Following my acute personal discomfort and somewhat overpowering 'Menonite moment' related below at the way that a 'help for heroes' event was promoted as a 'good cause' in our church newsletter... It's something of a relief to find that I'm not the only one who struggles with the taken-for-granted OK-ness of church, and therefore also presumably 'C'hurch, support for the military - and also not alone in not quite knowing how to enunciate the tension between that and loving those who thinks it's fine.
What's good about the article in Christianity magazine (look down the page until you get to the Help for Heroes bit) is that they manage to do what I couldn't, and that's articulate the discussion without getting frustrated and annoyed at myself and everyone else and his cat...
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Christendom tensions and the Kingdom
I've just been sent a news bulletin from church... in which there is a notice about one couple's son who is taking part in a charity event to raise money for 'Help for Heroes'... the advice that it's 'a good cause' and information on how to donate.
It made me very uncomfortable.
On the one hand, I can see that it's a massive effort, it's taken lots of organisation... Clearly his parents are proud of him and what he's doing... and they are convinced by the rightness of the cause. It's good that people should know and be free to give, and there are a lot of people in the church who might do that... so, what better way to tell them than through the bulletin?
On the other, I think it's a terrible idea... I hate war, I think the troops in question are unnecessary, I think their involvement in Afghanistan is illegal, and I wouldn't classify them as 'heroes'...
Most of all, I find myself surprised by how strong my emotional reaction is when I see something that appears to support military action proposed as 'a good cause' in a church publication...
Now, I know I can just go and tell the leadership that I didn't like the inclusion of the article... that would be a very easy way of dealing with my own discomfort. I know some of them are sympathetic to my rather extreme anti-militarism.
That would make me feel better. But it's a bit of a cop-out and won't deal with the root issue, which for me is the discomfort that I see as some in the church 'stretch' (for want of a better word) towards a less taken-for-granted post-Christendom type understanding of the Kingdom of God... while more ingrained habits of the church aren't moving in the same direction.
Perhaps the frustration of knowing how to even enunciate this is reflected by the fact that I wrote more on this below... and then deleted it because I thought that it sounded judgmental (which is the last thing I want to be)... Every time I put something down that represented what I wanted to say, I found that it didn't... or it could be read wrongly.
Hmm...
It made me very uncomfortable.
On the one hand, I can see that it's a massive effort, it's taken lots of organisation... Clearly his parents are proud of him and what he's doing... and they are convinced by the rightness of the cause. It's good that people should know and be free to give, and there are a lot of people in the church who might do that... so, what better way to tell them than through the bulletin?
On the other, I think it's a terrible idea... I hate war, I think the troops in question are unnecessary, I think their involvement in Afghanistan is illegal, and I wouldn't classify them as 'heroes'...
Most of all, I find myself surprised by how strong my emotional reaction is when I see something that appears to support military action proposed as 'a good cause' in a church publication...
Now, I know I can just go and tell the leadership that I didn't like the inclusion of the article... that would be a very easy way of dealing with my own discomfort. I know some of them are sympathetic to my rather extreme anti-militarism.
That would make me feel better. But it's a bit of a cop-out and won't deal with the root issue, which for me is the discomfort that I see as some in the church 'stretch' (for want of a better word) towards a less taken-for-granted post-Christendom type understanding of the Kingdom of God... while more ingrained habits of the church aren't moving in the same direction.
Perhaps the frustration of knowing how to even enunciate this is reflected by the fact that I wrote more on this below... and then deleted it because I thought that it sounded judgmental (which is the last thing I want to be)... Every time I put something down that represented what I wanted to say, I found that it didn't... or it could be read wrongly.
Hmm...
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