Given war's uncountable human cost, can a war still be righteous?  I'd argue that while wars can end with righteous outcomes when ideological issues are at stake, the better course, always, is to strive for nonviolent solutions — but to recognize that the nonviolent course requires equal commitment and resolution.

Many conflicts having righteous outcomes did not necessarily begin for a purely righteous reason.  The American Civil War was not started specifically to eradicate slavery, but its completion accomplished that.  This blemish on our history was ended because of the sacrifice of the lives and fortunes of many thousands of our own citizens.  We are still feeling the wounds of that conflict, but the purge of the evil of slavery was a righteous act.

The Allies did not fight WWII to rescue those in Nazi concentration camps.  Still, that was one result of that devastating war.

However, these two great conflicts (the Civil War and WWII) were the end of many years of men trying to prevent violent conflict through negotiation, reason, logic, and compromise.  These efforts failed because men are flawed creatures, often incapable of reaching the right conclusion.  Sometimes evil must be destroyed by violence.  However, that does not mean that violence is inevitable.

The United States may indeed, as some say, be on the edge of a second civil war.  Our challenge is to prevent that violent conflict and the damage to lives and fortunes that it would create while at the same time finding a way, nonviolently, to resist and repel the forces arrayed against us.

Our battlefields will be the rooms where local councils and boards meet.  They will be in legislative sessions in state capitols.  They will be town hall events with politicians.  They will be in precinct halls.  They will be over coffee in our break rooms and in the teachers' lounges at our schools.  They will be everywhere that people meet to discuss and resolve conflicts peacefully.

Our weapons will not be guns and bombs.  Our weapons will be logic and reason animated by our spirits and guided by truth.

This conflict is not something we wanted.  It has been forced upon us.  Our government is filled with people without moral principles.  They pervert justice to punish political enemies and reward their friends.  They spend the wealth of the nation to enrich themselves and their cronies.  They direct their corporate allies to deny citizens their inalienable rights.

Image: War in Heaven, or the Archangel Michael defeating fallen angels, by Luca Giordano (mid-17th century).  Public domain.

They have ordered citizens to surrender to a medical procedure or suffer financial punishment.  Businesses and churches have been closed.  Uncomfortable facts are hidden.  Our government allows only information it pre-approves, although much of it is untrue or constantly changing.  They have made fuel and food scarcer, increasing their costs.  They spy on citizens as if they were enemies.  Election results are not trusted by either side.  A government-backed elite controls our travel, our finances, our property, our education, and our health.

People with depraved minds and hearts hold the reins of power, and they must be resisted.  We are in a nonviolent war of competing ideas to change the direction in which we are moving.  This is the battle of our time.  We did not ask for it, but we will engage.

It will not be without pain and difficulty.  It will be hard.  It is a battle much like those nonviolent conflicts that Martin Luther King and Gandhi led.  People in power do not give up easily, and if there is to be violence, it will be those in power who initiate it.

I personally believe that God must empower this righteous movement.  This does not mean we all must be religious or even believers.  It means that God's righteousness must be our empowering force.  Judeo-Christian history is full of examples of God's sovereign hand working to bring together those who were not his people and the people of God to accomplish a righteous outcome.

We may join this conflict because our businesses have been closed, our children are being damaged, or our liberty has been stolen, or simply because we see important constitutional principles at stake.  There are a thousand different reasons to oppose this tyranny.  When we get to the other side and are successful, we may find that a different and unexpected righteous cause has been achieved.  We may have moved people to a realignment with those things that are righteous and noble.

This battle of ideas is not a competition for which political side will hold power for the future.  That indeed may be part of it, but it has also been said that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12.)

This is the righteous cause of our time.  Spiritual battles are not won with bullets.  It is time to take up this fight.  We can rest on the other side.