Growing up in the Plymouth Brethren, a loose confederation of “assemblies” deeply flavored by Anabaptist thought, the whole idea of war seemed remote to us. As I recall, it was considered a “worldly” thing, something the devout should be wary of and even though there were military personnel in our community, they were rare, mostly because of the draft, and I never recall a career military person among us for all the years I was one of the “Brethren.”
My father, who had actually enlisted in the Marines before he and our family joined the Brethren, made a sincere effort to keep us from the military and even forbid us from playing “war” with our friends because he didn’t want us to make a game of such things. Presumably he had seen enough and he often warned us about being “cannon fodder.” So even though there was a war going on in Viet Nam, without a TV and with a deep sense of trying to not be like the “world” the whole thing was distant from us.
Flash forward to seminary when the Evangelical Left was in an 80’s ascendancy. The Cold War was hot on our minds and the effects of things like war and hunger and global economics on the poor and disenfranchised of the world were front and center. Starting to experience an age when images of such things were not being carefully crafted by governments, the full picture started to emerge, especially of war. War is nothing like the movies, not even the graphic ones, and those who fight in them never really come back no matter how many parades we have.
One step forward to serving as a Chaplain in health care and taking care of the men who had been front and center, even in the “good” wars. I remember an older man speaking to me of how he was horribly wounded (he still had shrapnel in his body courtesy of the Nazi’s) and then had to wait for three days to get help because another soldier who came to his rescue was shot dead, fell on top of him, and he didn’t have the strength to get his decaying body off his own. Yet another sweet man, the kind you’d think of as your grandpa, breaking into tear as he recalled his buddy in the artillery spotting team here one moment and missing his head the next while they stood together. And then, my brother-in-law, a Navy corpsman who saw every bit of trauma there was to see in Viet Nam while his own government exposed him to Agent Orange.
That is war.
One last step forward to Orthodoxy where what I had seen in types and shadows before was given depth and dimension. The ancient Way is a way of peace
Now, when the TV tells me to hate, to wish the death of others, I think of those stories and more and how incongruent they are from the simple, earnest, messages of the Gospel in my childhood and the person of Jesus I try to serve today. I know much about war, at least from afar, because to be a student of history is, unfortunately, to be a student of war. None of it impresses me and I see nothing holy or ultimately good in it. Hell gets fed, the demons get their souls, and the only benefit is that it may delay the next one for a short time. Meanwhile everything God hold precious is trampled, including my own soul to the extent that I glory in it.
If I have to die, let it at least be in the pursuit of peace because I’m not sure that it would be good for me to face my Lord with another person’s blood on my hands and my only defense was “The TV told me to do it…”
The Beautiful Path 