Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provided the world with a great deal more to talk about. The excitement, the outrage, and the drama is not only conveyed by eloquent war reporters, but by a mass of profile pictures and usernames sporting a flag emoji, who serve as unpaid extras in the simulacra unfolding through our phones. Nonetheless, a real war, rife with murders, desolation, and strife—as real as those sins can be—is raging some thousands of miles from our screens. It feels indifferent or irresponsible to avoid the news altogether, no matter how partisan or manufactured it may be. Furthermore, this war, which came as a surprise to many, clearly reveals something about the state of the world, and there is no dearth of explanations which purport to unveil the meaning behind the chaotic violence. Among all these analyses, how should a Christian “interpret the sign of the times”? And what should a Christian do about it?
When this invasion began, most of us, especially the most logged on, will remember a barrage of morally imperative posting, nominally directed at political elites, who were certainly not listening: “the United States must stand with its allies in Europe” or “the White House needs to announce its condemnation of Russia” or “the U.S. military must supply weapons to our allies.” All of these things happened, of course, but it is entirely unclear that demands shared on Facebook had anything to do with it. Why do so many feel a need to announce their geopolitical position to the powerful? Our rulers do not require the advice of their subjects in international diplomacy (if they ever do, the Pentagon knows where to find you, I'm sure), but they do desire our attention. Let us consider why.
Christians believe that God created the world as “very good,” and that it is only due to the Fall that suffering has entered into Creation. When we encounter the evils of the world, especially so sprawling an evil as war, we cry out to this same God to restore what He has created. Liberals, however, see warfare as part of man's original “state of nature”, a competition of man against man that we have, fortunately, brought to a stalemate through the social contract of the Modern State. We all agreed to submit to a rule of law, and this delivered us from the perpetual violence of ancient societies. This new State spread, with more and more people entering into the same, now global social contract, providing us with the “Long Peace” in the West (since the end of World War II), and the “end of history” worldwide (since the close of the Cold War). For liberals, “peace” is a product of liberalism. If, when this tranquility of order is threatened, we all launch into intercessions, the object of our pleas is a good indicator of who or what we hail as the Prince of Peace: namely, man and his devices. That we know, on some level, that no one is listening to our suggestions as to what Biden should do to the Russians, or how NATO might help Ukraine, does not prevent us from pleading with them. We are not debating a practical response: we are praying.
So what, again, should the Christian do? Pray to God, rather than @ a global power on Twitter? It's a good start, certainly. But based on the example of Christ to those who tested Him, the Christian’s answer to the questions of the nations begins by reframing the entire line of questioning. The desperation to do before first being still is precisely the reversal which the liberal order has accomplished with unparalleled success. When a liberal calls on the power of the Leviathan, he is desperate because he suspects that the peace he seeks is artificial and tenuous: if the machinery of the world order breaks, then he loses the rewards of the regime, which mean everything to him. When a Christians calls on the Almighty, “Who laughs the nations to scorn,” he is already experiencing the peace he seeks, because he is uniting his heart to the Supreme Good. The belief in God, and in the primal gift of Being which flows from Him, is the foundation that any assured goodness exists: either there is a Divinity in Whom perfect peace dwells eternally, or there is a zero-sum game in which goodness and being can only be secured by ensuring that somebody else doesn’t have it.
So as the contemplation of Peace diminishes, War becomes a way to give us meaning. When this contemplation ceases entirely, then the drive to destroy is the only thing that gives us meaning. If so, why not swing for the fences? Some do, and we can find them on Twitter calling for the assassination of Vladimir Putin or a “preemptive nuclear strike” against Russia, often with a disturbing number of Likes and Retweets, and even more disturbing approval (later walked back) from Instagram and Facebook. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
The reason we should avoid overconsuming war news is not that we want to remain in the dark, but that we do not want our hearts to be darkened. The prophet Isaiah praises the just man “who stops his ears lest he hear of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil” (33:15). This does not entail imprudent ignorance, but that all-too-common sin (mea culpa!) of curiositas, the digital gluttony of relishing in a mass media which does the devil’s work. Prayer to Christ, the Poor One, turns our hearts to the suffering, especially the wounded and refugees. Contemplation via “content” instrumentalizes our pity, leading either to nationalist fanaticism or liberal self-righteousness, or worse, both. The Spirit of Love is the difference between our thoughts and prayers being with the people of Ukraine and our thoughts and prayers being about them.
Christians are capable of diagnosing the true cause of wars, if they are faithful to their Redeemer and Divine Physician, Who teaches that “all these evil things come from within” (Mark 7:23). From a refried Red Scare to psychoanalytic interpretations of geopolitics, every mainstream news outlet is struggling to find a satisfying narrative for why Putin has ordered this invasion, and how the West (according to their preferred flavor of “the West”) can be the hero of the story by opposing him. The true answer is simply sin, and insofar as the West is also mired in sin, it cannot be but another feuding tyrant. The pain of this war is that there are no obviously “good” nations. It is supremely fitting that this year marks the centenary of the first Encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI, who reflected therein:
Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late [First World] War. This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of civil society. Unfortunately the law of violence held sway so long that it has weakened and almost obliterated all traces of those natural feelings of love and mercy which the law of Christian charity has done so much to encourage. Nor has this illusory peace, written only on paper, served as yet to reawaken similar noble sentiments in the souls of men. On the contrary, there has been born a spirit of violence and of hatred which, because it has been indulged in for so long, has become almost second nature in many men. There has followed the blind rule of the inferior parts of the soul over the superior, that rule of the lower elements “fighting against the law of the mind,” which St. Paul grieved over. (Romans 7:23)
If it was true a century ago that a spirit of violence rules men, then how much more so today? The Holy Father cited bodily lust culminating in the breakdown of the family, greed for gain culminating in class conflict, and the desire to domineer over others culminating in partisan factionalism—all three being proof that the sins which begin in our individual hearts have social consequences, eventually resulting in “structures of sin,” as Saint Pope John Paul II would later call them. This should make Christians extremely skeptical about any explanations of any wars which do not call attention to sin. The Book of James is very explicit on this point: “From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members? You covet, and have not: you kill, and envy, and can not obtain...” (4:1-2). Such verses should shake us free from the absurdity by which some Christians decry a nation which legally aborts millions of its children, and then immediately insist that this same nation can be trusted as an international policeman. We live in a strange age when the United States is “collecting evidence for war crimes” committed by Russia, which would presumably be submitted to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, an institution which the U.S. Senate has legally authorized the president to invade, if our military is ever brought to court.
With such hypocrisy among the nations, we look rather to the Sun of Justice to provide judgment. Until all the world is doing the same, we should simply expect wars and violence, in greater proportion as the world looks to its own devices rather than God. Therefore, prayers for Putin’s conversion are praiseworthy, and especially for those afflicted, an incredible witness to praying “for those who persecute you.” Imprecations might also be in place. But for my fellow Americans, distant from the tip of the spear, we must not forget to pray in penance for the sins of our own nation, so to “first take the log out of your own eye.” If not Putin’s invasion now, then there would certainly be a different war elsewhere soon enough. It is impossible to imagine that a world economy profitable to the military-industrial complex, a finite earth with decreasing supply of raw materials (especially oil), and a global population suffused by nihilism, loneliness, and despair will not result in paroxysms of self-destruction. In fact, the war in Ukraine only “feels” unique (to those safely in the First World) because it is happening “on our own property” so to speak: the region in which the white, post-Christian population lives is supposed to be “safe” from the “instability” of the non-white Global South, Middle East, or the Orient. Have at least a little mercy on the journalists and influencers of the West: they are having their delusions slowly stripped away, and the process is painful. The brutal wars raging in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan have “felt” less dire over the last decade only because the liberal order found their aggression more acceptable (and more profitable) than Russia’s.
A common objection to this conclusion must be considered: whatever happened to just war theory? If only a perfect nation can wage war, then how will the most vicious nations be restrained? The perfect, the “realists” say, must not be the enemy of the good. A longer discussion would be required to consider whether ius in bello (justice in the battle itself, as opposed to ius ad bellum, justice in going to war in the first place) is ever possible via aerial bombings, combat drones, and standing armies. Even assuming the best for the hawkish interpretation, Saint Augustine chastens the heart of those who think of war indifferently or, even worse, with enthusiasm:
But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars. For it is the wrong-doing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though it gave rise to no war, would still be matter of grief to man because it is man’s wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling. (City of God XIX, vii)
Ultimately, this call to conversion is how a Christian reads the “sign of the times.” Jesus frames them within as an eschatological vignette: “you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars,” which we must consider not within the narrative of our nation-state, but the history of the City of God. It should not be a cause of fear, causing us to look for worldly power whom we can trust, but an opportunity to affirm our faith in divine Providence: “see that ye be not troubled.” And, as above, we must expect wars to result, not inevitably from the hand of God, but as the bitter fruit of the world’s sin: “for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6). When the urgency of temporal strife threatens to absolutize itself, the Lord guides us to the Last Things: si vis pacem, memento mori.
Sean Domencic is contributing author for New Polity and the former editor of Tradistae. He and his wife, Monica, are involved in the Catholic Worker Movement and raising their children in Lancaster, PA. He prefers to write for free but would appreciate your support through prayer and alms. Donations can be made at patreon.com/tradistae