metis, your response here demonstrates what I have been trying to get across all along.....
There is no command from Christ to take up arms at all. If there was a need to "protect" his disciples, don't you think he would have prevented the suffering and death of his own apostles? There is little mention of how they died in the Bible, but in John 21:18-19 Jesus says to the apostle Peter..."Most truly I say to you, when you were younger, you used to clothe yourself and walk about where you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and another man will clothe you and carry you where you do not wish.” 19 He said this to indicate by what sort of death he would glorify God. After he said this, he said to him: “Continue following me.”
Paul was probably executed too but not before he suffered much as a disciple of Christ.
"For all things,” he said, “I have the strength by virtue of him who imparts power to me.” (Phillipians 4:13) He endured much but did not complain. When comparing his experiences with those of others, he wrote (about 55 C.E.): “In labors more plentifully, in prisons more plentifully, in blows to an excess, in near-deaths often. By Jews I five times received forty strokes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I experienced shipwreck, a night and a day I have spent in the deep; in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from highwaymen, in dangers from my own race, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers, in labor and toil, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in abstinence from food many times, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things of an external kind, there is what rushes in on me from day to day, the anxiety for all the congregations.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-28;6:4-10; 7:5) Who protected Paul?
Consider also other Christian martyrs whose lives were taken in horrific fashion for the entertainment of the Romans. Many of them were whole families with children, torn apart by wild beasts. Who protected them? Didn't Jesus say that his disciples had to endure to the death? So many of them did....and with incredible courage.
It is one thing to "protect" one's family members in a non-violent way, but quite another to "live by the sword" as is done in gun-obsessed countries like America. If you have no weapons, you cannot be tempted to used them, incurring bloodguilt before God. (Isaiah 1:15)
This is theory of the church to justify their involvement in the conflicts of their nation. But tell me please whose position was "just" in a war that had nothing to do with God? Did he not tell his disciples to be NO part of this world because, as James wrote, "Friendship with the world is enmity with God". (James 4:4) He likened it to "adultery".
When Catholics and Protestants on one side, were killing fellow Catholics and Protestants on the other...whose side was God on? The answer is neither. Both were going against a direct command of the Christ.
Matthew 5:43-45...."You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous."
How is killing your "brother" a Christian act? (1 John 4:20-21) The churches do not have a scriptural leg to stand on because the war is not "just" to God.....only to men. (Romans 12:17-21)
