Old Cold War fears are suddenly new again, nuclear war.

Miniaturized warheads, intercontinental ballistics, fools at the helm; impetuosity has replaced diplomacy, and it's become a dangerous game that's put us all at risk. Nuclear war seems real again, one stupid tweet away.

And we don't know what to make of it. Our apocalypse will find us still glued to our screens: streaming movies, watching porn, posting selfies, oblivious of our end. Our comedians have told a few jokes, because that's all they can do. Our varied media vary in their assessments, torn as they are between the responsibility of truth and the profits panic promises. An unexpected, antique anxiety, it'll take some getting used to again, this 20th-century memento mori, our new nuclear fear.

Some, of course, view this religiously; many always do. Some see our elected leaders as anointed, chosen clearly by God to wield the sword of righteousness against evil for the good of our godly nation. All of it right and just, according to the unrolled scrolls of providence.

Such is the belief of pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas, as he made clear a few days ago. God has given our president authority, he and many others believe, to wage war to "take out" evil dictators, namely North Korea's Kim Jong Un. "Thank God for a president who is serious about protecting our country," he said. Finally, an administration no longer "sheepish."

A not uncommon political theology in America, it's born of a certain reading of Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 13. Particularly, it's based upon those verses that call upon Christians to subject themselves to governing authorities because they serve the Lord as an "avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."

But it's an interpretation owing more to Martin Luther, actually, than to the apostle. Paul was writing to Christians living under arbitrary and often anti-Semitic pagan rule, offering fellow believers a moral strategy for survival, on how to abide by Jesus' ethic of love until his coming again in glory.

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Not a theology of politics, not a charter for Christian participation in the affairs of state, not a proof text for subservience: Paul, like other New Testament writers and, of course, like Jesus, thought the political realm the realm of Satan. Political institutions, along with principalities and powers, according to early Christian belief, belonged to the demonic. Hence bloody history, hence violence.

For Paul, it would have been unthinkable to consider a political ruler some sort of anointed Christian prince or president waging war on behalf of believers. We should remember that Paul was biblical, not Constantinian. He saw political authority as something ordered by God rather than ordained by him. Governments, wars, rulers, the innumerable fools of history: All of it, both good and evil, God mysteriously ultimately arranges according to his will.

Which is why the Christian task is to imitate Jesus and his peace, owing no one anything except love, until he comes again as true Lord of all. That's what I think Paul really meant. That's what's biblical, not any sort of sacralizing of national leaders.

But this is all internecine and marginal, isn't it? So many shallow theologies, they're as tedious as they are pointless, almost all of it beside the point. Aside from faith in God's ultimate victory, it does little to address the fear we now suddenly feel, saying little about how we should think about it.

Now, of course, Scripture is truth and comfort for me, always has been. However, strangely, they are the words of Homer that are chillingly relevant, words of enduring truth from The Iliad. "The War God is impartial," he wrote in that great text of folly and war. These are the words that keep me up at night. Haunting, they're a warning for all involved, whether religious, patriotic or indifferent, and they should temper whatever zeal we may feel for "fire and fury." Because, simplistic readings of Scripture and bad theology aside, this is what's true this side of eternity. This is what's true of war.

And it's why we shouldn't be so quick to assume God's bellicose blessing. It's why we should pray for peace.

Joshua J. Whitfield is pastoral administrator for St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and a frequent columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Email: jwhitfield@stritaparish.net

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