In Times of War: The Need to Heed the Calling

The following commentary will appear in the September issue of the Lutheran Reporter, a publication of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

By Uwe Siemon-Netto

Evoking the Lutheran doctrine of calling has never been more imperative than in times of world conflict - in one word, now. The lives of millions of people and the survival of a democratic society, indeed perhaps of the United States as a free and unified nation, are at stake.

Those called to act responsibly and out of love for their fellow man are legion. They include media workers, political professionals, diplomats, policy makers, the military, intelligence officers and, most of all, the sovereign of the republic - the voters.

This column concerns three contemporary wars - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Israel's war of survival against Hezbollah, the terrorist long arm of Iran.

It also relates to the ability of Americans to suffer protracted conflicts without chickening out when the going gets tough or the headlines become too repetitious. When that happens, as was the case in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos 30 years ago, millions die, are tortured and confined to "reeducation camps," as Communist death camps were euphemistically called. The blood of these millions is not merely on the hands of their executioners and torturers; it is also on the hands of those who abandoned them, and that includes American voters.

On the other hand, this column cannot dwell on the mistakes that might have been made when America involved herself militarily in Indochina or in the Middle East.

This columnist has no divine calling to second-guess the decision-makers. Perhaps it would have been, to name an example, expedient not to topple Saddam Hussein. Maybe he knew what he was doing when he slaughtered his own citizens or had their toenails pulled; maybe this was the only way to maintain order in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious madhouse he presided over. But to argue along such lines would be cynical and unbecoming of Christians. It would be like saying, "We should have left Hitler in power; at least he knew how to run the railroads on time."

At any rate, Saddam is no longer in charge in Iraq, a nation now hopelessly mired in chaos. Now what?
Even if U.S. involvement in Iraq was a mistake you can't undo it by slinking way from its consequences, as little as you can "uncook" a badly cooked stew or "unraise" a badly raised child.

The Lutheran doctrine of calling does not attribute infallibility to our secular endeavors; we have to accept the fact that they are under sin like all our actions in the "left-hand kingdom," as we Lutherans call the secular realm, and must use natural reason to solve problems as best we can.

Nobody can claim, for instance, that Israel is infallible and that Israel's bombing of civilian dwellings in Lebanon is a godly thing. But then how does an imperfect military establishment, which is called to assure its nation's survival, deal with the fact that Hezbollah fighters have stored their rockets in civilian homes paying their proprietors $100 for accommodating the deadly ordnance destined to be lobbed on Jewish dwellings one day?

Oh, you didn't know that? You didn't know that by accepting Hezbollah's money these civilians ceased to be non-combatants? Well, then you have not lived up to your calling as a citizen - the calling to inform yourself. True, this detail wasn't shown on commercial television, a medium whose sense of calling still seems under construction, which is why it keeps warping public opinion. But you could have read about it in responsible newspapers. And as sovereign of a free nation, as a voter, you do have a calling to enlighten yourself comprehensively before praising or condemning other countries for their actions.

Moreover, we all have a calling to draw proper analogies, such as this one: Would it not have been more humane if in World War II the Allies had behaved like Israelis today, warning civilians to run because their part of town was about to be bombed? As one who in his childhood was at the receiving end of British and American bombs, this commentator would have appreciated this courtesy instead of having to listen to the list of killed and maimed classmates during roll calls at school after each night of bombing.

The doctrine of calling gives us no option to extricate ourselves from unpleasant situations for the sake of our immediate comfort without considering the interest of others, including the next generation of Americans.

For this foreigner, the spectacle of U.S. Democrats turning against Sen. Joseph L. Lieberman (D-Conn.) because he had stood by his President in the war on terror is shocking news indeed. Even Hillary Clinton hat withdrawn her support from him, though their position on Iraq had been similar to his.

This behavior does not suggest an acknowledgment of calling but is an exercise of expediency. In the short run, it might serve these politicians' purposes, but cannot be seen as an act of neighborly love; for to a Christian the term "neighbor" applies to anybody, in Iraq as well as in the United States. If America abandons that country to bedlam and civil war, if Washington ultimately pulls tail and allows Iraq to fall into the hands of Islamist Iran, an evil power that will soon possess nuclear weapons, this might spell the end of the wonderful America so many of us love.

Such an act would make a mockery of democracy in that it would tell the world that Americans cannot be counted upon to sustain an armed conflict for more than two congressional terms, simply because self-interest would drive politicians to betrayal. Worse still, the world's television cameras would savor the streams of blood brought about by the abandonment of Iraq. The outside world, forever critical of America, albeit foolishly, would now quite understandably hate it.

As a result, America would cease to exist as a moral world power, a nation with a calling. And one shudders to think what this would mean for this country's internal peace, wellbeing, and ultimately its survival as One Nation Under God.

Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, a veteran international journalist, is scholar in residence and director of the Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation at St. Louis, and director of the Concordia Center Faith and Journalism at Concordia College, Bronxville, N.Y

Comments

[Carl Vehse]

"This columnist has no divine calling to second-guess the decision-makers.... we all have a calling to draw proper analogies, such as this one: Would it not have been more humane if in World War II the Allies had behaved like Israelis today, warning civilians to run because their part of town was about to be bombed?"

Whoa! Some second-guess analogy. There is nothing "humane" about Allied decision-makers warning Germans who were engaged in the manufacture/transportation/support of war munitions and supplies that their cities and factories were about to be bombed? Will the "Monday-morning quarterback" response be that such warnings could have included a request for the Germans not to pass such information on to those manning the anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes defending their towns? Would Allied decision-makers also have a "humane" duty to permit apologies to be made to the widows and orphans of Allied pilots shot down because of such warnings before those who provided the warnings to the Germans were executed for treason?

[Raymond Rongley]

Everything that you say is true but you might also consider the
Following, LOVINY YOUR ENEMIES an excerpt from a Martin Luther King sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on 17 November 1957.

So I want to turn your attention to this subject: "Loving Your Enemies." It’s so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation—the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: "Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."

Certainly these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over the centuries, many persons have argued that this is an extremely difficult command. Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command. They would go on to say that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth. So the arguments abound. But far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.

Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.

Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.

Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you. Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you. They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.

But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.

This is true in our international struggle. We look at the struggle, the ideological struggle between communism on the one hand and democracy on the other, and we see the struggle between America and Russia. Now certainly, we can never give our allegiance to the Russian way of life, to the communistic way of life, because communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. When we look at the methods of communism, a philosophy where somehow the end justifies the means, we cannot accept that because we believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means. But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy.

Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.

And this is what Jesus means when he said: "How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?" Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: "How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?" And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.

[david foster]

Raymond, your post reads as if you were caught in a time warp. Where exactly is communism having "success in the world today?" Why do you think today's terrorists are motivated by communist ideology?

Communism was a bastard child of the Enlightenment, and it raised economic matters to ultimate importance. Today's barbarians are counter-Englightenment and do not regard economic values as particularly important.

[Jack Jensen]

Heeding the call of Christ: Love one another

I am neither a Lutheran educator, a widely experience journalist, nor an expert on politics as is Mr. Uwe Siemon-Netto. As an imperfect Christian in an imperfect world, I offer these comments on his recent commentary, In Times of War: The need to heed the calling.

Although troubled by Mr. Siemon-Netto’s use of words that inflame, i.e. chickening out, slinking away, etc, I am grateful that he is clear in advocating his “Onward Christian well-armed Soldiers” philosophy. I think that philosophy is not that of Christ.

Is it possible that Mr. Siemon-Netto, along with much of the world, fails to hear Christ say, “Love one another?”

In Christ’s time, were not there enemies to his cause? Did he and his followers not suffer from evil? Were they not abused and humiliated? Was Christ himself not put to death?

When Peter raised his sword to defend Jesus, he was rebuked.

Jesus could have summoned legions of angels to overcome His enemies. He chose not to make that call. Instead, he listened to the accusations. He calmly replied to the charges levied his way. He stood silent on occasion. That is the example in scripture. Jesus chose to love His enemies, even to His death.

As a nation, have we done likewise?

Have we not overthrown political adversaries? Have we not ignored the poor and left the imprisoned to their own destiny? Have we not abandoned our brothers in favor of our own comfort? What political party is not guilty of some corruption? “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Some of this evil came from those who called themselves Christians; some by people who know little about Christ. American history is replete with examples of greed and other evils. Yes, we are flawed. Christ is not.
When we do our best as keepers of our brothers, we remember Jesus Christ and honor his example. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Islam and Israel follow an “eye for an eye” philosophy. They perpetuate a cycle that has no end. The example of Jesus Christ breaks that cycle. Hate is countered by love.

As I read Mr. Siemon-Netto’s commentary, I looked for scriptural reference and am saddened to find none. His experience with the Cuban Missile Crisis, the American Civil Rights Movement, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and the cultural upheaval in China is impressive; but what lessons are learned?

The cycle of hate is winning. It is God’s truth that will win out, perhaps not now, but in the end.