You may not believe me when I say that Ralph Reiko and fundamentalist Christians have something in common, but they do.
They both say I'm becoming more radical, and they are both right. I am.
But while my increasing radicalness is a blessing to Professor Reiko, it is at the same time a curse to Christians who support or defend the state and its military.
One of my favorite quotes, and one that has been proven to be true more and more each
day since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is that of Randolph Byrne, War is the Health
of the State.
I use this quote to close the preface of my new book, and I've also used it at the close
of several of my Lew Rockwell articles.
That quote says a mouthful.
It means that the state loves war, the state needs war.
War is what keeps the state alive and helps it to grow.
The warfare state is much more dangerous than the welfare state.
The warfare state robs us of not only our liberty and our money, but in some cases,
our life.
And unlike the welfare state, the warfare state can sometimes enlist conservatives, libertarians,
and evangelical Christians who normally decry the welfare state.
They will do the bidding of the warfare state without a second thought in many cases.
This is my book, Christianity in War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State.
The picture on the front is The Triumph of Death by Peter Bruegel.
I think it's from the 1600s.
And the book consists of 13 of my Lew Rockwell essays against the warfare state, and they're
are organized under four headings, Christianity and War, The Evils of War, Specific Wars,
and the U.S. Global Empire. The essays are contemporary, but yet they're timeless, since
they discuss the principles of war, empire, militarism, interventionism, the warfare state,
and the Christian attitude toward these things. The book is proudly dedicated to Lew Rockwell,
Who am I considered to be an implacable foe of the warfare state?
And while I applaud many, the many libertarians and conservatives who are now opposed to the
war in Iraq because Bush screwed up or it's taken too long or there's too many casualties,
I admire much more principle libertarians like Lew Rockwell who opposed the war from
the very beginning.
In fact, if it were not for Lew Rockwell's encouragement and willingness to publish my
and my anti-war articles, many of them would never have been written.
Let me tell you how this book came about.
Like many of you, I have grown increasingly frustrated with Christian enthusiasm for Bush
and any Republican politician who calls himself a Christian or calls himself a conservative,
and especially Christian enthusiasm for war and the state.
But as a conservative Christian, this is especially troubling to me.
If there's any group of people that ought to oppose war, and especially the current unconstitutional,
immoral, unscriptural war in Iraq, it is Christians.
And especially those Christians who turn themselves conservatives, evangelicals, and fundamentalists
and claim to be in subjection to the authority of Scripture.
There's nothing more tragic than a dispensationalist appealing to the example of the wars of the
the Jews and the Old Testament to justify the United States going to war in Iraq.
The back cover of the book, as well as the preface, contains a couple sentences I'd like
to read to you, which made some Christians mad enough to want to cut my throat.
It simply says this, war is a subject that needlessly divides and sidetracks Christians.
It is my contention that Christian enthusiasm for the state, its wars, and its politicians
is an affront to the Savior, contrary to Scripture, and a demonstration of the profound ignorance
many Christians have of history.
There's nothing Christian about the state's aggressive militarism, its senseless wars,
its interventions into the affairs of other countries, and its expanding empire.
I would also now add that war is the greatest opponent of morality. Men do things in war
that they would never think of doing in peace. It is my opinion that a Christian cannot abdicate
or defend the state's wars and interventions without either intentionally or unintentionally
rejecting the basic precepts of Christianity. So after writing many Lew Rockwell articles
on War and the Warfare State, I realized I had a small book in the making that I could
use to get anti-war, anti-state material into the hands of Christians and also direct these
Christians to lewrockwell.com to get the information that's been lacking from their pulpits and
lacking from their reading material.
But this is not just a book for Christians, it contains original research that has nothing
to do with Christianity, such as The True Extent of the US Global Empire, which I document
as including 150 different countries or regions of the globe.
And I hope that the book will also show non-Christian defenders of liberty that one can be a conservative
Christian and not be a warmonger and a worshiper of the warfare state.
Now, what's the response to the book?
After teaching for years at a Bible college, regularly writing articles for religious periodicals,
or at least I did before the book came out, and writing and publishing six other religious
books, I had a tremendous opportunity, so I thought, because my name was firmly established
among Bible-believing Christians, to get this anti-war material into the hands of the typical
conservative Christian who votes Republican, he faithfully listens to Hannity and Limbaugh,
And perhaps he just hasn't been exposed to this kind of material before, but my intentions
were hijacked.
And I'm sorry to say they were hijacked by my Christian friends and my own church.
When I wrote about Christianity and war, criticized the Iraq war, critiqued Jerry Falwell and
condemned the U.S. global empire, I was appreciated by some and tolerated by others.
But when I challenged the state and its military in my article, Should a Christian Join the
Military, everyone went to pieces and I began to be denounced by Christians as anti-American,
a communist, a liberal, an anti-war weenie, unpatriotic and even a traitor.
Just yesterday I received an email from a Christian who told me he was ashamed to be
from the same country as me.
According to the Christians in the military article, I wrote the article Christian Killers?
And that sealed my fate for good.
Christian bookstores and ministries that have sold my other books for years suddenly
were not interested in anything I had to write.
Christian friends that I had for years suddenly became my enemies.
My own church bookstore refuses to sell my book.
I live in Pensacola, Florida.
Pensacola is a big Navy town with a heavy presence of active duty and retired military.
Pensacola also has a lot of new and used bookstores.
So far, only one bookstore in town, the smallest bookstore that there is, has agreed to sell
my book.
Before I took delivery of my book from my printer, one leader in my church told me I
should destroy all the books as soon as I got them from the printer.
Of course, he didn't offer to reimburse the thousands of dollars I had to spend.
But with the bad comes the good.
Besides sales at Amazon.com and my personal website, I have a few bookstores that are
selling the book.
Laissez-faire Books has also agreed to sell it.
A few libertarian publications have promised me reviews.
Ron Paul wrote me a nice endorsement.
And I'm pleased to report that my essay, Christian Killers, will appear in the forthcoming book
called Neocon, Just War Principles, A Condemnation of the War in Iraq.
And that's going to be published by IHS Press.
And I believe David Gordon and Paul Godfrey will have essays in that book as well.
I have no illusions about my book.
Because it is self-published and merely a collection of essays, I know it is not destined
My reaction to my critics is this. I wrote even more anti-war articles and more anti-state articles, and I plan on writing even more.
From a humanistic standpoint, I get my inspiration from Mises and Rothbard to the horror of some Christians.
From a humanistic standpoint, I get my inspiration from Mises and Rothbard. To the horror of some Christians, I have pictures of Mises and Rothbard hanging on my office wall next to some Christians that I admire.
Mises and Rothbard stood alone and spoke and wrote the truth, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.
Consequences, and although they were Jews, they are a great example to Christians, but
I know I'm not alone. I have countless numbers of Christian supporters who are opposed to
the war and the warfare state. I know because they write to me. They're frustrated. They
are disgusted. They are angry. They are tired of Republican politics from the pulpit. They
are weary of Christian war fever. This little book has cost me a great deal. It's cost me
My only regret is that I did not have some of my more recent anti-war articles, like
the one I have on the website today, included in the book.
So God giving me time and health I hope to have the opportunity to include him in a second
edition and make my fellow Christians even more upset.