Justice in War

I once asked my dad, a World War Two veteran, what he considered a “just war.” He replied, “All war is insanity.” 

 

I agree with my dad: even necessary war is insanity. People sometimes do in war what they would never consider doing under other circumstances.

 

Still, a soldier, sailor, airman or marine may be given opportunities to step aside from the insanity of war.

 

A young Marine officer - recently back from the war in Iraq - came to a men’s breakfast at our church a few years ago. He told the story of his platoon coming under fire while moving through an Iraqi  city. 

 

He heard the firing but no return fire from his platoon. He angrily moved forward to confront his Marines for holding fire. “Why aren’t you returning fire?” he demanded. The sergeant answered, “Sir the fire is coming from the middle of a crowd of civilians - men, women and children.”

 

The lieutenant eyed the crowd and paused. Then he ordered the sergeant to hold fire and take another route to where they were going. 

 

My take-away: You need not join the insanity every time you’re given an opportunity or excuse.

   

11-12-2023

Welcome Spring, 2023!

A welcome sign of spring is the little bird making a nest outside the bedroom window. While so much is decaying in this old world, God goes on renewing and invites us to join him.

Little heads will soon appear above the edges of the nest. Their Mom and Dad will feed them, making our rhododendron bush a hub of bird activity.

Welcome Spring! Thank you Jesus!

I love David French but …

 I love David French, a fellow lawyer and fellow Christian. Therefore, I readily appreciated his clear legal explanation of “covenant marriage” as contrasted with “civil marriage” in “An Open Letter to Those Who Think I’ve Lost My Christian Faith.” (https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/frenchpress/an-open-letter-to-those-who-think-ive-lost-my-christian-faith/) 

However, I cannot see how this distinction helps David support the proposed U.S. Senate bill called the “Respect for Marriage Act.” (Senate substitute for HR 8404). The proposed bill mandates nationwide recognition for civil same sex marriages when authorized by state law in the state where they occurred. 

 

Here is the stated moral foundation for the proposed bill: “Congress finds the following: (1) No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. (2) Diverse beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises. Therefore, Congress affirms that such people and their diverse beliefs are due proper respect.” Then the bill goes on the establish legal strictures.

 

I agree with David that a government may legally create different kinds of marriage including marriage between people of the same sex. I also honor David’s desire to help LGBTQ families live “stable joyful lives.” However, I fear the consequences of mandating respect for LGBTQ marriage as a national policy.

 

The Bible suggests that people of a nation that legitimatizes such relationships may earn the wrath of God instead of stable joyful lives. (See for example Romans 1 and 2, Ephesians 5:1-14, and Colossians 3:5-6).  A person who doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible or who doesn’t consider the Bible authoritative may not worry about this consequence.  I do.  

  

As Senator William H. Seward said of the United States Constitution in 1850 when opposing an attempt to permit slavery in California, there is “a higher law” in play here than a law of the United States Congress.

https://people.sunyulster.edu/voughth/seward.htm; and https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Speeches_Seward_NewTerritories.htm

The land is still ours, because …

 And [King Asa] said to Judah, “Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God. We have sought him, and he has given us peace on every side.” So they built and prospered.

2 Chronicles 14:7 (ESV)

Singing a Peculiar Song

When I was very young I knew four family members who resonated with a distinctive “song” about Jesus. Four people whose lives “sang” in ways that compelled a response.

First, my Mom who unfailingly prayed with me when she put me to bed as a child, and drove me and several neighbor kids to church on Sundays. My Mom continued to worship faithfully for all her 94 years. 

The second was my grandmother Mary, my mother’s mother, who became a widow when I was 5 or 6 years old. Living a difficult life, my grandmother seemed to sing both a sad song and a hopeful song. I heard this song when she prayed with me beside her big bed during the time my Mom and I lived with her during World War Two. I can see and hear my grandmother now, earnest, honest, and humbly dependent on our Father in heaven.

The third person whose life sang and still sings of Jesus, is my Mom’s brother - Uncle Bud. (His real name is Fred.) When I was about 10 or 12, and had some questionable ideas about God and worshipping Him, Uncle Bud patiently helped me recognize kinks in my thinking and improved my understanding of Jesus.

The fourth person whose life sang of Jesus was Parkie, Dora Parkins, a retired missionary who baby-sat me and my siblings and gently but forcefully insisted that I study the Bible. Why? Because Parkie said God inspired its every word. What made me cooperate with Parkie was her life and belief in the Bible’s teaching. She was not always entertaining, but she was always earnestly insisting that I must know the God of the Bible. With my parents’ permission I went with her to church and met people young and old who believed and lived with the same lively faith as Parkie.

These dear people did not make a Christian of me. In my late teens I fled their way of life as fast as I could. It was too restricting. However, God used them to put His mark on me, and when I turned my face to Jesus I had learned from them where the truth about God is found. I knew from experience what it’s like to worship where the word of God is valued and where people in the church respond with changed lives.

I thank God for putting His mark on me when I was very young through my Mom, grandmother, Uncle Bud and Parkie.  They taught me to listen for the song of Jesus in the speech, life, writing, and worship of Christians, and showed me how in Jesus I can become a better man than I am.

Originally written February 18, 2019.

Thanks to Barbara For a Chicken Dinner and a Lifetime of Love

I have been married fifty years to Barbara, the love of my life. She likes to joke that she caught my attention with a fried chicken dinner. There is some truth to that, but hardly the whole story. The chicken may have won some of my attention, but Barbara’s attentiveness won the evening.

 

After dinner, and after the other guests had left, we sat and talked till about 4 a.m. as I remember. Probably I talked till 4 a.m. and Barbara got a word in here and there. I was on fire for “world peace through law” at the time. That hasn’t worked out yet, but the conversation was the beginning of the best and most loving friendship I can imagine.

 

As I learned when we married and the years passed, Barbara is a good listener not only to me but to many people. And I have learned from her how to listen better.

 

Listening is important. Henri Nouwen said: “Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that, those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their own true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.” 

 

Barbara also loves offering hospitality, and I have seen many people blossom when experiencing her hospitality in our home. Women and men. It is a treat to be with Barbara in these times, as well as in private times like when she first sat on the couch with me till 4 a.m.

 

So here’s to Barbara, our children Will and Holly, and all the family we share. Happy Golden Anniversary!

How King Solomon prayed …

I have just read the prayer of King Solomon, David’s son, dedicating the temple he built for the Lord God in Jerusalem. In the prayer he looked ahead to the defeats, afflictions, and sins of his people, and prayed for their repentance, redemption and forgiveness. 1 Kings 8:22-53. In it he prayed that when they repented and turned back to the Lord He would receive them and maintain their cause.

The thought occurred to me that we American Christians too seldom turn to God and together pray for our people’s redemption and the redemption of other peoples. We too seldom pray the way that Solomon was praying.

Should we not fervently and repeatedly turn to God and in the name of Christ pray for deliverance out of sin, its ensuing afflictions and into faithfulness to God and His will and plan? For ourselves and for people of other nations?

I think of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the thoughts of other nations about helping or not helping Ukraine. How many Americans - especially the church - have humbly and publicly confessed our sins and departure from God’s way and asked to be guided in the way of His solutions? Should we not?

I think of national responses to the plague of Covid19.

We should think seriously about who’s in charge here. Is it President Putin, President Zelensky, our president and other leaders?  Or God the creator of heaven and earth and its redeemer? Solomon believed it is God, and prayed publicly that in future national miseries the people of Israel would repent and return to God and God would take up their cause. 

Should Christians in America and elsewhere pray more like Solomon for ourselves and for the church in other nations?