War Crimes at the Judgment Seat

What Russian War Criminals Can Teach Us About Excusing Evil

The Western world said “Never again” after the gas chambers of the Third Reich—and yet here we are.

Russian troops deployed by war criminal Vladimir Putin are committing atrocities all across Ukraine, murdering innocent civilians in cold blood as they move from invasion to occupation to attempted genocide. One of the reasons it’s difficult to see the images of these slaughtered innocents is because most people wonder, “What can we do to stop it?”

While the Ukrainians have shown grit and valor beyond what anyone could have predicted, by all accounts there is still a long slog ahead. The war crimes will continue.

Maybe, somehow, this invasion will be stopped quickly and the Russian war criminals will be brought to justice in a Nuremberg-style trial, as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for. But, if not, these murders and crimes may not be called to an account for a long time—perhaps even a lifetime. In fact, that’s what the war criminals are counting on.

The world should watch what these criminals are doing—to call it what it is and hold them to account whenever the time comes. But Christians in particular should watch and recognize something we often want to ignore: how the human heart can justify great evil.

Humans are capable of horrific depravity. This we know. Yet human beings are not like wild animals or constructed machines. We have consciences that alert us to what sort of people we are becoming. To carry out criminality of this degree, a Russian soldier must somehow learn to silence that conscience—or at least muffle it.

While few, if any, of those reading this are guilty of war crimes, every one of us has grappled with our conscience—and in many cases, we have followed the same path, even when the sins are not as heinous and the stakes not as high.

So how does this happen?

One of the first steps is to emphasize power over morality. An easy way to do this is to characterize the situation as an emergency, requiring a dispensing of the ordinary norms of behavior. Every criminal regime has done this—usually by identifying scapegoats, blaming them for the people’s ills, and framing the situation as an existential threat. Acting within the bounds of conscience is portrayed as a luxury, for times that are not as dire as these.

This can happen even with situations that appear morally unproblematic. We may rationalize that the mission is too important for us to hold the leader accountable for his or her treatment of people.

In a church setting, such reasoning might say, “How could we waste time on these niceties when people are going to hell without the gospel?” In politics, it might take the form of “These theories about character in office or constitutional norms are nice and all. But get in the real world; we’re about to lose our country.” In wartime or other military situations, it might be framed as “We can hear about your ethical qualms with torture later; if we don’t act now, terrorists will destroy us.” And so on.

Those carrying out sins or injustices of any kind must lie to evade accountability. But the most dangerous form of lying is not the propaganda people give to others but the lies they tell themselves—to quiet their consciences.

Again, this can happen in matters that fall far short of war crimes. People can wall off certain categories of sin and refuse to view them as such—placing the blame for the sin not on themselves but on those who would label it sin.

For instance, one can define sin merely in social terms: “As long as I don’t seem to be hurting anyone else in any kind of public way, then why is it anyone’s business what I do in my private life?” Or one can do the opposite and define sin as merely personal, acting as though questions of social injustice are of no moral consequence.

This is how some American preachers at the Baptist World Alliance meeting in Berlin just prior to World War II were able to excuse Nazi Germany’s authoritarianism and demonization of Jews. Those were just “social” issues, they reasoned. On the moral questions they really cared about—the “personal” ones—some of them said the Reich could teach decadent America a thing or two: Adolf Hitler didn’t drink or smoke. Women were dressed modestly, not like back home.

To read the accounts in light of what was to come is chilling. And yet we hear of the same sort of machinations all the time—at times even within our own hearts.

Sometimes an evil is too great to ignore altogether. The conscience must reckon with it but does so by projecting that evil onto some other person or group. Rather than grappling with the indictment of one’s own sense of right and wrong, one can short-circuit the blame by locating it elsewhere.

This is how, for instance, Russian war criminals—while carrying out the very same tactics as Nazi storm troopers—can claim that they are fighting to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

Again, this doesn’t have to happen on the huge moral scale of geopolitical atrocity. You can see this in your own work breakroom or church foyer. For example, you would be surprised at how many of the most strident culture warriors—identifying “compromise” in fellow Christians in the fight against “sexual anarchy”—are addicted to porn.

The conscience works by pointing the psyche to ultimate accountability. The apostle Paul wrote that the conscience bears witness to the day “when God judges people’s secrets through Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:16). One cannot bear the weight of that. Either we convince ourselves that such a reckoning will never come, or we find some authority—maybe even a spiritual one—to reassure us that we will never be found out.

The “Butcher of Bucha,” a Russian commanding officer of a unit that massacred civilians in Ukraine was reportedly blessed by a Russian Orthodox priest—just before the grisly mission in which his troops left the bodies of innocent civilians lying in mass graves or in the streets. The “butcher” allegedly spoken of his mission as a kind of spiritual warfare in which he was fighting on the side of God. And, of course, this is just one example of how the Russian Orthodox Church is not just complicit but celebratory of the crimes of Putin’s regime.

Again, this is also not unusual. Every evil king in the Bible searched out a prophet who would tell him that his actions were sanctioned by God. And even in the smallest of transgressions, the first thing we often want to do when carrying out evil is to find some moral authority that will tell us what we are doing is right.

Maybe the most dangerous step of all, though, is when the conscience gives up altogether and starts to say that this is just the way the world is. It shifts to saying depravity is realistic and morality is not. We can see this in the smirk behind Putin’s words and in the throat-clearing whataboutism of his Western defenders. This is all rooted in the idea that accountability will never arrive, that Judgment Day will never come.

And yet it will.

We were born into this century, this moment in history, and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to stand against the murder and genocide of innocent people. We have a responsibility to call evil what it is.

We also have a responsibility to take warning—to recognize the ways in which we excuse and reassure ourselves in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the most vicious war criminal.

Because for us, as for them, Judgment Day is coming.

I’m Writing a New Book

For the past many months, I’ve been working on a major book project, and I’m coming around the corner where the end is at least in sight. The book will be out at the end of this year or the first of next year, with Penguin Random House. It’s about what happened with American evangelical Christianity and how to find a path forward.

The book is a combination of personal memoir, cultural analysis, and jeremiad/manifesto. It looks at what has been revealed about evangelical Christianity in the Trump years, the scandals, the conspiracy theories, and buffooneries. And in it I talk more honestly than I ever have about what it was like to become an accidental exile in evangelical America. Maria is reading it as each chapter is finished and keeps saying, “Are you really going to tell that?”

The book explains why I think we have to be short-term pessimists. The crises facing evangelical Christianity cannot be “waited out” until things “calm down.” Things have been unveiled over the past several years, but they have been around a long time. The unveiling has been awful. We see people we respected revealed as frauds or as hacks. Friendships and alliances that seemed stable and permanent are gone. Churches are divided. Families are divided. The witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a scandal in the wrong sort of way.

At the same time, I think there are signs of hope. The stories are true. The tomb is empty. The Spirit is alive. We are born again at the right time.

Anyway, please pray for me as a I finish this.

Would You Like to Work with Me?

Last week on Twitter, I posted a job description for a position working with me. We have lots of applications already, and we’re about to start narrowing them down. If you or someone you know would fit this role working alongside me, apply right now, before we start the narrowing process.

Please don’t contact me directly to ask questions about the position at this point. All the information is at the CT Human Resources site. Stay tuned.

Moore Family Reunion in Austin This Weekend

If you’re in Austin this weekend, the Moores will be back together—Beth and me—at a Living Proof Live event, talking about the gospel and what we’ve learned in ministry. Hope to see some of y’all there.

This week’s submission comes from reader Patrick, who asks not to have his last name used because he’s kind of bashful about putting something this personal out here. I am happy to honor that, and we will treat Patrick today like Cher or Elvis or Augustine—people for whom one name will do. Patrick writes:

“Thank you for your newsletter and podcast; they are both encouraging and thought-provoking for me. I’m thankful for how the Lord has used your voice.

Below is my Desert Island Playlist. I found it difficult to get it to 12 songs—and even more difficult to not fill it up completely with Andrew Peterson and Josh Garrels songs.”

“White Owl,” by Josh Garrels. My wife insisted I check out Josh Garrels, so I pulled up Love & War & the Selah In Between. I was an instant fan after hearing this opening track. It’s hard not to list more from this outstanding album (perhaps my favorite album).

“The Weight of Lies,” by The Avett Brothers. Musicians that are proudly North Carolinian.

“#41,” by Dave Matthews Band. My ’90s-era teenage zeal for DMB has faded, but this remains one of my favorite songs.

“In the Night,” by Andrew Peterson. Powerful song from my favorite contemporary songwriter. Also, Stuart Duncan’s fiddle is beautiful.

“Come Back Soon,” by Andrew Peterson. The bridge is one of my favorite pieces of non-hymn lyrics. This entire album (Light for the Lost Boy) is brimming with restlessness for the Lord’s return.

“Daydreaming,” by Radiohead. If I could, I would list the opening three songs to A Moon Shaped Pool.

“Bound to Ride,” by The Stanley Brothers. The seeds of my love for old-time and bluegrass music were planted at a barbeque joint separated from the road by a large field that had weekly square dancing.

“Dreams,” by the Allman Brothers Band

“Wildfire,” by Mandolin Orange. A song that resonates, from a songwriter that grew up in rural eastern North Carolina.

“Jacqueline,” by Sarah Jarosz. She said in a concert that the song was born from an imagination of walking with the ghost of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis alongside her namesake reservoir. That’s awesome.

“Summertime,” Doc Watson and David Grisman’s version

“The Lord Is Coming,” by Scott Mulvahill. We were attending the Behold the Lamb of God show at the Ryman several years ago when Scott Mulvahill debuted this song to the BTL crowd. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a musician so unexpectedly captivate the entire audience.

Thanks, Patrick with no last name!

Readers, what do you think? If you were stranded on a desert island and could have only one playlist or one bookshelf with you for the rest of your life, what songs or books would you choose?

For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list of up to 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)

For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books. If possible, include one photo of all the books together.

Send your list to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like.

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Ask a Question or Say Hello

The new Russell Moore Show podcast includes a section of grappling with the questions you might have about life, the gospel, relationships, work, the church, spirituality, the future, a moral dilemma you’re facing, or whatever. You can send your questions to questions@russellmoore.com. I’ll never use your name—unless you tell me to—and will come up with a groan-inducing pun of a pseudonym for you.

And, of course, I would love to hear from you about anything. Send me an email at questions@russellmoore.com if you have any questions or comments about this newsletter, if there are other things you would like to see discussed here, or if you would just like to say hello!

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Onward,
Russell Moore