The Conscription Conundrum
Throughout history, man has waged war for reasons of religion, resource, ethnicity and countless other purposes. Presidents and Kings, Prime Ministers and Tribal leaders have used conscription to amass armies and wage wars. Conscription interferes with human rights and is not supported, in today’s culture, by the Bible.
In the Old Testament, we see evidence of God’s people using conscription. Saul had the authority to conscript men into his army and he exercised that right. “…and whenever Saul saw a mighty or brave man, he took him into his service.” (1 Sam. 14:52b NIV) God also had in mind that all the men of his nation that were to be counted in the census were fit for battle. “Take up the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, throughout their fathers’ house, all that are able to go to war in Israel.” (Num. 26:2) From this it would seem that conscription is permissible in Gods eyes. However, what we need to remember is that these were very different times and very different circumstances.
Israel was quite literally ‘one nation, under God’ in that they took orders from God himself. Even King Saul was answerable to a higher authority unlike anything we see today. “God had a unique relationship with Israel under the Law that has never been duplicated. No nation today can say that God is commanding them to go to war in the same way that he commanded Old Testament Israel.” Because of this we cannot claim that God is sending us to war, does this mean that conscription is wrong though? Why can the government not order the people of its nation to join the army in a time of crisis?
When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matt. 22:15) Jesus told them simply that they are to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matt. 22:21) The same is true of our bodies, if we belong to our...
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