My father was a Jewish refugee to New
Zealand, and a Communist. He served in the New Zealand Air Force during
World War II – he once told me he would have been first in line to volunteer
to help drop the A-bombs on Japan - but after the war refused to accept the
medals to which he was entitled, as some kind of anti-war protest. (After he
died, in 1994, I wrote to the New Zealand Defence Department to check if the
medals were still available. They were, and I have them now in my desk
drawer.)
He and my mother became leaders of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and I was raised in the 1950s and 1960s in
an intensely anti-war environment. Yet at the same time my uncle – my
father’s younger brother, who as a boy had been smuggled by Jewish groups
into pre-war Palestine – was a career officer in the Israeli army.
I guess that ambivalence about military
matters stuck with me. So after I became a Christian, at the age of 44, if
I’d been asked my views about armed service, I might have answered with
something vague to the effect that of course we need an army, but that it’s
better that Christians not serve in it. Because armies are for killing, and
Christians shouldn’t kill.
Or I might have said that I classified
soldiers with lawyers and real estate agents. When you need them you expect
them to get down and dirty. Better they not be Christians.
But recently I’ve been spending time on
the internet following links provided by the
Association for Christian Conferences, Teaching and Service – a support
group for Christians in the military – and by the
Association of Military Christian Fellowships, and I’ve come to
recognise something important: we need more Christians serving in the
military. (I’m still undecided about lawyers and real estate agents.)
Reverend Major General Ian Durie has
examined many stories of serving soldiers in Scripture, and has
concluded:
We clearly see from
the New Testament that soldiering is an honourable profession, but one which
has to be conducted in a right way….Our Lord and the apostles (our model
church leaders) approved then, as they approve now, the profession of
soldier….Soldiering is an honourable profession, to which men and women of
faith are called.
But don’t soldiers kill? Yes, they do. As
Major General Durie explains:
There is a tendency…not to trust that God
has appointed us to be soldiers, nor that soldiering has our Lord’s
approval, and is a high calling under God. And when we don’t trust Him for
that, when we don’t offer this part of our lives in worship to God, when we
take off Christ as we put our uniforms on, then we abandon Him when we have
a gun in our hand, at the time that we need Him most. Do you see that? It’s
a matter of life and death, and at that supreme test we need God’s guidance
more than at any other time.
So don’t be blind….Because as a
Christian, if you are not ready to kill if need be, and approve of it, then
you should not be a soldier. For myself, I know that in the Gulf War I was
responsible for the deaths probably of hundreds, maybe thousands of Iraqi
soldiers. I did what I believed was right under God, but I also know that at
the last day I am answerable before Him for my actions there.
I recall C.S. Lewis in his book Mere
Christianity:
I have often thought to myself how it would have been if, when I served in
the first world war, I and some young German had killed each other
simultaneously and found ourselves together a moment after death. I cannot
imagine that either of us would have felt any resentment or even any
embarrassment. I think we might have laughed over it.
Go to
Part 3 (a pdf file) of Major General Durie’s lectures and read how he
places in context the sixth commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”) and Jesus’
admonition to turn the other cheek when attacked. Justice and righteousness
are over-riding imperatives of God.
Where, we must ask the
pacifist, is the righteousness in rape or robbery? Such things must be
stopped, and we may ourselves use reasonable force to prevent them.…The same
applies at a national level, internally against terrorists and rebels, and
externally against other armies who threaten violent action against the
state.
His conclusion: “It is always wrong to
use force, unless it is more wrong not to.”
A year ago, on September 11, Todd Beamer,
knew that. He knew that it was more wrong not to fight terrorists, and so he
prayed the 23rd Psalm and then probably helped stop United Airlines Flight
93 from crashing into the White House. Pray that all other Christians may
know the same.
September 9th, 2002
