The default position for followers of Christ, with regard to war, should be one of non-violence. This is where, in my opinion, the Christian Right goes awry. For high Christology (the idea that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity - 100% God and 100% man) must necessarily commit you to an account of discipleship that places Christians in great tension with worldly presumptions about violence and control. The whole concept of worshiping a crucified savior entails that you cannot kill - because God refused to save us through killing us (which is what we deserved). Therefore, as worshipers of a God who would save us from our wrongs through non-violent means, we must be committed to living in the world with a certain level of respect for the dignity of our enemies. We must live in such a way that we can no longer think of ourselves as, first and foremost, Americans. We must instead think of ourselves primarily as Christians, a people who-if living faithfully-cannot always be trusted with the kind of ideology that America represents.

This is just one position, among many, that must be adhered to, if the Christian Church in America is ever going to successfully reclaim the Christian “We” from the American “We.”