Wars and rumors of wars will abound before his return according to Jesus (Matthew 24:6). And when a war is unpopular or it seems like voluntary enlistment is insufficient, a draft, which amounts to forcing civilians to become soldiers, might be implemented. Due to the lunacy of President Donald Trump, fears and talk of a potential draft has circulated in my country; while none has been announced as planned, the maximum enlistment age for the United States military was reportedly increased from 35 to 42. Many would bristle at the thought of being conscripted for the army, but more on the basis of personal revulsion, moral intuition (an obviously baseless reason to believe something is good or evil), or the inconvenience it would cause to them.
Trump has long enjoyed the support of many evangelical pseudo-Christians, no matter what he does and how much it deviates from rationalism and the directly stated particulars or strictly logical ramifications of Biblical ethics. A draft could severely complicate the already dwindling enthusiasm for his philosophy and behaviors, however. Perhaps those who might still desperately or stubbornly bind themselves to Trump as a supposed champion of the Christian worldview would be surprised that the Old Testament itself prohibits this measure in Deuteronomy 20. Of course, if they cared about the truth of logic or the basic facts of what the Bible does and does not say, they would never have endorsed such a foolish tyrant anyway.
One finds commanded in the aforementioned chapter of the Torah a very humanitarian concept of military enlistment. Despite the language of male soldiers, there is no condemnation of female soldiers in Deuteronomy or anywhere else in the Bible. A draft, if morally valid, would have to include both men and women, but the divinely prescribed allowances for sidestepping armed service entirely contradict the very nature of imposing such service on other people, especially if there is some sort of legal punishment for declining.
Deuteronomy 20:5-9—"The officers shall say to the army: 'Has anyone built a new house and not yet begun to live in it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may begin to live in it. Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it. Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.' Then the officers shall add, 'Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his fellow soldiers will not become disheartened too.' When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it."
Offering these chances for prospective fighters to avoid going into warfare inherently requires that there is no military draft, for a draft does precisely the opposite. Instead of forcing otherwise uninterested or unwilling people (usually men due to misandristic and misogynistic stereotypes) to engage in combat, the Biblical approach is to freely allow anyone who does not wish to participate to simply leave with no retaliation. Whether they are engaged to be formally married, have just completed a major domestic project like the construction of a residence, or are afraid, they are neither to be kept from leaving nor punished for their fear or life circumstances.
On a practical level, even aside from the higher matters like morality, which deals with what should and should not be done no matter the personal/situational benefit, it is also logically true that this invitation for unwilling people to not act as soldiers leaves the army full of people who are invested enough or willing to fight. The result would be a force that would not be full of those likely to desert or of involuntary combatants who might hold back on the battlefield or even try to sabotage their own faction's operations as a means of expressing disapproval over the conscription. Indeed, Deuteronomy 20:8 acknowledges that maintaining an army of only willing warriors can have a distinctly favorable impact on morale.
Whether on abstract philosophical grounds or on "practical" grounds (which are still necessarily philosophical in nature but of trivial importance by comparison to the former), some would likely object to the application of such an approach to modern armies. Either they think, most probably, 1) that this set of obligations is only binding on ancient Israel or today at most on those of Jewish descent (outright cultural moral relativism) or 2) that allowing any unwilling person to not fight would have a disastrous outcome for the society in question.
Regarding the first of these objections, rationalists should have an easy time recognizing that something cannot be morally mandatory, permissible but not required, or evil all at once for different people in the same position, with race and nationality being totally irrelevant. Yet, the opposite is exactly what conventional Rabbinic and evangelical ethics entails. It might not be obvious whether good and evil exist, but if they do, the falsity of racism and the consistency required by the very nature of something being obligatory or evil entirely excludes any sort of differing moral duties based strictly on racial or national grounds. The same thoughts/acts must be obligatory or immoral by nature.
An early chapter in Deuteronomy agrees that justice, which encompasses all criminal and social justice obligations revealed by God in the entirety of the Torah, is fixed and overarching for all nations. Now, if justice, how people deserve to be treated, is the same for all people (and either justice is the same for everyone or there is no such thing as morality; there are no other logically possibilities!), then the actions that should receive some legal penalty or protection also must be the same without respect to race or nationality. Ancient Israel was to inspire other nations to submit to the standard of righteousness that is already correct for everyone, prompting Gentiles living outside of Israel to see the superiority of the laws prescribed by Yahweh, laws which correspond perfectly to the transcendent moral laws. This is the very obvious thrust of Deuteronomy 4:5-8, a passage ignored or downplayed by almost everyone with cultural visibility who claims a connection to Judeo-Christianity.
Deuteronomy 4:5-8—"See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?"
Deuteronomy 9:4-6, 12:29-31, 18:9-13, and 20:16-18 also directly contradict such relativism by treating moral requirements as the same for Hebrews and Gentiles, with a host of other statements in Deuteronomy addressing how certain acts as evil or detestable/abominable in themselves (such as in 17:2-5, 22:5, and 25:13-16), which also has obvious ramifications against a Jew-Gentile double standard for ethics or one based upon when a person lives (or gender, and so on). And this is just from the book of Deuteronomy (though racism and moral relativism can only be logically false either way). Leviticus and the prophetic writings treat morality as the same for all people as well, such as in Leviticus 18:5-30, 20:1-23, Ezekiel 5:5-7, and Jeremiah 18:5-10. It is not as if the Old Testament, the Torah included, ever tries to obscure how morality would of course be universal for all people.
What about the alleged pragmatic dangers of national leadership not forcing some people to fight, of a community being left with an insufficient number of troops? Well, a more invested group of combatants is certainly not a drawback for an army, and only those truly invested or able to fight without deterring their fellow soldiers are not removed from those in Deuteronomy 20 who will actually fight. As already mentioned, one reason for the exemptions, besides the immorality of any sort of forced military service, is literally described as the benefit of not having one reluctant soldier's anxiety weakening the resolve of others.
Yes, God is ultimately the one who can inflict defeat upon even a much vaster or more technologically equipped force (Deuteronomy 20:1-4). This crucially does not mean, even according to the plain admission of Moses on God's behalf, that no soldiers fighting for Yahweh and the obligations rooted in him will die. See the repeated emphasis on how certain people can permissibly exempt themselves from military service lest they potentially die. At the same time, when a community is genuinely threatened with destruction or some brutal fate at the hands of an opposing army, those who are able to fight might very well do their best to stave off such an outcome while preserving their own life.
If conscription is evil, it is evil, no matter what someone feels or how inconvenient the truth is. Donald Trump would not have sinned in trying to escape the Vietnam draft, much less a sexist draft targeting men as many of them historically have, because drafting anyone is evil. But, he is wicked, among many, many other things, for keeping his "options open" (as a certain Trump-appointed spokeswoman has recently credited him with) when it comes to mandating a draft and, if applicable, for (probably) entertaining a draft as a legitimate option away from the media spotlight. No one should be conscripted for military service, with or without the added error of sexism. This means not even people who voted for or otherwise supported Trump in their delusions should be forced to do so because such treatment is inherently unjust.
More than instituting a military draft being sinful, it is required to release those who wish to not be involved in a battle according to the very worldview legions of MAGA proponents have so pathetically misunderstood for their own ends. Wars and rumors of wars might persist for generations until the return of Christ, but it is evil to force people to fight, and all the more when the conflict is based upon separately illogical, unjust grounds. American propaganda cannot change what Biblical philosophy truly holds.
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