Comments on Fair Fighting
We have all heard familiar slogans about conflict: “Fight fire with fire,” “Whatever it takes,” and, more recently, “Get your hands on their karma and turn it on them early.”
At first hearing, such expressions may sound like loyalty, courage, perseverance, and commitment to a cause. Yet they may also reveal attitudes that are poorly formed — attitudes that can lead us into reactions that fall short of what is right, just, and Christlike.
Friedrich W. Nietzsche warned, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster … for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Richard Rohr made a similar observation: “We all become well-disguised mirror images of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. Most ill-advised frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.”
This is a warning Christians should take seriously. We must carefully and prayerfully guard our militance. In resisting evil, opposing humanism, and exposing sin or error—whether in personal conduct, institutional doctrine, or the culture—we can become so consumed with fighting the enemy that we begin to adopt his methods.
Isn’t there a danger that we can become so emotional and so fixed on defeating what is wrong that maturity, discipline, and balance begin to slip away? Over time, we may find ourselves using the very methods we condemn in the enemy’s camp.
A subtle form of situation ethics can interfere with righteous zeal. For example, while we oppose lying, we may be tempted to distort the truth when we are under pressure or engaged in intense debate. We may accuse our opponents of ignoring context, omitting important facts, or abandoning objectivity. But shouldn’t we examine ourselves by the same standard?
Our cause may be righteous while our methods are unrighteous. Our beliefs may be biblical, yet expressed with such anger that we undermine them. Our purposes may be holy, but our tactics unholy.
We must resist the devil without using his tactics. We must stand for truth without compromising the way we present it. We should debate in order to inform and persuade—not merely to win at any cost. Above all, the glory of God must remain our highest aim.
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” And, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3–4; Eph. 4:15).
-Warren E. Berkley, previously published in Pressing On Magazine.
