My elementary school patriotic program was an annual event at Faith Christian Academy in Texas. Each class, elementary to graduating seniors, offered up skits, songs, or displays of US History knowledge for two hours. All this in praise to America.
I do not think patriotism is a bad thing at all. Patriotism admires an authority and heritage in a way that is quite wholesome. But through my fiery conservative Christian upbringing, I learned that a powerful and active American military was to be praised. The militancy of American democracy was intricately woven into our conservative Christian patriotism. Evil was always lurking, sometimes in the form of another nation, and Good must be ready to pounce on Evil.
It is not just my anti-conservative-Christian bias simplifying these views, but it is the best I could understand being an elementary student. I grew to believe that godliness was somehow connected to patriotism which was somehow connected to physical war where the "good guys" (i.e., America) must always beat the "bad guys" (i.e., anyone America ever fought). As a child, I watched fireworks and repeated J.P. Sousa marches with hopes of one day fighting for America on the front lines.
This dream stuck with me through all others: music, the ministry, sports. Graduating from the legendarily conservative Christian school, Bob Jones University, with two bachelors degrees (one in music, the other in history), I immediately enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. I enlisted because I discovered that as an officer, I would not have the choice of an Infantry job. However, when I enlisted, I watched the recruiter write the "Infantry MOS: 0300" on my contract. There was no turning back.
Six years later, burnt out from training, stress, and, yes, war, I was attacked internally by my own religious presuppositions. Church "friends" turned out to be wildly unfriendly, and my own trust in God to "provide" or bring about the miraculous simply fell through. I don't believe God was to blame: I had just been duped by a reckless and militant sect of American Christianity.
Now I get to mingle with an eclectic group of Christians, many of whom question conservative views on sexuality, church polity, and even warfare. I see hypocrisy and validity on all sides.
While I went to war for the wrong reasons (seeking to please God by showing my depth of American patriotism), I did learn what it meant to lay down my life for another. In truth, I laid down my life for my brothers in arms and even for Americans back home, whether or not they choose to recognize that reality.
If someone asked me if I were in support of America's current wars around the world, I would give an emphatic "no.' If someone asked me if I were anti-war, I would be equally in denial. How can God be a God of beauty and show pleasure on violence of any form? Better still, how can God be a God of faithful devotion to anyone without expressing (from time to time) an extreme violent disposition in defense of those He loves while evil still walks the earth?
If I love someone deeply, I oppose the evil that would snuff that person from existence, and I would do so in forfeit to my own life, if necessary. Few can say this, because few know what such a situation feels like. I am disgustingly privileged.
Historians have begun attributing the escalation of American wars to the talent of American churches to mobilize their congregations for a war that God favors. From an economic and political standpoint, many of these American wars did good both for America and her peers. Many of these American wars are perhaps more costly than was necessary. At any rate, American churches always came through, rallying their young men to war singing Christian hymns doubling (without any text alterations) as battle songs. There is some truth to this, and God help those ministers responsible for motivating and then perpetuating a self-devastating spirit of patriotism decorated with a Christian-induced hallucination of God's pleasure.
We like to blame Presidents and Congresses for our wars. But the truth is, our politicians listen to our concerns (or the concern of their increasingly exclusive club of lobbyists) in order to understand what those interests are that need protecting, both domestically and abroad. And while there exists an external separation of Church and State, everyone knows that the Church runs the culture (until that culture rebels). Presidents and Congresses can continue their unjustified wars because Americans continue to believe that God loves American patriotism, when in truth, God neither likes nor dislikes such sentiments.
Anti-war Christians, as refreshing as they may appear against this backdrop of religious patriotism, pour gasoline on the fire. They question the bad and good reasons for going to war by ignoring those Scriptural depictions of a God violently angry with those who attack the people He loves. Jesus Christ has expanded the fold of God's chosen, but Scripture is clear that one day God's anger will have an outlet on those who sought to destroy His people. Without violence, there is no true love. With anti-war Christians, there is no God who loves completely. There are only victims, abusers, and a God Who wishes that abusers would just stop being abusive.
Meanwhile, the fiery conservative Christian patriots continue to equate some measure of godliness with going to war for America, regardless of that war's validity. A fun hypothesis to attempt to discredit is that the only low-costly wars were those fought from a perspective of Real Politik. One will be hard-pressed to find any other justification for wars that renders so much altruistic return for so low investment of human life, and the irony of Real Politik is that such a perspective weighs a justification for war on nothing other than pure economic and political gains. Funny how the ultimate fleshing out of the Golden Rule finds its way into the war planning of a shrewd world leader embracing a spirit of Real Politik. Oh, but a religious war! None will be so costly and none will be so worthless. Only religious wars send men and women mindlessly to death, and the brilliance of the American Civil War was the height to which men and their mothers believed that God smiled on violence for their respective causes.
Many poor motives went into our reasons to war in the Middle East, and many poor motives went into my reasons to volunteer as a Marine Infantryman for four years. However, many I tried to kill first tried to kill my brothers. Many I tried to kill, I first tried to befriend. Many I tried to kill expressed a desire to kill my wife and child at home. Regardless of my motives for enlisting, and regardless of the motives of politicians, I thank God that I learned to love to the fullest and that others gave me a glimpse of their love for me: that a man would lay down his life for his friends.
