just, and peaceful manner. Third, a Christian magistrate may lawfully wage war…upon a just and necessary occasion.

It is the last phrase of the third point that I think is most often overlooked, namely, that war may be waged “upon a just and necessary condition.”

From a confessional standpoint, America’s recent wars in the Middle East beg the following questions: Are they just? And are they necessary?

From these questions follow other questions: How do we determine if a war is just? What is it that qualifies war as a necessity?

Fortunately, there is a long history of Just War theory to inform our answers to these questions that include great thinkers like Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin.

However, A. A. Hodge provides us a much shorter answer to these questions that are soundly based on the just war tradition. In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith Hodge states that in order for war to truly be just “it is not only necessary that our enemy should aim to do us wrong, but also, that the wrong he attempts should directly or remotely threaten the national life.” Therefore, Hodge maintains that a just cause for war must be purely defensive in nature.

Hodge argues that by including the word necessary the divines meant “That war be the only means to avert it (the threat).” “Even in this case,” he continues, “every other means of securing justice and maintaining national safety should be exhausted before recourse is had to this last resort.”

One can infer from Hodge’s interpretation of the Westminster Confession that the recent wars in the Middle East were neither just nor necessary. Rather than being defensive wars as a response to an actual aggression that constituted a real threat to our national life, they were preemptive wars that tried to prevent the threat before it materialized.

Calvin, and the just war tradition before him, sternly argued against such preemptive wars.

 [It] is commonly considered the best mode of precaution, so that only those are accounted provident who consult for their own security by injuring others, if occasion requires it. From this source almost all wars proceed, because while every prince fears his neighbor, this fear so fills him with apprehension that he does not hesitate to cover the earth with human blood.

For Calvin, the mere possibility of a threat to national security is not a sufficient ground for aggression.

But this is a wicked kind of cunning (however it may be varnished over with the specious name of foresight), unjustly to molest others for our own security. I fear this or that person because he both has the means of injuring me, and I am uncertain of his disposition towards me. Therefore, in order that I may be safe from harm, I will endeavor by every possible means to oppress him… If thus everyone should indulge his own distrust, while each will be devising to do some injury to his possible enemies, there will be no end to iniquities… For when we have once determined to provide for our own advantage, or quiet, or safety, we ask not the question whether we are doing right or wrong (Calvin’s Commentary, Exodus 1:9, See Matthew Tuininga for more on Calvin and preemptive war).

Indeed, fighting preemptive wars has covered the earth with blood. And Christians in America need to understand that lending our voice and our vote in support of these unjust wars has contributed to the de-Christianization of these lands. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been tortured, brutally murdered, or displaced from their homes in part because our government is obsessed with regime change in the Middle East. We need to ask ourselves if these regimes are really the existential threat they are purported to be, or if they are only possible threats. If the latter, then we have unjustly molested others for fear of our own security. Calvin is right, if we continue on this course, there will be no end to iniquities.

Regarding this issue, it is hard to see how those of us from a Presbyterian and Reformed background can consider ourselves confessional and Calvinistic and yet ignore just war theory.  Embracing preemptive war, and denouncing withdrawal from unjust wars, is neither confessional nor Calvinistic.

To be sure, extracting ourselves from these wars may be costly and most likely result in further molestation of others too. It may very well lead to aggression against the Kurds by the Turks, or against some Afghan citizens by the Taliban. Therefore, the withdrawal of troops needs to be done in a responsible manner, and all diplomatic efforts need to be exercised to ensure Turkey does not act with aggression against the Kurds and the Taliban does not retaliate against the pro-American citizens of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, such aggression, should it occur, is the fruit of the poisonous tree of the original unjust aggression by those addicted to regime change. Responsible withdrawal is the only just option.

Perhaps, the withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan, and the resignation of Secretary Mattis, is a sign that the era of unjust and unnecessary wars is coming to an end. One can hope, and pray.

Rev. Jim Fitzgerald is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a staff member of Equipping Pastors International.

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