Blessed are the Warmakers?

“Really great. God bless.”

Recently a remarkable group chat between the most powerful people in our country (and indeed, the world) was made public for the worlds’ viewing pleasure. Now, there has been a lot of attention given to the incompetence that brought these messages to light, but the more interesting story to me was something entirely different and more sinister.

These messages  discuss in nitty gritty detail a military operation targeting and killing individuals deemed “enemies” of our country (but don’t call them “war plans,” says SecDef). Those targeted may not be good folks, but I would argue, neither are their killers in U.S. high command.

The vice president, ostensibly a Catholic Christian, expresses “I will say a prayer for victory.”1 The secretary of defense, a good ‘ole reformed bro says, “Godspeed to our warriors.” A lot of  religious language is being used in the context of killing image-bearers of God, I must say. But that’s not the worst of it yet. Once the operation was completed (again, NOT A WAR PLAN!), we got an even uglier glimpse of what was done and how these good Christian folks reacted. The national security advisor says,

“The first target… we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.” 

Uhh… What? “It’s now collapsed?” Like was anyone else in there? Like, the girlfriend? More people? What was this “building” anyway? “Building” as in “apartment building?” Like one of those “buildings” that houses images of God? Beyond just being evil, isn’t that a war crime? 

“God gets it, doesn’t he?”

Mr. Christian VP himself  chimes in, “excellent.” Not exactly my first reaction to the dropping of a building on top of Imago Dei skulls. The secretary of state, another Christian who has been known to reference his “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” in the halls of congress responds, “Good job...” The chief of staff for POTUS (yet another good Christian), says, “Kudos to all… Really great. God bless.” Hmm… I’m not sure God is all about the carnage. And I’m not sure he’ll “bless” just because, ya know, we’re Americans and those are just Arabs. But God gets it, doesn’t he?

For my friends who are uneasy or offended reading this critique, I want to invite you to consider if our ethical standards have been “tribe-washed” by nationalist ideology, instead of being shaped by the sermon and the cross of Jesus. We need to know we have permission to call evil evil. We need to be freed from the propaganda that has so enslaved us Christians into thinking we must accept and celebrate that which Jesus damned. We need to realize we are free to follow Jesus’ high demand to “love your enemy”2 and “turn the other cheek”3 “bless those who curse you,”4 even if the powers of the world tell us that dropping bombs on them is the preferred route to take.

This is not murky if we are thinking clearly. This is not complicated if Christ and his cross truly does have the final say. We who follow Jesus rebuke death culture no matter where it is found. We stand for life—not a life for us paid for by the death of others. I’m well aware that that is what nations and societies have always done, but it's simply unacceptable for the community of Jesus to partake in these systems. That sort of life-built-on-death is the classic Girardian “scapegoat” mindset,5 a mindset that is enslaved to the fear of death, a mindset that has not been liberated by resurrection hope. It is, in other words, a mindset that is captured by the lie of the adversary—that life is a zero sum game, and that necessarily, life must be built on blood.

“We’re actually not Christians”

So, when we see the death of image-bearers celebrated, and when we find ourselves complicit in that celebration, we need to pause and ask ourselves where we have gone wrong and why we are not shocked by our own emotions. The early church would have been. I fear church historian Dr. George Kalantzis was right when he said the reason we Americans accept militarism and the hell it brings is simply “because we’re actually not Christians,”6 not in any real or historic sense anyway. Stanley Hauerwas rightly observed that we have a Christianity that bows to the “omnipotent state.”7 As such, it is no Christianity at all. It is a mere fallen social movement that happens to use some Jesus-jargon while capitulating to the “Beast power” of the world’s empires.8 When we use God-talk to justify worldly power-wielding, it is no different than the emperor emblazoning the cross onto the weapons of the crusaders. It is the worst sort of irony when the ultimate symbol of forgiveness is used to kill.

Now, we’re not surprised, shocked, or discouraged really by the powers of the world doing what they have always done. But we ought to be all of those things when we see would-be disciples of the crucified king doing the work of the devil. Yes, the slaying of humans is the work of the devil, in case we needed to be reminded. When our King said hating humans is akin to killing them, I don’t think he approved of either. I fear American Christians work awfully hard at not being too mean to their in-laws, not cussing, and not running red-lights, all-the-while comfortably supporting and celebrating the literal slaughter of humans who happen to not be of their tribe. God forgive us. 

The minority Confessing Church of 1930s Germany stood with Jesus against their (very religious) state in a day where the majority of “good Christians” followed it into it genocide. I wonder if we have the courage in our moment to stand with Jesus against our (very religious) state–even against the majority church insofar as they continue to prop up the state. As Hauerwas again observed, “If Caesar can get Christians there to swallow the ‘Ultimate Solution,’ and Christians here to embrace the bomb, there is no limit to what we will not do for the modern world.”9

“God, not nations, rules the world.”

This is not just a critique of the right, by the way. I don’t think Jesus or the devil could care any less if Red or Blue are doing the killing. When Blue is complicit in genocide with our tax dollars (i.e. Yemen, Gaza), I don’t think Christ is a fan. When Red is enacting vengeance (i.e. Afghanistan/Iraq), I don’t think Christ is a fan. Will we, the faithful church, have the courage to believe and live the reality that peacemakers are those blessed by God,10 not those who make war? Do we really believe that “God, not nations, rules the world.”11

No one can serve two masters.12 As for me and mine,13 we will be loyal to the God revealed in the crucified King, not a killer state. Anyone else here for it?

NOTES:

1 All the direct quotes here relating to "signalgate" are taken from Goldberg, Jeffrey, and Shane Harris. “Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal.” The Atlantic, 26 Mar. 2025, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/

2 Matthew 5:44

3 Matthew 5:39

4 Luke 6:28

5 “Girard on ‘Scapegoat.’” Girardian Lectionary, https://girardianlectionary.net/learn/girard-on-scapegoat/. Accessed 14 Apr. 2025. In the past, JD Vance has appealed to the thought of Girard, but in recent years he has ironically used it as a weapon, as has some other right-wing activists. These two pieces tell a disturbing story of his thought-tragectory: https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance; https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/18/jd-vance-springfield-scapegoating-00179401

6 For the full interview, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86gGfPLG2jQ

7 Hauerwas, S., & Willimon, W. H. (1989). Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Abingdon Press, 42.

8 Horsley, R. A. (2008). In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance. Westminster John Knox Press, 170.

9 Resident Aliens, 27.

10 Matthew 5:9

11 Resident Aliens, 43.

12 Matthew 6:24

13 Joshua 24:15