Captain Kirk and the Enterprise are delivering a diplomat to broker peace between the planet Eminiar VII and the United Federation of Planets, but upon arrival find that this planet has been waging war with a nearby planet for 500 years. When the landing party beams down, they discover that, while the war is real, it is being fought on both sides by computers in a bizarre Battleship-esque manner-- with causalities. Rather than risk total annihilation of each planet's civilization, culture, or ecosystems, the computers convert the simulated strikes into death counts on both sides, which are then, in turn, realized fully by assigning living individuals as casualties and instructing them to report to disintegration chambers. The inhabitants of both planets believe that they have risen to this more sterile and effective manner of waging war, allowing hostilities to exist (as they always have) and preferring decimation of their populations to absolute destruction.
At first the very concept of a people willingly agreeing to what amounts to suicide by disintegration seems kind of, well, nonsensical, doesn't it? But if this is a cultural tenet of a people who consider such an act not only patriotic, but a moral and, likely, a religious obligation, then missionaries, Pharisees, and ideological helping hands must not ignore the caveat emptor sign at the border.
In/on our own world, there have been many, many wars fought with easily digestible names, but for causes that run deep-- and just about all of them are, right or wrong (Martin Luther wrote about a right or "just" war: to secure a just peace, not for territorial conquest, economic gain, or ideological supremacy), culture clashes on a back drop of religious beliefs.
This Star Trek episode got me to thinking about how similar all of the inhabitants of this planet are (regardless of race, color, creed, culture, etc.) as inherently sinful creatures in a broken world for whom war is the ultimate last resort in an inability to peacefully coexist. It also got me thinking about how different we are from each other-- how we define ourselves by culture and religion. And that one man's truth will mean nothing to another until there can be dialogue between the two.
How can the child whose family members were killed in front of him be convinced that war-- retribution-- is wrong? How can a generation raised to believe that America is "the great Satan" learn that jihad is not mean to be a vendetta in a holy war? How can the Truth be received (or even remotely understood) when simply hoisted to the top of a flagpole?
Well, that got me to thinking about war and the Bible. The most telling manifestation of humanity's propensity for inhumanity appears very early on (in the 4th chapter of Genesis)-- fratricide. From there, one homicide becomes murder on a much grander scale. War punctuates many areas of the Old Testament, but why? The simple answer is disobedience. An interesting paper on the topic, Render unto Caesar...and unto God: A Lutheran View of Church and State, addresses this very cleanly:
The Bible makes a fundamental distinction between divine and human authority. While from the beginning humans have wanted to be like God and to play god, the Bible persistently proclaims only one God who is sovereign over everything and everyone... Just as basic and enduring as this teaching of the Bible regarding God’s sovereignty, however, is the conflict (even war) between the one true God and pretentious earthly authorities...
Most importantly, not all instances of Old Testament conflict were between God and pagan governments, however, for even the kings of Israel became corrupt and moved God to battle against them.
Later in the New Testament, war is no doubt still being waged in and around the world Jesus moved through, but it is no longer mentioned (with exception of a final spiritual war in Revelation) at all. Why? Jesus promoted the sovereignty of God through dialogue and peaceful interaction with others, rather than heralding a call to arms or using scare tactics. Jesus as the living embodiment of God opted for peace, not violence, and, believe it or not, obedience (though not in the Pharisaical sense). "Christ's (Great) Commandment" is a two-fold exhortation to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself."(Mark 12:30-31 ESV) It's as simple as that, right? Wrong.
War is everywhere and we are not even near the Star Trek stage of evolution in which we can consider allowing computers settle our differences and count our casualties. We're really not too far removed from the Old Testament period-- the seemingly daily acts of Man's inhumanity to Man are still culture clashes on a back drop of religious beliefs, fueled not by obedience to a war-god, but disobedience to a God who was human, who understands suffering, and who taught us better.
In the end, Captain Kirk decided to make the threat of real war a future deterrent by destroying the computers (and a few of the disintegration machines) in a willful violation of the Prime Directive. Peace enforcement, so to speak. With a smidge of cultural cleansing. (Sound familiar?)
And from a purely sociocultural perspective, weren't the hapless, obedient Eminiarians acting out of love? One might argue the point from Scripture, from John's Gospel, specifically, in which Jesus is quoted as telling his disciples: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (15:13 ESV) But Jesus, eager for his followers to grasp the concept of sacrificial love with both hands, was talking about himself, not advocating ideological suicide.
Alas, war really is hell. On any planet.
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