Lausanne Movement Evangelicalism and the Redefinition of Godly Character

https://lausanne.org/podcast/demonstrating-godly-character-in-the-u-s-air-force

As a Christian who turned my back on the US military my expectations for this podcast were pretty low. In some respects Jerry White was refreshing in that he thinks through his actions more than a lot of people do, and yet I still cannot agree with his reasoning.

Where to begin? He asserts that God has spoken to him personally telling him at one time to stay in the Air Force, to get his master's degree, and to teach at the USAF Academy. So whether he's actually Charismatic or not, there is a tendency there and one all too common in Evangelicalism. Since God does not speak to me this way, perhaps he's more spiritually attuned than I am - or it could simply be that he's deceived on multiple levels. I would argue that God in fact did not tell him to do these things (and wouldn't have) and so I leave it to the reader to ponder just what is happening and wrestle with questions of self-deception, auto-suggestion and the like - or even the possibility of something darker.

As expected there was a great deal of confusion with regard to the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven as well as the notion of vocation or calling. Dominionism sacralizes all of culture and seeks to redeem it and thus any field can be transformed into 'ministry' or 'vocation' though the New Testament knows nothing of this. This is not to say (as is wrongly asserted) that we somehow leave Christianity behind when pursuing our daily tasks. By no means. We live as Christians but for many of us the work we do is temporal. We may be salt and light, the money we earn is used for godly purposes and so forth but the actual work itself is part of the worldly order that will burn up at the eschaton. It's not the work or realm of the Holy Spirit. It's not sanctified work and there's no suggestion that we are (or even can) redeem the world and its cultures. With this understanding it's much easier to simply eschew sections of society that have no bearing on us and make demands of us that we cannot fulfill - if we are to remain faithful.

White of course invokes Romans 13 but had he read the epistle without the artificial (and in this case misleading) chapter divisions he would understand that the end of what we call chapter 12 draws a contrast between the Christian calling and ethic and the role of the state. The state and its sword are legitimate and governed under the aegis of Providence but that entity fulfills a role that is the opposite of what we're called to. It's about vengeance - the very thing Paul and other New Testament authors (and Christ Himself) calls us to reject even while we take up the cross. Christians acknowledge government and are thankful for it. Bad government is better than no government. The libertarians are woefully mistaken with regard to human nature - the viewpoint depends on a kind of low-Fall or even Pelagian view of humanity.

Government is a necessary evil - its judgments and killing are necessarily flawed and history bears this out. We acknowledge it but have nothing to do with it and as such White's understanding of these issues and the voice of God are sadly mistaken.

He's right about something and I found this very interesting as few seem to grasp it. He points out that it's inconsistent to work for a company like Boeing and yet refuse to work for the government as the company is intertwined with the state and its products are used by the state to wage war. There are many Christians (even in the Anabaptist movement) that will reject the military, police, and the like and yet will contract with and sometimes invest in companies that are part of this larger equation. They are part of the machine and profiting from it. I will grant that to completely break with the military colossus in a country like the United States is not easy and doing so more or less means abandoning all middle class expectations. The Empire's machinery is pervasive and yet many close their eyes to this and the way in which Wall Street, banking, insurance, industry, and the like are wed to the US war machine.

So for White (who sees this plainly) it's only logical that it would be okay to be part of the military. What's the difference? It never occurs to him to simply reject it all and what it stands for and live as a pilgrim - and pay the price for it of being a second-class citizen or resident alien. Of course that would mean renouncing the life he has lived. It's not an easy thing to do - but it is possible. Remember the thief on the cross.

His appeals to Scripture simply tread old ground. The Old Testament is invoked and yet divorced from any understanding of redemptive-history. The military language of the New (regarding say the armour of God in Ephesians) is illustrative as indeed we are engaged in a spiritual war - but he then ignores what Paul says about the nature of the war and the fact that our weapons are not carnal.

The centurion in the gospels and Cornelius in Acts are often appealed to and yet their examples in no way support the case. The same is true of the Temple soldiers that John the Baptist interacted with. These examples are not analogous any more than the Israelite conquest of Canaan. These passages all must be understood through the lens of apostolic teaching and the conclusions are incompatible with White's assumptions.

Generally speaking there is a reticence to follow through on what the New Testament teaches and what it comes to is this - somebody has to do it. Someone has to stand up for justice and the Bible condemns those who don't pursue it. That's his conclusion and since someone has to do it, it might as well be Christians. This opens the door to not only the realms of military 'service' but life in the corporate sector. This is how the world works and so rather than make a stand, we compromise and try to find a way to make it work and keep our conscience clean. Suffice it to say the cheap grace gospel of Evangelicalism plays no small role in this assuaging of the conscience and the ability to simply gloss over passages in the New Testament that 'militate' against this approach to the Christian life in the world.

His talk of ethical approaches to military 'service' are absurd - one wonders if he's ever bothered to study any military history. His appeals to military interventions in order to combat activities such as the sex trade are mere justifications and glosses - even smoke and mirrors which misdirect from the fundamental questions regarding what militaries do. The US military is directly and indirectly responsible for millions of deaths since the conclusion of World War II. White it would seem is ignorant of what the US system is really all about, what it has done in the world - and what it is doing even now. The kind of reasoning he applied to the question of Boeing actually puts him on the right track - but he needs to press further.

If White studied the New Testament with a bit more care he'd discover that the stranger-pilgrim calling of the Christian leads Paul to say - what have I to do with those who are outside? God will judge them. He commands Christians to reject vengeance but explains that the state will employ it for God's purposes. The Kingdom is covenantal and the world is outside of that. It cannot be fixed and will not be fixed apart from the gospel and the Parousia. Christians can apply a veneer, they can manipulate situations and coerce people to behave a certain way and yet to what end? But in the process of this gaining the world, they lose their own souls and destroy the testimony of the Church. The Kingdom is blurred and becomes indistinguishable from the world. This is the legacy of Evangelicalism and the Lausanne Movement. The life and testimony of White is in perfect keeping with this tragedy.