An Oft Repeated and Heretical Lie

I was reading the latest issue of the Evangelical Times and as usual I have come to expect a bit of mixed bag. I read it for the information knowing full well that I will often disagree with much of the analysis and many of the assumptions.

I'm always disappointed to read of military chaplains and military expressions of Christianity in general. I remember that world and I don't miss it. It's a bankrupt and perverse expression of Christianity and one deeply infected with a lot of evil thinking, heretical assumptions and rank idolatry.

But it's always seemed (to me) to be worse in the United States. I don't remember such fervent flag-waving patriotism and nationalism being present in British Nonconformity, but then again, I haven't had contact with those circles for twenty years.

The Right has undergone a resurgence in British and European Evangelicalism and so now we're peppered with articles about brave 'Christian' soldiers out in the field and their hardships and suffering. The price being paid by the civilian populations, the deceptive basis and justification for the wars and the ethics of Christian participation in these conflicts and the related institutions is never questioned.

It's to be expected I suppose but it's still something to lament. But what is a cause for great umbrage is when I read a British publication like Evangelical Times and find reflections on WWI... not questioning the basis of the war, the absurdity of it and the shortsightedness of the leaders who initiated it and negotiated its end. Instead we're to celebrate it and celebrate the soldiers who fought in it.

We're not to pity them as misled fools and dupes who were lied to by their societies and their leaders, whipped into a hysterical frenzy, into killing and being killed for lies built on lies. Rather, we're reminded that 'during Remembrance' we often hear the words 'Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends' (John 15.13). And as a consequence we 'think of the brave soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us and the country...'

The author correctly points out that the verse is actually about Christ but he offers no rebuke to those who would wickedly and most perversely appropriate it for nationalist use. Once again, even in the gender-neutral translation used by the author we find that such uses generate confusion and the author does nothing to correct the 'for us' pronoun construction which confuses the identity of the Church with that of worldly nations. We are called to be pilgrims and thus our identity isn't with England or America or any other nation. To conflate the mission, imperatives and resulting redemptive work of Christ with the death spawned by men's warmongering is heretical and a dangerous degradation of the Gospel. It implies (whether deliberately or not) that the nation is somehow analogous to the Kingdom of God and that the murdering soldiers... and many are just that and no more.... are somehow messianic and redemptive.

This kind of language is an affront to God and it needs to be called out.

Additionally, let's be very clear. I would rather speak German than see millions die but of course this too is silly as is the whole narrative surrounding World War I. What we have today is victor's history, victor's narrative and victor's revisionism. Hohenzollern Germany was detestable but to place all the blame on the Kaiser is absurd. The Allied powers were evil empires all and they played their own deceitful roles in bringing about that conflict.

We could debate as to whether or not the dead in WWI actually did anything to benefit either 'the nation' or fellow man. I say this not to trample on their graves but to speak truth. They are not be honoured but pitied and the leaders who fomented the militarist lies that led to the war... they should be remembered with shame.

But certainly as Christians we should live under no such illusions. The dead soldiers of WWI had nothing to do with us or with promoting Christ's Kingdom. If anything they harmed the Kingdom by fighting and playing their part in the destructive chaos and evil that war always generates.

The real heroes in WWI were those who refused to fight and suffered for it. They bore witness to higher truths and principles. They are worthy of honour and remembrance, for they suffered for doing right and refused to be taken in by the lies... no matter the cost.