Inspired by Memorial Day

These past few years, every time Memorial Day roles around, I feel a barrel full of emotions. Two of my siblings who I love dearly are now enlisted in the military. I, on the other hand, have felt unsettled about violence since high school, and have come to stronger convictions in recent years. Yet, when Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day rolls around, I feel heavily conflicted. I mean, Memorial Day is nothing to mess around with – it’s to remember not just those who were in the military, but those who died in the military. And I know that these people – including my brother and sister – are responding to the injustice they see in the world, rejecting lethargic indifference and choosing a way to make a difference.

This year I am going to decide to be inspired. People we know, both Christians and otherwise, have risked and sacrificed their lives for things like democracy and freedom. Yet we don’t do so for the gospel. Missionaries (what I believe to be the prophetic alternative to soldiership) evacuate a country at the rumor of political tension; we avoid warzones, and leave it to the military. So here’s the question I’m stuck with this Memorial Day: Why will we risk our lives and take the lives of others for the sake of democracy and the defense of our nation, yet we rarely rise to this occasion when it comes to the gospel?

Consider the number of Christians who are in the military desiring to make a positive difference in the world. Depending on who you ask, 22-40% percent of active personnel are Evangelicals, while 88% claim to be Christians. Memorial Day sparks my imagination, and makes me wonder what would happen if these men and women were to go to such extremes in service of the gospel?

I think of Tom Little, who provided healthcare in Afghanistan at the cost of his own life. I think about the Christian Peacemaker Teams, who live in conflict areas (Columbia, Iraq, Palestine, Democratic Republic of Congo, US/Mexico Borderlands) to keep military agencies accountable. I’m thinking of Tom Fox who was killed while serving on a Christian Peacemaker Team in Baghdad 2005. These people have gone to other countries not as representatives of a political entity, but as representatives of the church, of Jesus and his gospel.

The military has stepped in where the church has stepped out. Really – what would it be like if all these young folks served the church like they do the military? What would happen if all these people (at low estimates, 500,000 evangelicals in the military) loved our enemies, did good to those who do evil and struggled for the gospel, instead of against flesh and blood?  Let’s be soldiers of Christ, of love and servanthood, instead of soldiers of the Kingdom of America. As followers of Jesus thinking about fallen soldiers, I am ready to be inspired this Memorial Day and dream of a church willing to risk our lives and “become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear,” no matter what the sacrifice.

Maybe I’m being naive – as God uses the foolish and weak to confound the wise and strong – but the question remains: what if Christians sacrificed, the way we’ve seen military personnel do, for the sake of the Kingdom of God and the gospel?

Why I Am No Longer a Pacifist

“I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.” From The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

This book is a difficult one to quote if the reader is unfamiliar with it. The book consists of (fictional) letters between two demons who plot to sideline the faith of an individual; so it’s important to note that “the Enemy” is Jesus, and thus extreme devotion to anything other than him draws us away from him.

Being a Christian pacifist tends to include a lot of biblical defense of the ethics of peacemaking. We, as pacifists, tend to harp on the prohibition of violence. Then debate with just-war or pro-war advocates typically runs through a few particular proof texts, arguing as to whether Jesus really meant to turn the other cheek, what exactly he meant by telling Peter to put away his sword, and what it means to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And then we get into the wars of the Old Testament.

But I’ve decided to give that up. From now on, I am no longer a pacifist. I am a Christian, a follower of Christ, plain and simple. Stepping out of the pacifist camp, I want to be an obedient participant of the Kingdom of God. As such, I want to love my enemies, be a bearer of the ministry of reconciliation, speak the truth, and demonstrate hope for even the most evil people, like Saul (later to become the Apostle Paul), who systematically killed Christians or Joseph Kony, who recruits child soldiers. I want to follow Christ’s example of coming to other to a people who otherwise had no hope, and pursued a relationship with them, even at the cost of his life.

I think of my friends Nate and Tessa who aren’t political, and whom I have not been able to pin down on their stance on war or use of violence. But that’s primarily because they’re focused more on what’s going on personally, focusing on meeting personal needs, on listening to people, praying for them, speaking truth and life into them. They’re not pacifists, or anarchists, or anything really, other than people who are very, very, very open to being used by the Holy Spirit. They love Jesus, and live their lives accordingly, which leaves very little room for violence, militarism or nationalism – just sometimes doing holding restraints on violent drunk guys at punk rock shows.

I don’t think I need to declare myself a pacifist, if I am a Christian. Jesus told us to love our enemies, Paul exhorted the same, and reminds us multiple times that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. James instructed us to demonstrate our faith through doing good to others. Ours is the ministry of reconciliation, and the gospel is such that it provides hope for both the victim and the perpetrator. The types of relationships that I see throughout the entire New Testament are those that reach beyond national borders, ethnic conflict, gender, age, background and see the other person, no matter who it is, as a prodigal child of God whom he is patiently waiting for to welcome back with open arms. Killing those who do evil demonstrates a lack of hope in Christ’s ability to redeem sinners (aka people that are just like us).

I want to put aside all the arguing and the questions about what I’d do if someone was attacking my grandma, and focus on what the Kingdom of God is about. If we are busy serving the poor, serving with our spiritual gifts inside and outside of the church, loving anyone who comes across our paths, and purely devoting ourselves to Christ, military enlistment shouldn’t be seen as bad per se, as much as it is just one huge distraction from what the Christian life is really about – serving everyone (Jews and Gentiles, Americans and  Afghanis), loving those different than us, showing devotion to the Kingdom above all other institutions.

this feels like forever!

No media for the week - wait am I creating media by blogging? And should I stop looking at this picture?

I think because of the intensity that media week is it should be shortened by 50%. It feels about 3,000% more intense than the other weeks, so really cutting it by half isn’t a big deal.

I really do believe in not allowing media to rule our lives. I remember times when the latest season of Lost would come out on DVD, and we’d spend three hours a night in front of the TV and I felt so dead and disconnected. And I felt that for the month of February, God told me to stop listening to stupid radio during my  25 minute commute to work and pray for my clients. I have, like most of us, seen how media has the great power to deter us from authentic relationships, taking care of responsibilities, and even basic hygiene.

But so far, I am tired of not turning off my brain. Not to say it hasn’t been great, it’s been so great. D and I have worked through all of our marital challenges, planned out our future, and hammered out our theology so fine we’re ready to write a 50-page statement of faith (now, if God would just get on board with these things). I have read books on the inherent diversity in the Kingdom of God, on pacifism, on just-war theory, on childhood trauma, and on the Holy Spirit (okay, not read entire books, but I have spanned a lot of content). I wrote out my master’s thesis, half of it during media week. I even called my mom (actually that happens pretty regularly). While Ramona napped today, I cleaned and cooked dinner, and I wrote out an outline about Christian pacifism for a social issues class presentation in two weeks. I feel more productive than ever before. And I am tired, and there seems to be no refuge.

If I’m not watching TV, or  playing video games –  the latter of which only happens on Thursday and Saturday nights in order to decompress after 4 hours of night classes or working 6:30am-11:00pm on those days, respectively (I know D did not want you guys to know her husband plays video games), if I am not doing those, I am thinking, planning, producing. TV (and it’s more active counterpart, video games) helps me shut my brain off. My favorite thing to do on Saturday nights is to put on my headphones with binaural beats and attack zombies on my Wii. Without media, I am like a hamster running through a cage. This might sound self-righteous, but I don’t play video games because I’m lazy, but quite the opposite – I don’t know how to stop from working.

(By the way, I don’t want to stray far from the point of this blog, so I won’t address difficult it has been to not be able to turn to my my ongoing game of Worms on my phone whenever I am bored, like waiting in line, or standing in the elevator, or taking out the trash).

And I tried to find a good replacement for TV – finishing the fourth Harry Potter book (which I began over a year ago – I am on the 10-year plan…and it is worth noting that I skipped the first book entirely?). But that Hermione her darn S.P.E.W. campaign always get me thinking again about the great injustices in the world, whether against elves or humans.

Not to give you the idea that I am always thinking about social justice, by any means. I’m usually thinking about group therapy so I look competent, how to make it as an post-rock/spoken word rock internet indie star, or how to argue for Christian pacifism so that I feel awesome about myself.

I often pray before our days off that the Holy Spirit would be part of our rest, as much as He is part of our work (employment yes, but also every other way we try to bring the Kingdom). But until now, I’ve never really had to figure out what that meant. God created sabbath, a spiritually sanctioned time of rest. But I’ve always thought that relieving suffering is mandatory at all times, and thus exempt from sabbath . So I think my down time is time for God to tell me what He wants me to do, or what He wants me to change.

So, all in all, (a) I don’t know what it means to rest with God; I usually just assume I’m suppose to sit in quietness so that He can tell me what to do next (b) Because I don’t know how to, I am losing my mind, and I just keep guessing at what Modern Family was about this week, and in what ways this week I would feel like I was very similar to Phil (although D is quite different than Clare, for the record). Obviously, I am going insane and this feels like forever.