Many Christian denominations are examining the moral implications of drone warfare. Liberal theologians and churches often question the government’s use of strategies for war, including the use of unmanned aircraft for killing enemies.
Here are liberal voices from five Christian denominations on drone warfare:
1. The United Church of Christ participated in a conference on drone warfare in 2015 that included religious leaders from several denominations. The Rev. Michael Neuroth, UCC international policy advocate for Justice and Witness Ministries said people from Christian, Jewish, Quaker, and Muslim faiths wanted to consider what high-tech weaponry means to the country and its people.
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“As a denomination we’ve proclaimed the hope that peace is possible, and the ease with which the U.S. and other countries use drones makes the hope of peace less and less likely,” Neuroth said in an
article on the United Church of Christ website.
2. Marty Troyer, a pastor of Houston Mennonite Church, wrote in a
2012 article for the Houston Chronicle that there may be no consensus among denominations, but some who support drones argue from a political and philosophical standpoint rather than a theological point of view.
Some supporters of drone warfare take a “nation-state approach” rather than looking at it from the perspective of the church or as representatives of the body of Christ, Troyer wrote.
3. Paul F. M. Zahl, president emeritus of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, wrote in a 2011
article for Christianity Today that America’s use of “drones to kill people by remote control is laying up for us a harvest of judgment to come.”
Zahl wrote that drone warfare produces “resentment among the people we are fighting” and also reduces those on the ground to “absolute helplessness.”
4. The Church of the Brethren teaches that participation in war is wrong and incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Armed drones are particularly in contrast with aiming for peace and healing when dealing with conflict.
“We find the efforts of the United States to distance the act of killing from the site of violence to be in direct conflict to the peaceful witness of Jesus,”
the Church of the Brethren said on its website.
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5. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace spent a year studying targeted killings through drone warfare,
according to The Huffington Post.
Bishop Richard Pates, chair of the committee, wrote in an op-ed piece for The Washington Post: “The distance many people feel from this issue doesn’t reduce the ethical concerns involved, nor does it make the negative impact of drone usage any less severe.”
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