This past Saturday was Armed Forces Day, and Memorial Day is on the horizon. Armed Forces Day was instituted to recognize and thank people actively serving in the U.S. military. Alternatively, Memorial Day is set aside to remember and honor our nation’s fallen heroes—those who died in military service.

Both remembrance days are important to me personally, given my military past. As such, I am prone to be spiritually and emotionally stirred in the latter half of May. I have sons actively serving as I write, so my heart fills with an admixture of trepidation, gratitude, and pride. And, I have lost friends over the years, friends who answered the call to serve, and who laid down the ultimate sacrifice in so doing. They gave their very lives in service to our nation. So, I want to remember them well on Memorial Day. I want to honor them.

Yet, as the nation rightly pauses for these two remembrance days, a great philosophical question is ever-present. When societies consider the purpose and cost of military service, there is always a judgment to be made: Is war a given, or is it a correctable ill? Said more personally, is there anything in human existence worth voluntarily dying for?

There are many today who believe progressive thinking can, and therefore must, eliminate war. In so doing, progressives assume, a global peace dividend would naturally follow. Countless resources would be freed up as nations demilitarize and permanent peace overwhelms a weary world. In support of such beliefs, secular Hollywood and many pervasive voices in government and politics wish to paint a dramatic and mainly untruthful picture about war and military service—that it is pretty much all horror and pointless, and therefore something to be wholly avoided.

Though usually subtle in its presentation, the messaging is that a person dying in combat is not only sad but an utter waste. It is something unenlightened people choose under motivations that a rational person—a “woke” thinker—will not comprehend. This is a “never me” point of view that argues there is no higher good that could come from a young life cut short—especially if it happens to be their young life. Alas, this life is all one gets in an uncaring, meaningless universe. Therefore, regardless of how one got aboard this planet, the entire point of living is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Therefore, life must be all about me.

“Never me” thinking has its roots in either nihilism—which is the rejection of all religious and moral principles within the belief that life is meaningless—or in existentialism—which, while also a rejection of religious and moral principles, differs from nihilism in that it argues for man-made meaning. “Live in the here and the now to make your mark, to make your own meaning.” “Go for the gusto,” as Ernest Hemingway would do. Such a path to meaning cannot include the sacrifice of self for others because “never me” logic has no answer for why anyone would risk life and limb for any cause other than protecting and promoting self.

“Never me” beliefs sometimes gain organization and aggressiveness, and we see anti-war voices come on the attack against the very idea of mortal combat, arguing it to be immoral. By extension, those who serve in uniform are to be scorned or even punished. Moreover, the national investment conversation must shift from protecting and defending to changing people’s thinking on a broad scale through the means of indoctrination and restriction of personal freedoms. Progressive values, it is argued, must be taught, and enforced, beginning at an early age. 

 

The 1960s was when this kind of thinking gained traction as the years added up post-WWII, and America found itself entangled in Viet Nam. One writer said this when referring to the aggressive anti-military demonstrations of the 1960s and ’70s:

“The U.S. military became the object of the Left’s hatred of America and a metaphor for all they saw as wrong. The military establishment represented ideals and policies anathema to the New Left: martial values, discipline, uniformity, physical courage, and moral strength derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

Did you catch that? The rejection here emanates from a “man can and must do better than the outdated Christian God has done.” 

I probably do not have to convince anyone who may have read this far that the philosophies explained above are alive, well, and overtly aggressive in America today. They are winning the day, overtaking the media, corporate America, public education, our university system, and many professions such as law and medicine. Therefore, considering all I have said up until now, I will make a bold prediction. The anti-police sentiment we now see sweeping across the country will soon include the United States military.

As Christians, how are we to think about the great philosophical question—the judgment to be made: Is war a given, or is it a correctable ill?

Like so many other complex issues facing today’s church, what we think and say as Christians about war, about the use of military force, and regarding those who believe they are called to military service matters.  We must be ready with an answer when questions or attempts to coerce come our way. 

We must turn to God’s Word for the answers. Truth for living is found nowhere else. So, as we look at what God’s Word has to say about war and military service, I want to consider three questions:

First, what do the Scriptures say about governing authorities building up and using military forces? 

Next, can a Christian whose heart is for the lost in this world, and who is motivated by the character and person of Christ, serve in the military with a clear conscience?

And finally, are there things the church can learn from the military – its mission, its organization, and its ethos –that might help us walk stronger as believers called by God to our individual mission areas, which are our marriages, our parenting, and our circle of influence through profession and church?

Let us look first at question #1:  What does Scripture tell us about the military? What truth is offered about governing authorities building up and using military force?

To answer, we must start in Genesis 3 with the fall of man and the resulting divine judgment, meaning God’s curses on humanity, Satan, and the creation. The tragedy of sin in the Garden brought profound consequences that will be playing out until God delivers on His history-culminating promise of creating a new Heaven and a new Earth found in Revelation 21.

In Genesis 3, evil entered the world and therefore conflict at all levels, and in every possible form, has and will continue to be the norm of man living his life on earth. That is until the final outcomes promised in Revelation occur. No form of progressive thinking on man’s part can or will mitigate this threat. Conflict on the high end, as it were, between nations and coalitions of nations, means military organization, training, equipment, and rules for its use. Like it or not, we are in a war that we cannot ignore.

We also know from Scripture that God is a sovereign and active God who works providentially through history for His higher and good purposes.

Romans 13:1-2 says: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

1 Peter 2:13 offers: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority.”

In sum, Scripture tells us human existence must be understood within the greater spiritual context of an epic battle between good and evil.  It also emphasizes that our life belongs to God, and it reassures us that he will direct our paths. Governing authorities will—in God’s sovereign plan—build up and use military forces, and Christians are to participate as God calls under that authority.

But how does this work when we have a heart—a heart of compassion that God gave to us at our conversion—to save the lost?  Does God call Christians to military service, a mission at its core, of violence, destruction, and human casualty?

I give credit for much of what follows to Lt Gen William K Harrison, who served as a U.S. Army Division Commander in the European Theater in WWII.  As a Christian, he knew that the Bible commands we should love our enemies and pray for them, that we should return good for evil. He understood that the peacemakers are blessed, that vengeance belongs to God, and that they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. He embraced the command we should keep peace with our neighbors.

General Harrison also understood that as Christians serving as living epistles of the Lord, our weapons in the warfare of the soul are not carnal but rather spiritual. The only weapon for the Christian in his war against the enemies of the soul is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. As individuals, there is no place for hatred in us.

But as Gen Harrison contemplated his own sense of call to military service, he recalled those men of the past who were soldiers and yet were men of God: Abraham, who fought the four kings; Joshua, who served the Lord in taking the Promised Land; David, who killed Goliath and then led his armies in war and who then received from God one of the greatest promises ever given to man; and those who in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews are described as having “by faith” subdued kingdoms, proved valiant in combat, and sent fleeing the armies of the enemies of God.

In the New Testament, we find centurions in the Roman army. The Lord said of one of these that he had greater faith than Christ had found in Israel. Another, at the cross, believed in Jesus as the Son of God. To a third, God sent Peter to introduce the gospel to the Gentiles. When this man heard the gospel, he believed, and the Holy Spirit was given to him immediately. Yet, there is no indication that any of these discontinued his military service, nor is there any command in the New Testament that a Christian should not be a soldier. But, on the other hand, there is a mandate given by the Lord through Paul that we should remain in the calling in which we are called (I Corinthians 7:20).

There are more to cover, like the capture of Jericho, but the fact that there were cases in which war was commanded by God to the Israelites and therefore justified is unquestioned. Because of God’s command, to say that war is invariably sinful is to say that God told Israel to sin and is, therefore, an attack on the character of God.  James 1:13 reminds us: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”

So, I am going to stop here and say that we have satisfactorily answered question #2.  A Christian can and indeed must serve in the military if that is God’s call on one’s life.

The question then becomes how to serve Christ best while in military service.  Service is not blind obedience in the military any more than our salvation means a license to do anything we want. We are always accountable to God in every circumstance, and we are to walk each day by faith, choosing to be filled with the Holy Spirit. David, the soldier he was, would not kill his worst enemy, Saul, when he had him at a disadvantage and helpless.

Christians serve God first, and only then the authority figures He has placed over us. As such, believers in today’s active service must face increasing challenges as the spiraling culture presses hard upon them. God’s path for my sons and others may indeed be to take a Biblical stand on LGBTQ+ or Critical Race Theory and suffer persecution for it within their specific circumstances. We pray for this not to be so, but we must remember that God is always working for His higher purposes. Therefore, our focus on everything we choose to say and do must be through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.                                                                                                                                                             

So, what can Christians learn from the military about our own mission areas? To best answer, I want to recount a story from D-Day, the invasion of France by the allied forces, mainly British and American units, on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

There were countless acts of valor and awe-inspiring sacrifice on that day, but the story of one unit stands high on the list of most extraordinary.

It is the story of the U.S. Army Rangers who were given the mission of capturing Pointe du Hoc, a very strategic 100 ft cliff overlooking the English Channel.  It was the highest point between Utah Beach to the west and Omaha Beach to the east—both invasion landing sites where the fighting was toughest and the losses most significant. The German army fortified the area with concrete casemates and gun pits.  Here is how President Ronald Reagan described Pointe Du Hoc in a speech he gave at that very site in celebration of the 40^th anniversary of D-Day. 

“We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of June 6, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place.

They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.” President Ronald Reagan

What possesses a man to do such a thing?  I would argue it is the values and convictions God calls every Christian to embrace.  I will offer three:

One is faith—faith in the mission and belief in fellow laborers in the mission. As Rangers, these men knew what they had to do. It was do or die! Many other lives depended on their success. They also could trust in one another because they were Rangers.  The bar to achieving Ranger qualification is very high.

As Christians, we understand our mission given in God’s word, and we have our fellowship in the church.  We are called to courageously believe it and then choose to act with valor as the body of Christ. Moreover, men are to “act like men,” advancing the gospel first in their hearts and then in their homes and professions. This kind of faith does not leave much room for selfish choices that bring pain to our spouses and kids or our fellow laborers in the church.

Another value is obedience. God does not give us a vote on matters of His commandments.  We can rationalize all day, but Scripture again is clear. We must gladly and without pause follow God’s commandments.  Or perhaps we are not what we say we are.  No debates were happening at the bottom of the cliff that June day in 1944. Our commander is the Lord Jesus, Christians, and there is no room to challenge his credibility.  He gave His life for us.  We owe Him ours, now and forever.

A third is selflessness. Climbing a rope up a 100-foot cliff while hot lead is raining down is a selfless act.  Jesus Christ voluntarily going to the cross, while wholly innocent and sinless—is a selfless act.  This is the standard, fellow believers! Every single decision we make must be filtered—first and foremost—through the lens of voluntary selflessness. It cannot be “what’s in it for me?” It must be “what does God want, and how will it bless others?” Such thinking makes it sickening to ponder sneaking into sexual sin or weakening in the temptation to the many pitfalls that believers face in our culture today.  Be strong, people of God!  And when you are not, find a brother or sister to lean on.

As a church, we are at a very pivotal moment in history, and I believe God has a clear mission for our church here in Anchorage.  We are warriors for the gospel, and God is calling us as warriors, right here, right now. So let us be His holy and pleasing church in Anchorage because we are His, leading with courage. Choose faith, obedience, and selflessness!