Actually the WTS splits hairs and says they do not consider themselves pacificists. Also consider that Israel had a standing army that even slaughtered women and children.
*** g97 5/8 pp. 22-23 The Bible’s Viewpoint: Should Christians Be Pacifists?
"The churches should become pacifist again as they were in the first centuries of Christianity."—Hubert Butler, Irish writer.
AFTER a visit to Yugoslavia following World War II, Hubert Butler daringly penned the above words in an essay written in 1947 but not published until just last year! He was shocked at how "the Christian Church during the war connived at unspeakable crimes and departed very far from the teaching of Christ."
Butler was not afraid to speak out for unpopular causes or groups. When he did, he generally spoke alone. He expressed himself without fear when he contrasted the churches’ behavior with the courageous stance of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were described in TheIrishTimes as "surely the most innocent and blamelessly apolitical religious sect of all." In his essay, "Report on Yugoslavia," Butler wrote that the Witnesses, who "reject[ed] all the sophistries by which war is justified by leaders in political and religious life," were put on trial by the Yugoslav authorities for their refusal to join the war movement.
Is it Scripturally correct, however, to describe Jehovah’s Witnesses as pacifists? To clarify the matter, it may depend on what is meant by the word "pacifist." Butler used the term to commend the Witnesses for their bravery in refusing, at great personal cost, to take up arms in warfare. Sadly, though, many people who are caught up in the fever of war see a pacifist only as "a coward or a traitor, who [is] anxious to shirk his responsibility to his nation." Is that viewpoint correct?
Opposition
toWarorViolenceWebster’s
NinthNewCollegiateDictionary says that a pacifist is someone who is "strongly and actively opposed to conflict and esp[ecially] war." It defines "pacifism" as "opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes;
specif[
ically]: refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds." How would these definitions apply to the believers of the early Christian congregation?
They did ‘refuse to bear arms on moral and religious grounds’ and avoided all ‘conflict and war.’ Why? Because they knew that Jesus had said that his followers were "no part of the world" and that "all those who take the sword will perish by the sword." (John 15:19; Matthew 26:52) In TheEarlyChurchandtheWorld, one historian tells us that "up to the reign of Marcus Aurelius at least [161-180 C.E.], no Christian would become a soldier after his baptism." In TheNewWorld’sFoundationsintheOld, another says: "The first Christians thought it was wrong to fight, and would not serve in the army even when the Empire needed soldiers."
The Christians’ commission was to preach the good news. (Matthew 24:14; 28:19, 20) They understood that they had no commission from God to wage war against his enemies, to act as God’s executioners, as it were. (Matthew 5:9; Romans 12:17-21) Only when so-called Christians ‘depart far from the teaching of Christ,’ as Butler stated, do they get enmeshed in the wars of the nations. Then the clergy bless armies and pray for victory, often on both sides of a conflict. (Compare John 17:16; 18:36.) In past centuries, for example, Protestants and Catholics fought many bloody wars, resulting in "the horrors that [descended] on Western Europe, both sides proclaiming themselves as the instruments of God’s wrath," writes Kenneth Clark in his book Civilisation. The arguments made to justify this kind of warfare, says McClintock and Strong’s CyclopediaofBiblical,Theological,andEcclesiasticalLiterature, "have evidently grown out of a desire to conciliate the civil power, and are clearly opposed to the ancient Christian doctrine and to the whole spirit of the Gospel."—James 4:4.
Totally
OpposedtoWar?Were ‘the ancient Christian doctrine and the whole spirit of the Gospel’ really pacifist, however? Could early Christians truly be described as pacifists, as defined previously? No! Why not? For one thing, they recognizedGod’srighttowagewar. (Exodus 14:13, 14; 15:1-4; Joshua 10:14; Isaiah 30:30-32) Besides that, they never disputed God’s right to authorize ancient Israel to fight for him when that nation served as his sole instrument on earth.—Psalm 144:1; Acts 7:45; Hebrews 11:32-34.
God has not only a right but also an obligation on the basis of justice to remove wicked people from the earth. Many evildoers will never respond to God’s patient appeals to them to mend their ways. (Isaiah 45:22; Matthew 7:13, 14) God’s toleration of evil has limits. (Isaiah 61:2; Acts 17:30) Christians, therefore, recognize that in the end God will forcibly remove evil people from the earth. (2 Peter 3:9, 10) As the Bible foretells, this will be at "the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus."—2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.
The last book of the Bible describes this conflict as "thewarofthegreatdayofGodtheAlmighty," or Armageddon. (Revelation 16:14, 16) It says that Jesus Christ will take the lead in this, that he "carriesonwarinrighteousness." (Revelation 19:11, 14, 15) Jesus Christ is rightly called the "Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6) But he is not a pacifist. He has already fought a war in heaven to clear it of all God’s rebellious enemies. (Revelation 12:7-9) Soon he will fight another war "to bring to ruin those ruining the earth." However, his followers on earth will take no part in that divine judgment.—Revelation 11:17, 18.
True Christians love peace. They stay completely neutral in the world’s military, political, and ethnic conflicts. But, strictly speaking, they are not pacifists. Why? Because they welcome God’s war that will finally enforce his will on earth—a war that will settle the great issue of universal sovereignty and rid the earth of all enemies of peace once and for all.—Jeremiah 25:31-33; Daniel 2:44; Matthew 6:9, 10.[
