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American NuremburgJun 04 '05 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I like to ask Christians, “So when Jesus said love your enemies, do you think he meant for you to kill them?”
It’s often said that the September 11th attacks were part of an ongoing holy war, a jihad. A bunch of Christina hating Muslims attacked America in the name of Allah. The only moral thing to do, it seems is for a bunch of Muslim hating Christians to return the favor. My wife quit going to church in September 2001 after it became apparent that those who had persuaded her to worship the so called “Prince of Peace” were intent on kicking a little Islamic butt for Jesus. The weekend following the attack, Tina went to the Sabbath worship service at her very conservative Seventh Day Adventist church. It looked like an American Nuremburg. There were American flags stuck outside of every window and at the end of every pew. Never mind that citizens of 80 countries died on 9/11 or that the congregation of this church included citizens from more than a dozen countries. The SDA church encourages its young people to avoid military service in combat arms. The church loves to tell the story of Desmond Doss, the only WWII conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor. Doss as an unarmed medic during the battle on Okinawa exposed himself to Japanese fire repeatedly while moving dozens of wounded soldiers out of the line of fire. Doss is supposed to be an example/ If Ludwig von Beethoven were to return to life to conduct one of his symphonies in the sanctuary of an SDA church the end of the performance would be met with stony silence. You aren’t supposed to clap in church is what is taught. We live in a military town. Ft. Bragg is the home of the 82nd Airborne and the US Army Special Operations Command. Militarism seeps into every facet of life here. It certainly seeped into that church as the minister called for all the military members present to stand for a round of applause that morning. Most of them were infantry paratroopers soon to head for Afghanistan. It seems that God and country had become Country and god. The flowing night at Bible study a conversation evolved around how wonderful it was for Americans to bond together in the aftermath of what happened in New York and DC, how special it was for all of us to help each other. When Tina remarked “Americans help each other all the time; after floods, hurricanes or droughts. What is happening now is that Americans are coming together because they want to kill somebody.” Well this angered the assembled Christians. One of them asked Tina if she “hated soldiers.” Our son was on active duty in the military at the time. I am a veteran. Tina’s father retired from a 30-year career in the Army as a Sergeant Major. During the week the pastor and one of the deacons called to speak with both Tina and I to convince us of the righteousness of killing for Jesus. I almost never attended church but I went the following week. I printed and cut out the flag of Afghanistan so that I could pin it to my lapel. I was so angry at all the GodBlessAmericaCrapola that I desperately wanted someone to tell me that God doesn’t love Afghans but no one had the balls to say what was so obviously on the minds of the Christian death machine. It was the last time either Tina and I attended church. What happened in the aftermath on September 11th changed my life. With no experience in political thought or activism, I began to organize in my decidedly secular way around the types of issues that Jesus talked about and that his followers ignore. I used to be a prison guard, that being the best job I could get when I got out of the military. That eight-year experience led me to oppose the death penalty. I’ve never had any success in persuading a church to host a program about the issue. Not even the local Catholic church wants to talk about it, despite John Paul’s vocal denunciation of the practice. And, the war continues. Local churches refuse to risk alienating their military congregations. The flag gets waved and local pastors get to watch soldiers fire guns over the graves of the war dead. Mark Twain explained Christians and war much better than I ever could. "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.  |
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