Balancing Military and Faith In Jesus

Well, hello. Words for change. Podcast is your host, lionel. For this month we're going to talk about faith in unusual places. I'll start out by asking you a question what do you do, what do Christians do, when national interests conflicts with religious principle? Ryan Hohneber said this out of the depths of religious faith, the Christian is moved to defy the false gods of a nation. We're going to be talking about faith in combat zones. This is a very important topic to me, not only because I'm a chaplain and working with people who are out in the field, but it's a important topic because it really deals with what are we really called to do and be? What is Jesus calling us to do and be in the world? Jesus preached peace. Matthew 5 talks about that. You can go read the sermon on the mound. There's several verses in the gospels in which Jesus talked about peace. Remember when he was taken by the Roman centurion guard and the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane? Peter pulled out a sword and Jesus told him if my kingdom were of this world, then could I not call to my father to send legions of angels to come and fight for me, but put away your sword? Basically, my kingdom is not of this world, and violence is not the way forward. But for those of us who are on the front lines and those of us who may find ourselves there or who have critical reflections about their faith, this is an important topic because sometimes we have to practice our faith in circumstances and in environments that are sort of hostile to faith. See faith in Christ as secondary, not primary. Do not consider it a part of the decision making process as they go about mission planning or whatever the goals and desires and dreams of that individual organization is. And so, as myself I'm recording this about to go back out into the field and continue training and working with people. Matter of fact, when you listen to this episode, I may be already back home in my studio. I'm recording this before the Super Bowl happens and before I go back out into the field, and so I want you to think realistically. But how does how do people who practice the Christian faith and Muslim faith, or people who practice Hinduism or Buddhism, how do they maintain their faith? How do Christians in the military maintain their faith when the national interests can sometimes seem hostile, or faith can be used rather as a tool and not as a way of bringing about the best of the world and having decisions and leaders who use faith as a principle, as a resource to bring about very important decisions in the world. And this is very personal to me because during the COVID crisis we faced this. We faced organizations that wanted to use the chaplains or religious leaders and priests sort of as a process to say no, instead of really considering the impact faith had on people's decisions to take a vaccine or not take a vaccine. And obviously this episode is not about the COVID crisis and vaccines, but it's a perfect point that I'm making, as a point well made, that sometimes religious faith is seen as irrelevant to the real world. So Reinhold Niebuhr also talked about this in Christian realism when he said that, yes, we know that peace is the ultimate goal, but there are still people who want to see you and I die Right, and so in that instance, reinhold Niebuhr was a proponent to say that, although we know that peace is the ultimate goal, we still have to defend ourselves and protect ourselves. And so there's about four things I want to bring to you before we wrap up this episode, and I want you to think about these very, very carefully, because when people are in conflict or in the military and in the air, people of faith, and you may be that person. You may listen to me and you're in an organization that you are personal faith, but the organization can sometimes see faith as secondary. Thank you, right, there are important issues and topics that people need to understand about the more ambiguity that often functions within these environments. So the first thing you need to understand for those who are in military environments, in combat zone or conflict and war, it is an ambiguous place to be morally, which means that, although you and I know right and wrong, right, there's certain things that we just know. Right you shouldn't, you know, steal or take what doesn't belong to you. Excuse me, but there are other things that are morally ambiguous, and so people in the military typically live within this ambiguity because they have dreams, passions, goals and desires. Many of them join the military not simply to engage in war fighting, but to care for themselves and those they love. Think about a young kid who comes from another country and able to gain citizenship, and his whole goal is to make his life better and make his family life better as well. So he sends, or she sends, money back home to support their family while they serve in the military. Surely they're not considering and I'm telling you as a person who works in councils and advises these individuals on a regular basis right, they live in this sort of very, very conflicted area when it comes to war fighting. And so the early Christians right, there were Christians doing the Roman Empire the same issue, right, christians and those of the Jewish faith doing the first century lived amongst the Roman dominating a empire that occupy Jerusalem, the holy city and all of those areas that they held controlled by power and by war and by violence. There were Christians who had to negotiate how they would function in that environment. In other words, they held to their Christian faith and they believed or their Jewish faith, but they still had to live day to day in an environment that was owned and dictated by their oppressors. So, number one understand that there are people in the military who are not okay with war. Okay, nor am I suggesting that everyone in the military, and that even the national interest right, is okay with war. Number two there are people with personal stories, the Marines who have backgrounds of depression, army soldiers, airmen, coast Guard personnel, navy personnel, who have mental health issues before they even came into the military, who got in trouble. There were people who were homeless before they joined. There are people who believe in Christ. Not only do they believe, but some of them are good Bible teachers and preachers and students of the Word of God. There are people in the military who are in those positions for humanitarian reasons they want to do good. There are people in the military who just want to travel. And so when you think about people in the military, what you are seeing is that there are people who have stories, and those stories are as diverse as the American population. And so when you see people protesting against the military and I understand that people have a right to do that, but every individual in the military has a story Even those who are in decision-making processes do it, in my estimation, very carefully. They do it with a lot of thought, a lot of counsel and advisement, a lot of care and concern about casualties. So these are morally ambiguous. Think about a person. There are people who are in places of power, who are also deacons at your local church. Think about that. So what I'm saying is that there are people who live in this morally ambiguous situation where they function in a military industrial complex, but then they have to try to work out their faith in Christ at the same time. So what do you see here? Number one you see that there are people who live in morally ambiguous circumstances in the military. They do have personal stories and there are people who are struggling with their faith, whether or not they should be in a military. The military has a phrase called conscientious objector, and a conscientious objector is a person who decides, after swearing the oath of office or swearing in commission, becoming a commission officer or a listed personnel, who decide that they made a wrong decision and then they can submit the proper paperwork in order to not take up arms anymore. So there are people who are searching for meaning, there are people who are psychologically impacted, there are people who are very, very hopeful, there are people full of faith, there are people who have family values. There are people who experience abuse and there are people who learn resiliency and hope. In these circumstances, man, I'm telling you and the audience, I'm telling you that there are people who are struggling in their faith and they want to do better. And a very important piece for us to think about here are those themes and what I like to how I like the context is very, very quickly, is that if you're going to understand how people come up with these concepts of being a Christian and being a Christian not that of a person of peace, but a person of war you typically see people who are heavy on the Old Testament and how the scripture talks about the Old Testament versus the New Testament. So, in other words, there's an Old Testament ethic about war and there's a New Testament ethic about peace. The Old Testament, the underlying thought in the underbelly of the Old Testament, over and time again, is that of war Nations. What you see in the Old Testament is God moving his people to the promised land through war, fighting, killing, murder, vengeance, so forth and so on, and people who typically are high on the scale of being a Christian and being a nationalist, which is different, although I'm not talking about that here, but there's a difference between being a Christian and a nationalist. Right, even though we can wear people, can wear the banner of Christian, but their Christianity, the cross, is clothed first and foremost with the flag. Okay, now I understand that. When I say that carefully, all I'm simply saying is that there's a difference between being a Christian and being faithful to the cross and being and using the cross in order to push nationalistic agendas. This is also morally ambiguous and creates all kinds of turpitudes. 20 Old Testament. This is what you see in the New Testament. This is the New Covenant of the Jesus, which Jesus talked about peace, not a sword. The Gospel talks about how Jesus says in Matthew, that those who live by the sword or die by the sword. Jesus told Peter, as I mentioned earlier, that you should not take out your weapon because that's not how the kingdom of God functions. And this is critical to understand because there's so many people who call themselves Christians, and I cannot doubt an individual's faith, nor do I have the right and authority to. But this is an observation on my part, particularly as we approach political systems of political seasons. Excuse me, but there are people who, first and foremost, totally overlook Matthew chapter 5, which was Jesus crowning sermon, that called the Sermon on the Mount, also known as the Be Attitudes. It is by all New Testament scholars, both liberal, middle of the road and conservative, that Matthew chapter 5 was Jesus' magnum opus about how his followers were to function amid Roman domination Absolutely so. Here you have this. Rose of Jesus was called a cornerstone that can never be broken. Jesus said, and standing in front of the temple if you tear this temple down, I rebuilt it in three days. He was not talking about the physical temple, but the temple of his body. In other words, my kingdom is not coming through physical means, but the kingdom will be birthed in the hearts and minds of people, and the hearts of minds of people will see that it is not through domination, it is not through violence that the kingdom grows, but the kingdom grows by hearts being transformed and minds being renewed. And the moral ambiguity is when a person, or the more ambiguity and discipleship comes and happens when a person realizes that their Christian faith is in conflict with their national interests or political interests, or capitalistic interests or monetary interests. And then one has to decide if I will follow Christ's way or follow the alternative. And this is what it means to practice faith in unusual places. So my encouragement to you today is this right Think about how you can apply faith. Jesus talked about forgiveness. Jesus talked about love and Matthew five. Jesus talked about not retaliating. Jesus talked about loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus talked about national conflict. Jesus talked about the kingdom of God being birthed in individuals hearts. How does that lie with you If you have a problem with what I'm saying? And I respect you and I really appreciate you as an audience, but I really want you to think deeply about what I'm putting out before you. I want you to go back and read Matthew, chapter five, and do an observation of the life of Jesus and see if what I'm talking about doesn't resonate or make sense with you. Okay, so the gospel is giving you an example and asking us the question of where do we stand? That's one last story I'm reminded. In Daniel, chapter three, shirek, meshach and Abednego were what Challenge to bow down and worship the idol, which everyone in that nation, doing that time under the rulership of national interest, had to do. But what did they do? They didn't bow down. So, over and over again, here's what you see. You see in the case of Ragnomyshakin and Ben Ngo, you see in the case of Jesus and Roman Empire, and you see even in the Jewish people desiring to not follow national interest but to follow after their God. And whenever they didn't, god chastised them because they were what they were, led astray by foreign gods instead of seeing the worship or practicing the worship of their God as primary, first and foremost. So who do you answer to? Is the question at hand, and so I wanted to give you just a perspective of this. Is what we deal with. This is what I have to ask these questions in my own personal life and my own personal journey, and that of faith as a chaplain functioning in a military industrial complex that we're called to be the conscience of this institution and wherever you find yourself serving. My hope and prayer is that this episode will inspire you to go out to read scripture and to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. Okay, so so where do you stand, right? Where do you stand? Here's what we talked about just by. We have recapping before we get out of here. When we talked about our Christian calling is inspired by Christ, not the institution. To we stand with our Christian faith, even though it's morally ambiguous. Doing the work of discipleship is to work through that ambiguity. And three, we also talked about dealing with people and with real stories. Right, when we see people functioning in these roles, don't just assume that they are lockstep in agreement with everything. No, they are working through their ambiguity as well. And then we also talked about Jesus need for peace over retaliation, that Jesus was creating a new covenant in a new way, not based on domination, violence and so forth and so on, but based on peace, justice and truth. This is what Jesus mean, a mint, when he said be the salt of the earth, be the light that sits on the top of the hill right. No one takes a light and put it under a basket and hides it, but they bring the light out so that all who are in darkness can see the way forward, and this may mean some other. There's a other consequences that come along with that, but I'll talk about that in our next episode of faith in unusual places. So I want to thank you so much for audience for listening. Please share, like and make sure that if this is helpful to you and you think it will be helpful to someone else in your circle, share it with them. I think it will be a benefit to them at least. Good conversation at the very least, at the most, that it caused you to think about your Christian faith. Well, pray for me and I'm praying for you, and just remember nothing changes in the world until you change first. I look forward to continually coming back and being in our studio in March, but this is going to cover us for the month of February. Then we'll be back in the saddle in March and I look forward to engaging with you even more. Please feel free to connect with me via email. You can even go to thechapstalkorg and leave a voice message and I will engage with you. God bless you. I'm praying for you once again. Pray for me. We'll talk to you soon, peace.