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The Nation's Pulse
Religiously ‘Conflicted’ Over Memorial Day
Every year it’s getting harder for the Religious Left not to be critical of this “nationalistic” holiday.
Honoring the nation’s war dead is discomfiting to many on the pacifist Religious Left. One Protestant theologian’s fairly thoughtful Memorial Day ode to fallen veterans this year hailed their “sacrificial living.” But Bruce Epperly, a United Church of Christ “process theologian” from liberal Lancaster Seminary, cautioned against “American exceptionalism” or “America first” ideologies in favor of embracing the “wellbeing of others, including the planet.” After all, “We can celebrate our nation’s fallen heroes without being nationalistic.” And he concluded: “Memorial Day is about remembering, and then dedicating our own lives to a larger, greater good for those we love, our nation — and this may mean protesting against military action, injustice, and enmity to immigrants — and the planet as a whole.”
Well, maybe. But most of America’s fallen veterans were probably more focused on “American exceptionalism” than “the planet.” Rev. Epperly’s sentiment contrasts with C.S. Lewis’s famous defense of patriotism against abstract humanitarianism. “I may without self-righteousness or hypocrisy think it just to defend my house by force against a burglar,” Lewis explained. “But if I start pretending that I blacked his eye purely on moral grounds — wholly indifferent to the fact that the house in question was mine — I become insufferable.”
More directly critical of Memorial Day than Epperly was a column last year by Episcopal author Diana Butler Bass. “Every Memorial Day, I remember how early Christians almost uniformly rejected any kind of military service — and how little we have learned from their witness to peacemaking,” she lamented. Bass suggested “it may well be good for our souls” to consider “what it means to be both a Christian and a soldier,” which from her apparent perspective, is incompatible. Quoting her own recent book, Bass insisted: “Long before theologians Ambrose and Augustine argued for just war, Christians were not allowed to fight,” and “no record exists that Christians served in the Roman army before 170.” She perhaps overlooked the Gospel account of the Roman officer who sought Jesus to heal his servant, not to mention the New Testament account of Saint Peter’s momentous stay with the Roman centurion Cornelius. There is, at most, insufficient evidence that Christianity in the first 3 centuries had any settled teaching on war, though the Apostles Paul and Peter both described temporal rulers as ordained by God to wield the sword.
Ignoring the historic Christian teaching about war, prominent Minnesota megachurch pastor Greg Boyd several years ago blogged critically about Memorial Day. Formerly a relatively conventional evangelical, he earned a New York Times story when he renounced his own once conservative politics and denounced the Right’s supposed version of “Christian America.” In 2007 he described Memorial Day as leaving him “conflicted.” Boyd appreciated the U.S. military personnel who had “laid down their lives to protect this way of life,” since “I benefit from their sacrifice, so it seems appropriate to remember them.” On the other hand, the “taking of human life” is “demonically arrogant.”
So Reverend Boyd is grudgingly grateful on Memorial Day to military demoniacs. “The fact that I personally benefit from some of the killing, because some of the killing is (at least is theory) supposed to protect the ‘American way of life,’ doesn’t alter this assessment,” he explained. “Jesus is my Lord, not the American way of life.” He regretted that he continues to “benefit” from the “often barbaric and dishonest conquest of my ancestors over the American Indians and the enslavement of blacks.” Boyd offered “solidarity” to families of fallen U.S. warriors. But he wants to “revolt against the demonic arrogance of violent-tending tribalism.” Likely most service families would decline this pastor’s brand of “solidarity.”
Some years ago, prior to the World War II Monument’s dedication in Washington, D.C. on Memorial Day, famed Christian pacifist Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University decried the injustice of the Allied cause because it was a “crusade” involving “intentional killing of civilians” and demands for “unconditional surrender.” Of course, Hauerwas believes every war is unjust, though religious pacifists often exploit their version of Just War arguments. He granted that some soldiers “showed great bravery and attention to duty,” but for a cause that faithful people must adamantly reject. Hauerwas complained that Saint Paul’s admonition to submit to civil authorities was probably equally cited by German Christians to justify service to the Third Reich. He regretted that churches display American flags, in the mistaken notion that war-time sacrifice counts as Christian sacrifice.
In a similar vein just prior to Memorial Day six years ago, Religious Left activist Jim Wallis told his supporters that “even those of us who advocate nonviolence must recognize the humanity of those who, for many reasons, made the hard choice to join the armed forces.” He explained that “as we protest a war and an occupation that has claimed as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians’ lives, we must have compassion for the suffering experienced on all sides.”
How generous that the Religious Left recognizes the “humanity” of U.S. service personnel and will even reluctantly honor them who have fallen, even as it sees them as primarily victims, if not villains. The Religious Left’s smug pacifism and grim rejection of most patriotism make Memorial Day, and most national commemorations, difficult if not impossible to affirm.
More traditional Christianity of course teaches that believers need not have such contempt for the nations in which Providence has placed them, nor decline military service to them in legitimate causes. Memorial Day was founded after the Civil War initially to honor slain Union veterans, whose “soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains.” Freed slaves were reputedly among the most vigorous in commemorating the white and black soldiers whose deaths had lifted their bondage. They understood that wars can have moral consequences, and that fallen warriors often deserve more than reluctant respect.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
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Paul| 5.31.11 @ 6:47AM
"Bruce Epperly said Memorial Day is about remembering, and then dedicating our own lives to a larger, greater good for those we love, our nation -- and this may mean protesting against military action, injustice, and enmity to immigrants -- and the planet as a whole."
No, it is not. It is about honoring our war dead - period. It is not an opportunity to further your liberal moon-bat agenda. Leave it to liberals to try to hijack the most holy day we have for veterans.
We have a tradition in our family that on the way to the pool on Memorial Day that we stop by a local cemetery and lay flowers and place an American flag on the grave of Marine pilot that died in 1944 at age 22. His grave is decorated with a tiny flag that the local VFW places on it, but no other flowers are placed - we think that all his family is long since gone. My daughter, now nine, always reminds me on Memorial Day weekend that we need to buy flowers for the Marine. This is the meaning of Memorial Day.
PCC| 5.31.11 @ 10:47AM
Lincoln at Gettysburg:
"But we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
Pelligrino| 5.31.11 @ 5:50PM
Paul, thank you for passing this great life lesson (and the act(s)) to your children.
They will undoubtedly pass this very deep sense of gratitude to their children and others.
This is vital.
Paul| 5.31.11 @ 7:44PM
Pelligrino,
Thank you. I have a 16 year old nephew that has a 3.8 gpa, sports star, and has college paid for. What does he want? He is working hard to be accepted to the Naval Academy, if that does not happen, he wants to do NROTC in college. I asked him what he wants to do? Be a SEAL or Marine officer, and kill terrorists. This coming from a young man that has college paid for and could be set up after graduation. I can not tell you how proud I am of him. It is amazing this country can still produce young men like this.
Pelligrino| 6.1.11 @ 12:47AM
Paul,
Well, it is obvious that you've been instilling real wisdom and life values in your family members. Probably more so (or as much so) by deed as by word.
The good young men will always see so much of the emptiness of just pursuing the academic degree(s)-to-big dollars track(s).
Intrinsically they know that there won't be a Wall Street or Main Street in which to do business unless it is preserved. Sort of the story behind the motto "THIS WE DEFEND."
Thank you for the life lessons you are passing along.
Alan Brooks| 5.31.11 @ 8:13PM
Long as you know that America will not be #1 forever: if the British, who were much tougher than America, couldn't stay on top neither can America.
Rome
Britannia
the Soviet Empire.
ALL GONE
Jive Bomber| 6.1.11 @ 2:31AM
All good things do come to an end, but, America will remain #1 for a long time to come. Heck, you'll be dead when we hit #2 so why worry?
Alan Brooks| 6.1.11 @ 3:06AM
Tell it to the author.
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 5:46PM
What exactly do you mean by #1 and why is #1 so important and why does not being #1 such a shame?. We will always be #1 regardless of the statistics that suggest otherwise...All who wish they were born in China please raise your hands...(crickets chirping)
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 6:24PM
Do not call Memorial Day a holy day. It is just and right to thank Warriors for their sacrifice and their service. They are not God. To call it a holy day is a sacrilege and a dis-service to the Men and Women of our Armed Forces
Appleby| 5.31.11 @ 7:03AM
These crybabies are sitting in the Church of the Comfortable Pew, no different from those whom the Prophet Amos decried so many years ago. They are the people my Daddy (now buried honorably in a Veterans Cemetery) warned us about, that he saw in the one concentration camp he entered as a driver for officers after the war -- people who, as Jesus warned, were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the waters of Noahs Flood rose up and swept them away. They were the people who could have escaped, but they had Stuff, they were comfortably fed, clothed and housed, and it was easier to stay put and hope all would be well.
dee see| 5.31.11 @ 7:05AM
With over 90% of the Lutheran, Methodist
and even Baptist establishment Freemason
infiltrated ----and after way more than half
a century of systematic Rockefeller Foundation
Christianity subversion ops ----we can confidently
report that any conflict among 'Christians'
these days is from the Hegelian can.
Nunya| 5.31.11 @ 5:16PM
What?
Darin| 5.31.11 @ 7:22AM
I just shake my head when I hear the anti-military rheteric of some. I gave 20 years of my life to defend this? And then I realize that they have every right to disapprove (or hate) who I am and what I did. America is a free country, and that includes the freedom to dislike or disrespect those who will willingly take a bullet to keep them alive. I didn't do it to gain anyone's love. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
Louis Jenkins| 5.31.11 @ 8:22AM
Darin:
Thank you for your service to this nation. The leftist do their best to steal the show regardless of the menu, ignore the sons of ------------. It is a day to honor the honorable dead, from the man who drove jeeps, to the man who gave his life on the firing line, to the aircraft mechanic, to the man who worked on the boilers in the guts of ship. It is their day. Please, you liberals, allow them to have one day of 365, shut up, sit on it. All politics aside, we are lucky to have a military willing to go into harms way. May God bless these men and women.
Gary| 5.31.11 @ 10:49AM
Thank you for your long service of our country. But for persons like you these yahoos would not be free to spout their venom. You are correct in saying they have the right to voice their views, repugnant as they may be, but the exercise of that precious right should be done with responsibility, reason, respect, and not abused. Many confuse freedom with license, exercise no self restraint and have no heed of the consequences of their words. While they have the "right" to do so it does not mean they are morally "right."
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 11:28AM
Good comment Gary,
Many confuse the exercise of a right to make the position right. It is not so as you note. These people still think it is 1969 and unfortunately for us all, they are the current administration. That for example, the French still speak French might have something to do with those ten thousand American graves in Normandy.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.31.11 @ 11:54AM
Darin,
thank you for your service. We have some of the same nightmares.
God bless
RCV| 5.31.11 @ 2:13PM
Thank you Darin for your service, and for your understanding of what this country is all about.
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 2:29PM
Dear darin,
thank you for protecting my flabby civilian ass, and for making my kids' lives better.
Screw Liberal Christian and Jewish Theologians.
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 2:52PM
Looks like we all jumped in on this one guys. RCV, good to hear you, OT, Ken nice to know you are still both around.
What about that steakhouse deal?
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 4:01PM
I would recommend the Ruth's Chris in B'ham, guys. Then all I would need to do is run a time past "She Who Must Be Obeyed" and take a week off to visit B'ham, which is a delightful city.
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 5:07PM
Just for the irony of it, how about Liberal Kansas? That is about equidistant for us all.
da monk| 5.31.11 @ 3:53PM
OCCAM; YOU REALLY LIVE UP TO YOUR LAST NAME EXCEPT IT SHOULD START WITH "F". WHY IS YOUR RATIONALE ANY BETTER THAN LIBERAL CHRISTIANS AND JEWISH THEOLOGIANS? BOTH OF THE TWO GROUPS YOU DISPARAGE BELIEVE IN THE SAME GOD THAT YOU DO. WHAT'S THE ADAGE? "SAME CHURCH DIFFERENT PEW"
YOU'RE JUST A BIGOT
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 4:00PM
No, I'm a Jew.
It is Liberalism I despise, and people who benefit off the sacrifice of others while demeaning that sacrifice. Both Liberal Christians (see above) and Liberal Jewish Rabbis (Michael Lerner of Tikkun) do this.
My Rationale is superior because I'm grateful to those who keep me safe.
Unlike you, Monk, I'll avoid ad hominem. I can afford to, my argument is better.
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 5:01PM
Oy Vey. He got you there Fr. Monk.
Gretchen| 5.31.11 @ 5:17PM
Bravo Occam!!!!
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 5:55PM
What Liberalism do you dispise? The Liberalism of our forfathers who wrote the constitution for they were truely Liberal. A country cannot survive that is 100% Liberal or 100% Conservative. You need to have both and you need to have a spirited discussion. To dispise?? Thats just silly.
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 5:51PM
Or you could possibly take it another way that Jewish and Christian Philosophies are a goal that in an otherwise imperfect world can never be reached but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try. You can still thank a solider and be a pacifist, in fact I would say that the thanks from a pacifist means more than from any other. They truely understand what the soldier/sailor/airman has given up for the country.
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 6:30PM
Darin, Thank You for your service. I dont think that most liberals hate anyone in the armed forces. That seems to be an affliction of the baby boomers younger people appreciate your service. I think your average pacifist would rather our politicians use the military in the way we do. It tends to be more of a policy concern than disdain for people in Uniform.
Timothy L. Pennell| 5.31.11 @ 7:31AM
The "Religious Left"? Really? Are they like the PRO-LIFE Left? Or the PRO 2nd AMENDMENT Left? Or, the PRO-MILITARY Left?
Jeremiah Wright. Father Pfleger. AL SHARPTON. Are these the 'Leaders' of this Religious Left? Or, is it Louis Farrakhan and the ground Zero Mosque Imam?
These poor "Pacifists". These poor Religious Leftists. It truly must be "Conflicting" for them. what, with Memorial Day, and all. All that time spent Honouring the Forces of Imperialism.
And, with everything CLOSED, that day, there's no-one to listen to their pleas for FREE ABORTIONS on Demand.
I feel their pain.
Harry the Horrible| 5.31.11 @ 9:16AM
Pacifists are parasites.
They would be unable to practice their perverse beliefs without the protection of the very people they disdain, using the methods they fear so much.
Even that evil little man, Gandhi, was not the pacifist that every one thought he was.
Pzkfw| 5.31.11 @ 1:21PM
Prove it fool.
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 2:31PM
Quote from Martin Buber quoting Ghandi in 1922:
"Finally, Buber reminded Gandhi that when the subject was the rights of Indians, as opposed to those of the Jews, Gandhi himself had remarked (in 1922) that he had “repeatedly said that I would have India become free even by violence rather than that she should remain in bondage.”
da monk| 5.31.11 @ 3:53PM
WARMONGERS ARE KILLERS
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 5:04PM
We, as McArthur said, are not warmongers for we bear the terrible cost of it. I would remind you though sir, that the Peace movement killed more American soldiers than the NVA ever did. Those who must fight and die do not hunger for war, bu understand that when it comes, "There is no substitute for Victory".
Pelligrino| 5.31.11 @ 6:03PM
Well said, AA. A military life can be in on-so-many ways a very strange life. In its essence, it is. You prepare feverishly to do acts, maneuvers, drills you hope to never really have to do.
You learn skills & teamwork you hope to never need to employ. Yet soberly you know it is all very, very necessary.
Evil is on the ramparts.
No one is "into" the warmongering. The greatest lovers of peace are those who've had to fight for it.
Thanks for your posts today and those of Occam.
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 7:09PM
Thank you. Stay involved and on the site. I enjoy your comments.
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 5:58PM
The true pacifists that I have met in my life tended to be religious in nature. Usually Amish, Mennonite, Quaker etc etc....I would hardly call them perverse and I have never seen them look on anyone with disdain. They could probably work you into the ground at any time you wish to challange them.
Maryland Lady| 5.31.11 @ 9:18AM
Interesting how some of these 'pacifists' aren't consistent with their 'pacifisit' thinking when it comes to abortion. The same pacifists who get all bent out of shape w/ the slaughter of whales, baby seals, etc. Their mindset isn't logical.
skip| 5.31.11 @ 4:22PM
Notice how shit for brains lacking intelligence and honesty, like da monk and Pzkfw, neither of which have ever posted a single comment on AmSpec with any intelligence or honesty, are suddenly rendered mute, in response to your intelligent and honest comment?
C Smith| 5.31.11 @ 9:30AM
There is a time for war, but somehow I can't forget those who refused to have a part in it:
After Münster, “Anabaptists” suffered even more persecution by those who used this debacle as justification. Like the martyrs of Revelation “that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony they held,” these lowly Brethren “loved not their lives unto the death.” They were literally “killed all the day long” and were “counted as sheep for the slaughter.” Their enemies, attempting to mute their testimony, often killed them in secret or darkness.
More Anabaptists were martyred in the sixteenth century then suffered under Rome during the first three centuries of the early church. And yet many walked through the valley of the shadow of death rejoicing and singing Psalms and praying for their enemies and, like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, communing with each other and the Son of God in the midst of the flames. Their witness astounded even those who hated them:
They are far readier then followers of Luther and Zwingli to meet death, and bear the harshest tortures for their faith. For they run to suffer punishments, no matter how horrible as if to a banquet; so that if you take that as a test either of the truth of doctrine or of their certitude of grace, you would easily conclude that in no other sect is to be found a faith so true or grace so certain (Stanislaus Hosius (Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmis), Opera (Venice), 1573, p. 202).
http://martyrsmirror.blogspot......-1576.html
OldSeabee| 5.31.11 @ 9:30AM
The "religious" anti-war crowd ignores the words of Jesus Christ, who said it is a good thing to lay down your life for a friend but an even better thing to lay down your life for a stranger. And, Jesus laid down His life for all us strangers. As a veteran, I spent Memorial remembering my comrades and shipmates who died in the service of our country and for freedom.
C Smith| 5.31.11 @ 9:37AM
For God and Country
That’s my father on the right with a string on his finger. On the left his younger brother David on leave from the Navy. Together again with their sister on that all so familiar Missouri farm late in November. The “Dust Bowl Days” were past and “Great Depression” over. It had been a wonderful time, that Thanksgiving of 1941. And it was after 2 AM as my father gently triggered the camera shutter. A few hours later, David was gone.
The U.S.S. Oglala, bucking the waves under full power, urgently propelled toward its Pacific destination. It had to arrive at the appointed time. However, fatigue eventually had its toll on the minelayer, a WW1 converted passenger steamer. Silently adrift, it summoned assistance. After a tow cable was attached and the feverish pace resumed, David commented to his superior: “If we go any faster that cable is ‘gona’ snap.” And “snap” it did!
The U.S.S. Oglala entered Pearl Harbor during the early morning hours of December 7, the last to arrive. It moored “side by side” with the U.S.S. Helena, completing the formation of "Battleship Row."
And as the sun rose on “December 7, 1941,” most of the Oglala crew, including her commanding officer, was still “out on the town.” However, the men in the boiler room, the cook, the second in command, and a few others including David were at their stations. When the sound of revving planes and whistling bombs punctuated the morning tranquility, General Quarters was sounded. The second in command screamed, “Man the Guns”! David screamed back: “What guns”! Someone found the keys, unlocked the magazine, and after some fumbling a 3"/50 cal. A.A. gun and three .30 cal. machine guns were manned and returning fire.
Then as several enemy planes strafed the deck, David remembered one flying low and amidships. Then a torpedo and its contrail as it converged on the Oglala. It would soon be over! The Oglala lifted out of the water, but he was still alive! The submerged munition had gone under the Oglala and struck the Helena on the other side.
They continued firing, reporting some “definite hits.” However, the Oglala’s hull had ruptured and was flooding rapidly. For an hour and a half the meager crew was uninterrupted in returning fire as the Oglala continued to list to her port side. 5°, 10°, 15°, 20°. Then as the commanding officer finally returned, the Oglala listed to its side, and those who could swam away.
Back on a farm in Missouri, a family had but one thought: “Was he alive.” The phone was never unattended. A speaker in the kitchen was connected remotely to the wireless in the library. And as hours turned to days, a mother listened and waited. And during the days before Christmas, sleep was haunted by the thought of “tapping” sailors trapped in the hulls of sunken ships….
Today I learned that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (San Francisco) is entertaining arguments to remove from our corporate psyche and soul the words: "In God We Trust."
http://popularapostasy.blogspo.....untry.html
Pelligrino| 5.31.11 @ 6:17PM
C. Smith, thank you for this story of your brother. It is a shame that Pearl Harbor is geographically so far away that most Americans will never get there in person in their lifetimes. (For once a benefit of the internet; a website with all the information and great pictures can be easily accessed.)
There is a newly minted U.S. $1 coin that should be rejected by all true Americans. A veterans' newsletter informed my family of this fact just one month ago. All I can tell you is that it is a $1 coin with George Washington's head on one side. I am not sure if this coin is silver or gold in color. But this is for certain: The words "In God We Trust" are nowhere to be found in this new US. Mint coin.
Evildoers are all around us.
The ONLY reason this country has enjoyed so many remarkable blessings is the faithful believers in God who have lived, toiled, served, loved and died in and for America.
Again, thank you C. Smith for this story.
Gary| 5.31.11 @ 10:40AM
These "pacifists" aren't worth the spit it would take to douse them if they were on fire. Their true passion is hatred of America which they see as an evil nations and oppressor. If so, where is their outrage of the numerous atrocity laden countries like North Korea, Iran, Lybia, and on and on. These people are fools. Despite its' power the U.S has been an overwhelming force for good in the world. While having made errors, the good done dwarfs the mistakes. Can they name another country that has done what this nation has done? One? For the life of me I do not understand people such as this who are hypercritical of our country. Their whines are so silly, prejudiced, venial, that they have no value. We are one of the most self critical countries in the world but what these people dish out is simply pure self hatred.
Bill| 5.31.11 @ 11:02AM
Epperly says, "Memorial Day is about remembering, and then dedicating our own lives to a larger, greater good for those we love, our nation -- and this may mean protesting against military action, injustice, and enmity to immigrants -- and the planet as a whole."
Since Memorial Day was specifically set aside for us to commemmorate the sacrifice of our armed forces in putting their lives at risk for our freedoms, it's difficult (1) to see how antiwar protests really fit very well into that context; it's not as if people can't demonstrate against war and stuff on, say, May Day, or set some other day aside for that; and (2) it's equally difficult to see how a memorial set aside to remember the sacrifice of Americans and would-be Americans fighting for America could be generalized to a non-American holiday. I mean, it's all about our wars, isn't it, and the price Americans have paid?
Next, saying that Memorial Day should be downplayed because America is somehow unexceptional. Tell it to the British, who know how close they came to losing World War I to the German alliance, how close Hitler got to conquering their nation in World War II, to the Koreans, half of whom were kept from Stalinist totalitarianism for more than a half-century largely because of American war-making prowess, to the Vietnamese, who kept communistic poverty from their doorstep for a decade and a half, to the Kuwaitis, who got their nation back from a ruthless conqueror, and to the Iraqis and Afghans, who we helped rid themselves of a tyrant and a religious autocracy.
Sorry, but Memorial Day seems uniquely American to me for all the above reasons. Left-wing religious figures can just go hang. Separately.
Pelligrino| 5.31.11 @ 6:29PM
Bill, maybe this can help a little: In my small town there is a visiting young couple from South Korea.
They know all the blessings of American involvement to aid their nation these past 60 years.
One, they are Christians and know all the peace and true joy that this brings. Their parents became Christians due to American missionaries. Two, their successes. Both had chances to attend U.S. schools. Three, his job; he has worked for two U.S. companies and that has launched his career like nothing else. Four, their baby (first child) due this September. They know their lives would not be so blessed without what Americans have done directly and indirectly for them. So they'd never be able to start a family with confidence and joy.
They are only late twenties in age, but this very fine couple love and thank Americans in many ways. They seem almost too pleasantly wise for their age; they too are mystified at lefty anti-Memorial Day sentiments.
Al Adab| 5.31.11 @ 7:14PM
To honor the fiftyith anniversary of the Korean war (police action remember?) The South Korean government sent each state capital a memorial bell. They sent a certificate of recognition to everyone who served. Why do you suppose so many from around the world understand and appreciate Liberty so much more than our fellow citizens seem to?
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.31.11 @ 12:01PM
Screw the "pacificsts"..they are simply hiding behind our bodies and our lives.
...heh...shoot a couple each day as you drive home.
da monk| 5.31.11 @ 3:56PM
TEX: DID YOU RE-READ WHAT YOU JUST WROTE. ARE YOU SUGGESTING MURDER?
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 4:02PM
Monk,
Please, oh, please. What brand of deodorizer do you use for your bowel movements?
Skippy| 5.31.11 @ 7:28PM
Think of it as culling the herd.
Bill| 5.31.11 @ 4:18PM
Don't be too hard on the pacifists; a lot of them eventually grow up.
Oldmanriver| 6.3.11 @ 6:15PM
You should come to Amish country, it would be a target rich environment for you. I think you are sick.
richard ryan| 5.31.11 @ 12:13PM
My heart rate and blood pressure are both rising after reading about these idiots. There is no hope for an American citizen who can't bring himself to honor our fallen servicemen. I would like to reduce their arguement to bare bones. Let a Marine stand between the Peacnik's family and the enemy. In the heat of the moment, what would he have the Marine do, lay down his weapon?? "Conflicted." Give me a F___ break!
John K| 5.31.11 @ 1:04PM
Well, at least it doesn't stop the president getting a round of golf in.
Akaky| 5.31.11 @ 1:28PM
"Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security." --George Orwell, Pacifism and the War.
Orwell's essay is available online and if you have not read it yet, you should. His ability to spot intellectual dishonesty and to call it by its right name never fails to amaze me.
Occam's Tool| 5.31.11 @ 2:39PM
Well, Orwell was a man of the Left, who was being forced to recognize that the Left was Wrong. It hurt him badly.
Bill| 5.31.11 @ 4:20PM
I think getting shot through the throat during the Spanish Civil War while fighting with the anarchistic POUM hurt Orwell a lot more than disavowing leftist doublethink.
YeloStalyn| 5.31.11 @ 3:04PM
And in the end times Jesus will return and... do nothing. He'll hope that by being a pacifist Satan will not try to strike Him down but rather turn and follow Christ.
Right...
Last I checked He comes wielding a flaming sword ready to defeat, through warfare (albeit spiritual), once and for all, Satan.
At least that's how the back of my Bible reads. But then again, it's the kind that still says He and Him.
A few weeks back in the boys HS Sunday School class I help teach one of our studends, a transfer student from Germany, could not understand there was a difference between murder and killing. He thought that killing in battle against evil forces who seek to destroy and enslave the innocent was the same thing as murdering them.
War is hell. Although I'm a civilian, I understand it. My grandfather's brother was in Okinawa. My uncle in Vietnam. I understand what happened there and that no man would choose to suffer through it but instead chooses to do what is right and just and therefore does suffer through it. But all that is wrong with war, and how unbareable it may be... it is good. Why do I say that?
It was war that stopped the Holocaust. It was war that freed men from the unjust idea of the crown. It was war that freed men from slavery (not just the Civil War... but many wars all through history). It was war that protected the Jews from annihilation in the 60s. It was war that stopped Sadam from continuing to use biological weapons on his own people. It was was that kept part of Vietnam out of the Soviet Bloc.
It has always been war that stopped evil. It has never been pacifism. Always it has been war.
It is because of this that I honor, respect, and thank those who were willing to suffer through all that is war in order to bring a better tomorrow for someone they have never met. A truely courageous person serves with no desire to be thanked. A cowerdly person says, "Look at how great I am because I refuse to defend the innocent!"
Richard Baker| 5.31.11 @ 5:31PM
"Without being nationalistic?" Who did these fallen die for? These pathetic little minds are discomfited by the Remembrance of our friends and neighbors who died for the United States of America. Can we buy these whiners a ticket to Red China or some other socialist heaven, please?
patti | 5.31.11 @ 10:10PM
Chicago Faith Coalition on the Destruction of Israel: Obama's Chicago Comrades Send Anti-Israel Letter
http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogs.....ction.html
ティファニー 通販 | 6.1.11 @ 3:18AM
sayounala
ティファニー 通販 | 6.1.11 @ 3:20AM
remember me
Replica Handabags&wallet; | 6.1.11 @ 4:47AM
I’ve been looking everywhere for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing.
john dubose| 6.1.11 @ 8:55AM
The best way to honor our fallen soldiers is to NOT misuse the valor of our current ones. The religious left lets its pure heart overrule its common sense. The militaristic right does the same thing by trying to use the military to bully half the world. Got to find the sensible middle ground.
Bill| 6.1.11 @ 9:21AM
Since when does the right use our military forces to bully half the world? We only send our military forces to places where they are asked for.
I could understand your post if the U.S. sent our armed forces around the world like Nazis. But we don't do that. Our worst sin is the politicians' assumption that it's better for people to have governments that exist due to self-rule than it is to have kingdoms, autocracies, various forms of tyranny and totalitarianism, and so on. Oh yeah, it is better to have self-rule than those things. Never mind.
Richard Baker| 6.1.11 @ 7:17PM
dubose:
My answer to you is thus. ""Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country." Stephen Decatur
Jim Stagg| 6.1.11 @ 10:02PM
Marvelous defense of Memorial Day! Thank you!
dee see| 6.3.11 @ 12:02AM
"The U.S. has one final task before it too
is destroyed and RED China is brought in
as 'EUGENICS model' and 'world enforcer'
---and that's to 'bring in' (franchise slums,
cultural standardization --ie destruction
and EUGENICS) the recalcitrant Middle
East--"
-ALAN WATT
(essential online)
NOT to get carried away with worshipping
the dead ---as their truth and glory was nothing
more than a sign to the living.
HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012
One and all, BE BRAVE_______
Vasu Murti | 6.3.11 @ 6:49PM
Mark Tooley writes:
"There is at most insufficient evidence that Christianity in the first three centuries had any settled teachings on war..."
Not true!
Gandhi once reflected that "the only people who don’t see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians."
From history, however, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists.
For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.
Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9)
Professor G.J. Heering in The Fall of Christianity, notes:
"...the gospel condemns war...We have primarily to recognize, however hard it may be to do so, that the waging of war has no place in the moral and spiritual teachings of Jesus."
Hippolytus, second century Christian father and historian, who wrote what he considered the apostolic tradition and so the authentic Christian teaching, maintained that when he applied for admission to the Christian fellowship, a soldier must refuse to kill, even if he were commanded by his superiors to do so, and also must not take an oath.
Justin Martyr, the principal apologist of the early church (AD 150) wrote:
"Christians seek no earthly realm, but a heavenly, and that this will be a realm of peace.
"The prophecy of Isaiah—that swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears to pruning hooks—begins to find fulfillment in the missions of Christians.
"For we refrain from the making of war on our enemies, but gladly go to death for Christ’s sake. Christians are warriors of a different world, peaceful fighters.
"For Caesar’s soldiers possess nothing which they can lose more precious than their life, while our love goes out to that eternal life which God will give."
Origen, the great Christian father of the second century, and a vegetarian, would hear nothing of earthly military service: he regarded it as completely forbidden:
"We Christians no longer take up sword against nation, nor do we learn war any more, having become children of peace for the sake of Jesus who is our leader. We do not serve as soldiers under the Emperor, even though he requires it.
"Persons who possess authority to kill, or soldiers, should not kill at all, even when it is commanded of them.
"Every one who receives a distinctive leading position, or a magisterial power, and does not clothe himself in the weaponlessness of which is becoming to the gospel, should be separated from the flock."
Although the son of a military officer, the early Christian father Tertullian (AD 200) was a vegetarian opposed to militarism and violence.
The question Tertullian faced was not whether a Christian may be a soldier, but whether a soldier may even be allowed within the church. He answered "No." The soldier who becomes a Christian ought to leave the army.
"One soul cannot be true to two lords — God and Caesar. How shall a Christian man wage war; nay, how shall he even be a soldier in peace time, without the sword, which the Lord has taken away?--for in disarming Peter he ungirded every soldier."
The great church father Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, denounced war and wrote:
"The whole earth is drenched in adversaries’ blood, and if murder is committed, privately it is a crime, but if it happens with State authority, courage is the name for it: not the goodness of the cause, but the greatness of the cruelty makes the abominations blameless."
Attacking even capital punishment, Cyprian wrote:
"Christians are not allowed to kill, it is not permitted to guiltless to put even the guilty to death."
The Christian writer Lactantius of Bithinia wrote:
"When God prohibits killing, He not only forbids us to commit brigandage, which is not allowed even by public laws, but he warns us not to do even those things which are legal among men.
"And so it will not be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier for justice itself is his military service, nor to accuse anyone of a capital offense, because it makes no difference whether they kill with a sword or with a word, since killing itself is forbidden."
In her 1991 essay, "The Bible and Peace and War," Ursula King asks:
"...how are we to explain that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, is often called ‘the Prince of Peace’ and yet Western civilization so deeply shaped by the Christian story which is clearly pacifist in origin and essence, has become so militaristic from an early stage in its history?"
King quotes Christian pacifist John Ferguson from War and Peace in the World’s Religions:
"The historic association of the Christian faith with nations of commercial enterprise, imperialistic expansion and technological advancement has meant that Christian peoples, although their faith is one of the most pacifistic in its origins, have a record of military activity second to none."
According to King:
"In the early Church, pacifism was the dominant position up to the reign of Constantine, when Christianity became a state religion.
"Until then no Christian author approved of Christian participation in battle, whereas in AD 314 the Council of Arles decreed that Christians who gave up their arms in time of peace should be excommunicated."
In Theology and Social Structure, Robin Gill has written:
"The situation of the pre-Constantine church appears all the more remarkable when it is realized that no major Christian church or denomination has been consistently pacifist since Constantine.
"Indeed, Christian pacifism has been largely confined to a small group of sects, such as the Quakers, Anabaptists, Mennonites, Brethren and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Further, pacifists within the churches, as distinct from sects, have in times of war been barely tolerated by their fellow Christians."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that in today’s world the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence.
Like pacifists or pro-lifers, these quotes against killing and war from the early church fathers indicate that religiously-based vegetarianism is not at all extreme nor absurd, but rather, consistent with Christian doctrines.
Vegetarianism itself is a kind of pacifism—nonviolence towards animals as well as humans.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9).
Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)
Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Paul, on the other hand, asked scornfully in I Corinthians 9: "Does God take care for oxen?"
From history, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists.
For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns, exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.
It's possible historically that Christianity began as a vegetarian religion, but was corrupted over the centuries.
Secular scholar Keith Akers writes in his as of yet unpublished manuscript, Broken Thread:
"The 'orthodox' response to vegetarianism has been somewhat contradictory...The objection to meat consumption has been taken as evidence of heresy when Christians have been faced with outsiders; however, vegetarianism met with a kinder reception among the monastic communities...Vegetarianism does attain a certain status even in orthodox circles.
"Indeed, a list of known vegetarians among the church leaders reads very much like a Who's Who in the early church.
"Peter is described as a vegetarian in the Recognitions and Homilies. Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, said that James (the brother of Jesus) was a vegetarian and was raised as a vegetarian. Clement of Alexandria thought that Matthew was a vegetarian...
"According to Eusebius, the apostles--all the apostles, and not just James--abstained from both meat and wine, thus making them vegetarians and teetotalers, just like James.
"Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nanziance, John Chrysostom, and Tertullian were all probably vegetarians, based on their writings...they themselves are evidently vegetarian and can be counted on to say a few kind words about vegetarianism.
"On the other hand, there are practically no references to any Christians eating fish or meat before the council of Nicaea.
"The rule of Benedict forbade eating any four-legged animals, unless one was sick. Columbanus allowed vegetables, lentil porridge, flour, and bread only, at all times, even for the sick.
"A fifth-century Irish rule forbids meat, fish, cheese, and butter at all times, though the sick, elderly, travel-weary, or even monks on holidays may eat cheese or butter, but no one may ever eat meat.
"The Carthusians were especially strict about vegetarianism. The origin of their order is related by the story of St. Bruno and his companions, who on the Sunday before Lent are sitting before some meat and are debating whether they should eat meat at all.
"During the debate, numerous examples of vegetarians among their monastic predecessors are mentioned--the Desert Fathers, Paul (the Hermit), Antony, Hilarion, Macharius, and Arsenius, are all cited as vegetarian examples.
"After much discussion, they fall asleep--and remain asleep for 45 days, waking up when Archbishop Hugh shows up on Wednesday of Holy Week! When they wake up, the meat miraculously turns to ashes, and they fall on their knees and determine never to eat meat again.
"It is true that the church rejected the requirement for vegetarianism, following the dicta of Paul. However, it is interesting under these circumstances that there are so many vegetarians.
"In fact, outside of the references to Jesus eating fish in the New Testament, there re hardly any references to any early Christians eating meat.
Thus vegetarianism was practiced by the apostles, by James the brother of Jesus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nanziance, John Chrysostom, Tertullian, Bonaventure, Arnobius, Cassian, Jerome, the Desert Fathers, Paul (the Hermit), Antony, Hilarion, Machrius, Columbanus, and Aresenius--but not by Jesus himself!
"It is as if everyone in the early church understood the message except the messenger. This is extremely implausible.
"The much more likely explanation is that the original tradition was vegetarian, but that under the pressure of expediency and the popularity of Paul's writings in the second century, the tradition was first dropped as a requirement and finally dropped even as a desideratum."
In her 2004 book, Vegetarian Christian Saints: Mystics, Ascetics & Monks, Dr. Holly Roberts documents the lives and teachings of over 150 canonized vegetarian saints:
St. Anthony of Egypt; St. Hilarion; St. Macarius the Elder; St. Palaemon; St. Pachomius; St. Paul the Hermit; St. Marcian; St. Macarius the Younger; St. Aphraates; St. James of Nisibis; St. Ammon; St. Julian Sabas; St. Apollo; St. John of Egypt; St. Porphyry of Gaza; St. Dorotheus the Theban; St. Theodosius the Cenobiarch; St. Sabas; St. Fugentius of Ruspe; St. Gerasimus; St. Mary of Egypt; St. Dositheus; St. Abraham Kidunaja; St. John the Silent; St. Theodore of Sykeon; St. Lups of Troyes; St. Lupicinus; St. Romanus; St. Gudelinis; St. Liphardus; St. Maurus of Glanfeuil; St. Urbicius; St. Senoch; St. Hospitius; St. Winwaloe; St. Kertigan; St. Fintan; St. Molua; St. Amatus; St. Guthlac; St. Joannicus; St. Theodore the Studite; St. Lioba; St. Euthymius the Younger; St. Luke the Younger; St. Paul of Latros; St. Antony of the Caves of Kiev; St. Theodosius Pechersky; St. Fantinus; St. Wulfstan; St. Gregory of Makar; St. Elphege; St. Theobald of Provins; St. Stephen of Grandmont; St. Henry of Coquet; St. William of Malavalle; St. Godric; St. Stephen of Obazine; St. William of Bourges; St. Humility of Florence; St. Simon Stock; St. Agnes of Montepulciano; St. Laurence Justinian; St. Herculanus of Piegaro; St. Francis of Assisi; St. Clare of Assisi; St. Aventine of Troyes; st. Felix of Cantalice; St. Joseph of Cupertino; St. Benedict; St. Bruno; St. Alberic; St. Robert of Molesme; St. Stephen Harding; St. Gilbert of Sempringham; St. Dominic; St. John of Matha; St. Albert of Jerusalem; St. Angela Merici; St. Paula; St. Genevieve; St. David; St. Leonard of Noblac; St. Kevin; St. Anskar; St. Ulrich; St. Yvo; St. Laurence O'Toole; St. Hedwig; St. Mary of Onigines; St. Elizabeth of Hungary; St. Ivo Helory; St. Philip Benizi; St. Albert of Trapani; St. Nicholas of Tolentino; St. Rita of Cascia; St. Francis of Paola; St. John Capistrano; St. John of Kanti; St. Peter of Alcantara; St. Francis Xavier; St. Philip Neri; St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi; St. Jean-Marie Vianney; St. Basil the Great; St. Jerome; St. Ephraem; St. Peter Damian; St. Bernard; St. Catherine of Siena; St. Robert Bellarmine; St. Peter Celestine; St. Olympias; St. Publius; St. Malchus; St. Asella; St. Sulpicius Severus; St. Maxentius; St. Monegundis; St. Paul Aurelian; St. Coleman of Kilmacduagh; St. Bavo; St. Amandus; St. Giles; St. Silvin; st. Benedict of Aniane; St. Aybert; St. Dominic Loricatus; St. Richard of Wyche; St. Margaret of Cortona; St. Clare of Rimini; St. Frances of Rome; St. James de la Marca; St. Michael of Giedroyc; St. Mariana of Quito; St. John de Britto; St. Callistratus; St. Marianus; St. Brendon of Clonfert; St. Kieran (Carian); St. Stephen of Mar Saba; St. Anselm; St. Martin de Porres; St. Procpius; St. Boniface of Tarsus; St. Serenus.
In the (updated) 1986 edition of A Vegetarian Sourcebook, Keith Akers similarly observes:
"But many others, both orthodox and heterodox, testified to the vegetarian origins of Christianity. Both Athanasius and his opponent Arius were strict vegetarians. Many early church fathers were vegetarian, including Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Heironymus, Boniface, and John Chrysostom.
"Many of the monasteries both in ancient times and at the present day practiced vegetarianism...
"The requirement to be vegetarian has been diluted considerably since the earliest days, but the practice of vegetarianism was continued by many saints, monks, and laymen. Vegetarianism is at the heart of Christianity."
History shows that Christianity, like Buddhism, began as a pacifist religion, and was pacifist until the time of Constantine, when it became a state religion.
Before Constantine, Christians who took up arms were excommunicated. After Constantine, Christians who laid down their weapons were excommunicated!
I'm not saying we should lay down our arms (the Bhagavad-gita, after all, was spoken on a battlefield!), but that it's not hard to imagine Christianity similarly beginning as a vegetarian religion, and being corrupted over the centuries...the corruption beginning, perhaps, with the apostle Paul?
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