Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Call to Stand
Commentary
for the September 16, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
"Therefore, put on the full armor of God,
so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and
after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of
truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in
place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel
of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you
can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians
6:13-17, NIV
Ephesians, chapter 6, is a favorite of fundamentalists who wish to wage
war against sinners of every stripe, especially against those in the LGBTQ
community or those who would seek medical abortions. These are the same
individuals and denominations that have waged war against alcohol, achieving
Prohibition but bringing in notorious gangsterism in the process that saw
people gunned down in mass shootings on American city streets. In the interests
of public safety, the war on alcohol was eventually abandoned. Since alcohol
was legal and affordable again, the money machine that funded gangsters like Al
Capone dried up. As an added measure to prevent gangsterism, alcohol sales in
many states became a state government monopoly, a position that eventually was
abandoned in Washington State several years ago.
Despite the failure of
Prohibition, fundamentalists have continued to use the same methods to deal
with sin of all kinds. There was the failed War on Drugs, but several states, finally
seeing the error being repeated, moved to legalize marijuana in an attempt to
defund organized crime. But the crime syndicates simply moved to heroin,
cocaine, methamphetamines, oxycontin, and fentanyl in an ever-changing attempt
to overwhelm anti-drug enforcement. They have been hugely successful in doing
so. Law enforcement is overwhelmed, and our cities struggle with enforcing laws
they have neither the manpower nor financial resources for. Every city and town
is under siege to some degree. But despite the long history of failure, fundamentalists
continue to feel that morality can be legislated and created by fines and imprisonment.
One wonders how we came to this.
We have gone from the early Christians, who, with Christ's teaching to love our
enemies and to turn the other cheek, gave up their lives without resistance
when persecuted first by the Jewish religious leaders and later by the pagan Romans.
Somehow, we have gone from a willingness to die for Christ to a willingness to
kill for Christ but not die for him. A transition appears to have taken place
between the pacifism of Jesus and the militaristic symbolism of Paul. Was the
abandonment of pacifism the key that brought about Paul's success on his
missionary journeys? Whatever role militarism may have played in the early church,
by the 3rd and 4th centuries, it came into full bloom.
A major transition was seen in Constantine's
rise to power. The tetrarchy established by Diocletian to provide for a smooth
transition of government fell apart when Maxentius, son of one the tetrarchs,
seized power in Rome and proclaimed himself sole ruler. For six years, no one
was able to mount a successful military campaign against him. Finally, Constantine
raised an army and marched on Rome. The two armies would meet at the Milvian
Bridge just outside Rome. Prior to the battle, Constantine claimed that God
spoke to him and said, "in hoc signo vinces." (In this sign conquer.) The image
of the Chi-Rho, an early Christian cross-like symbol formed from the first two
letters of "Christ" in Greek was revealed to him. Constantine had his soldiers
paint the symbol on their shields as is seen in our accompanying illustration.
He won the battle, unseated Maxentius, and proclaimed himself emperor. While a
refutation of Christ's pacifism, it may have seemed to some like a resurrection
of God's leading of Israel with King David and his wars against the
Philistines. The militarism seen in some of Paul's epistles provided proof text
fodder for an endorsement of the principle of holy warfare.
That concept gave us the
Crusades and was a driving principle in the inquisitions and persecutions directed by the church during the Middle Ages. Protestants
point the finger at papal armies raised to enforce the faith, but Protestants
were as eager to slaughter Catholics in the same manner. The Thirty Years War from
1618-1648 in Germany was the bloodiest of several wars during the wars of the Reformation.
While the Treaty of Westphalia ended the strife and brought about the concept
of a secular state, it did not end the idea of a holy and just war capable of
sweeping hundreds of thousands into their graves. Even the modern Cold War of
the 20th century was a clandestine battle against "godless"
communists. The communists have not been above repaying the favor. With the
recent invasion of Ukraine, Patriarch Krill, head of the Russian Orthodox
Church has declared the war against Ukraine to be a holy war, guaranteeing
salvation to those who die fighting Ukrainians. In another example, ironically,
Christians excoriate Muslims for their Intifadas and Fatwas, but have little
problem with taking up arms against them as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the United States continues
to become more culturally diverse, this creates a schizophrenia as we try to
sort out how we can fight infidels in other countries when we have those with
similar beliefs in our country. Of course, this contributes to the societal
divisions that plague us today. For example, despite the many women in the
legislative branch of our democratic republic, those in one party single out the
Muslim women for attack above all others. These modern persecutions are just a
continuing iteration of "putting on the whole armor of God" to battle the
enemy. In the alternative, we would be hard put to find modern Christian
examples of turning the other cheek.
States in this world are
controlled by elites who maintain militaries to control resources to benefit
the state and consolidate and maintain its power. That is not to say that the
resources are used to benefit all its citizens. There is a wide and
ever-growing gap between the benefits the common citizens can expect and those
held by the elite. For those at the top, religion proves useful to control
those who are deprived of the benefits the elite receive. The common people are
expected to turn the other cheek when faced with deprivation. That is the rule
unless they are called to battle to preserve the power of the rulers. Then conflict
becomes holy, just, and good as Patriarch Krill and hundreds like him would
have us believe.
It is a bitter truth that while
Christ asked us to preach his message of love of all, including our enemies,
and to bring salvation to the world, we find it easier to sweep as many of
those who differ with us as possible into the grave without benefit of salvation.
As some said during the Vietnam War that I was sent into, "Kill them all. Let God
sort them out." Doubtless there were some on the opposing side who expressed
similar sentiments.
I used to wonder how, with a global
denomination like Seventh-day Adventism, one can justify taking up arms against
an enemy that likely had other Adventists drafted into their ranks just as ours
have been drafted in past wars. This concern was particularly acute during the
past when we adopted pacifism as a denomination during the American Civil War,
but after the Vietnam War, somewhere along the way, we abandoned that position.
Now, not only is there a chance of facing a brother or sister Adventist across
the firing line, but officially the denomination no longer takes a stand
against that possibility. Maybe they have defaulted to the "God will sort it
out" position.
The taking of a life is a
terrible thing that will haunt the killer the rest of their life. I once taught
a Sabbath School class where an elderly man attended who served as a machine
gunner in World War I. To his dying day, he carried the guilt of all those
young men who died in the hail of bullets he fired across No Man's Land between
the trenches. The images that came to his mind in the still hours of the night
must have been horrific. It is hard for me to understand Christians who blithely
talk of just wars and see no problems with taking the lives of those who
disagree with them. Even on social media, I can feel the venom and hatred
displayed, even by pastors and other religious leaders over political issues currently
rending the nation.
It seems that in reading about
the whole armor of God in Ephesians, the only part of that outfit some care to
take up is the sword. Even though Paul calls the word of God the sword, I doubt
he meant it as a weapon of offense to slay others through its use. When we use it
to stab others with to prove we are spiritually superior and others should
kowtow to our understanding, we forget that Jesus warned that he who lives by
the sword will also perish by it.[i] I
take this to mean that if we are sweeping others into the grave and perdition
through our holy wars against evil, we may be sweeping ourselves there also.