"We love you, God!": On Blasphemy, Divine Sanction, and Political Violence
Heretofore, the classic example by which we teach the meaning of blasphemy was George Bush’s “God bless our Tomahawk cruise missiles” proclamation of divine sanction of our attack on Baghdad. The “We love you, God” explanation of our bombing Iran trumps that, while evoking the “Gott mit Uns” (translated as “God (is) with us”) saying on the insignia of German soldiers. Whenever we justify our evil as God’s will, we blaspheme.
A friend challenged my allusion to “whenever we justify our evil as God’s will”, asking me, “Do you really believe that disarming a bunch of Islamist millennialist religious fanatics and preventing them from incinerating Israel with nuclear weapons and rerunning the Holocaust is ‘evil’?”
The Theological Issue: Claiming Divine Sanction for Violence
The core theological problem isn’t the historical precedent of religious language in military contexts, but rather the specific act of claiming God’s explicit blessing and love for our acts of violence. When political leaders invoke divine approval for military action - whether “God bless our Tomahawk cruise missiles,” “We love you, God” while bombing, or “Gott mit Uns” - they commit what classical theology calls the sin of presumption: claiming to know and speak for God’s will in ways that Scripture consistently reserves for God alone.
Distinguishing Just War Theory from Divine Command Claims
My friend’s question about preventing nuclear weapons and protecting Israel raises legitimate concerns about just war theory - the classical Christian framework for evaluating when violence might be morally necessary. But there’s a crucial theological distinction between:
Just War Analysis: Carefully weighing whether military action meets strict criteria (last resort, proportional response, legitimate authority, etc.) while acknowledging the tragic necessity and moral complexity
Divine Command Claims: Asserting that God actively blesses, loves, or commands our specific military actions
The first maintains appropriate humility about human moral reasoning under tragic circumstances. The second claims divine authorization that goes far beyond what finite, sinful humans can legitimately claim to know about God’s will.
The Theological Problem with “Our Evil”
My friend asked about my phrase “our evil” - and this touches on a fundamental theological principle. Classical Christian theology, from Augustine through Aquinas to Barth, insists that all human action - including potentially necessary violence - occurs within the context of sin and brokenness. Even actions that may be justified under just war criteria remain tragic necessities that involve genuine moral cost and require repentance rather than celebration.
When we describe military action as purely good, blessed by God, or expressions of divine love, we lose this essential theological humility. We risk what Reinhold Niebuhr called “the sin of believing ourselves righteous” - taking on a divine perspective that belongs to God alone.
The Prophetic Tradition on Violence and Divine Claims
The Hebrew prophetic tradition consistently challenges rulers who claim divine sanction for their policies. Isaiah warns against those who “call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Jeremiah condemns leaders who cry “Peace, peace” when there is no peace while pursuing violence in God’s name (Jeremiah 6:14).
The prophets don’t prohibit all defensive action, but they relentlessly challenge the tendency to baptize our political calculations as divine commands.
A Different Way Forward
Rather than claiming God’s blessing on our military actions, faithful public theology might instead:
- Acknowledge the tragic moral complexity of all violence, even when defensive
- Submit our political judgments to ongoing prophetic critique
- Recognize that protecting the innocent (including Israelis threatened by nuclear weapons) is a legitimate moral concern without claiming divine command status
- Maintain the humility to distinguish between our best moral reasoning and God’s perfect will
The goal isn’t political paralysis, but theological honesty about the limits of human moral knowledge and the danger of conflating our political judgments with divine revelation.
Conclusion: Blasphemy and Political Humility
Blasphemy, classically defined, involves claiming divine authority or sanction inappropriately. When political leaders invoke God’s explicit blessing on acts of violence - however strategically justified those acts might be - they cross from legitimate policy arguments into theological territory that Scripture consistently reserves for God alone.
This doesn’t resolve the complex questions about Iran’s nuclear program or threats to Israel. But it does call us to address those challenges with the theological humility appropriate to finite, sinful creatures making tragic choices in a broken world, rather than claiming the divine authorization that properly belongs to God alone.