Welcome back to the Fourth Wave Podcast. Today is a special edition in honor of Memorial Day. Memorial Day has become a little bit strange for me now that I am a full fledged pacifist. For a few years there as I was kind of toying with pacifism, I thought that maybe I could kind of adhere to it in a general sense, like in my kindness towards other people. But, you know, it's really one of those things that has, I've had to admit that yeah, I'm definitely a full fledged pacifist at this point.

So, Memorial Day is really weird for me now because in a culture like ours where we have so many warriors, where we are a, we really are a military culture, we honor warriors and they get all kinds of, not just the things that you see like the discounts and things, but I mean they get just complete respect. You just go through like my Facebook page and see all the memes about soldiers and like talking about stories of how they're protecting our freedoms and how they are, you know, we respect them with the flag and we respect them when dead soldiers are are being carried off of planes and I mean, it's like you do not say anything. Not only do you not say anything bad about the military or soldiers, but you also need to make sure you don't say anything that's not positive. Like, you have to elevate. So if I'm a Christian pacifist, if I believe in Christian nonviolence and I think that all violence is wrong, which includes the military, how do I navigate a day like this when everyone is showing honor and expects you to as well?

How do I navigate this day without causing unneeded offense, you know, just because I disagree with the military doesn't mean that I need to go around airing that and and defending everybody just to make my point known. How do I navigate such a day without being unloving and ungracious? But then how do I also navigate the day without being dishonest? Because while I don't want to be needlessly offensive and while I don't want to be unloving and ungracious, I also don't want to be disingenuous and dishonest. So how do I navigate that?

I dealt a little bit with this in one of our later episodes in season one where I talked about the sacrifice of soldiers. But today, we're gonna we're gonna dig quite a bit deeper. So that would be a good episode to listen to to for me to kind of explain some of my first thoughts as I as I thought through it for the first time once I realized I was a full pacifist. And also just something that is more of a defense for how we can still honor. But today, I've thought about it a lot more and I'm going to dig in quite a bit deeper.

And for this, I am at least for the first half or so, I'm going to use Howerwass' article called The Sacrifices of War and the Sacrifice of Christ. It's a pretty good article and he's got a lot of good articles. In fact, he has a book that deals it's basically a compilation of his essays dealing with war and America, which I would highly recommend. But this is one that I thought particularly pertinent for today since Memorial Day is different than Veterans Day in that Memorial Day honors the sacrifices of those who have died. Right?

A lot of people get confused and will thank veterans on Memorial Day which it's not bad to thank veterans on any day but Memorial Day is specifically supposed to honor the fallen soldiers. So the sacrifices of war and the sacrifice of Christ seem like a a good article to kind of go with here. One of the main premises of the article is essentially that war today is imbued with religious language. In fact, it's always been imbued with religious language but it is definitely imbued with religious language today. You can see some of the religious language pretty clearly, you know, honor, duty, brotherhood, and of course the one that we're talking about today which is sacrifice.

Soldiers are often thought of in our culture as sacrificing their lives and that can be either metaphorical that when somebody joins the military, we believe that they sacrifice certain aspects of their life in order to serve us. You know, they sacrifice time with their families, they sacrifice safety and security as they go on the front lines and fight for us. They sacrifice consistency as they have to move all the time. They sacrifice a number of things in order to join the military. The other way that they can sacrifice obviously is in their physical injury and even ultimately their deaths.

So IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan which maim and kill soldiers, That is one way that soldiers sacrifice their lives. If you listen to any number of episodes in our first season, you'll also know that there is the sacrifice of the mental and emotional capacities. There are lots of issues that soldiers can come back with from what they've seen and what they've done and how they've had to live for an extended period. And take that idea of sacrifice and listen to what Howerwas says here. Howerwas says that the language of sacrifice is particularly important for societies like The United States in which war remains our most determinative common experience because states like The United States depend on the story of our wars for our ability to narrate our history as a unified story.

What is Howard Wass saying? He's basically telling us that in The US's nearly two hundred and fifty year history, we've had a very small number of years in which we have not been at war in some form or other. I think President Carter said sixteen of like our two seventy whatever, however many year history, we have not been at war. I'm sure part of that depends on how do you define war. Now, is war declared war by Congress or by war do you mean where we have people who are fighting in conflicts like Somalia wasn't a war, but that was a conflict.

We've been in Haiti, which wasn't a war, but many of the years that we were there, it was I don't know what you call it, but we had Marines there. We've incited coups, had assassination, like, do you define war? I don't know. But needless to say, The United States has been at war or been in a in a violent setting for most of its history. The United States was birthed in war in the the revolutionary war.

We expanded territory through war, through the Mexican American war, the the Spanish American war, I'm sure through others. We, probably the War of eighteen twelve, don't really even know that much about that one. We freed slaves through war, we expanded overseas possessions through war, we unified the post civil war nation through war, World War one in particular. We became an economic powerhouse and military influence through war, through participation in, war and guaranteeing the loans that we paid for others who were in war and we continue to secure economic interests in trade and oil through war and we preemptively maintain our security through wars. We are a nation that is bathed in war.

Now, you can can spin that story a number of different ways and you know the the main spin that you'll hear at least from my group, my conservative Christian group, is that this isn't a a story of a warmongering nation, a nation that embraces violence and and oppresses anybody, but it is a story of a kingdom's a righteous kingdom's rise to power which brings freedom to the low those who live in the kingdom and who altruistically seeks to help enable and uplift other nations. In fact that that story is so well known in my community and so adhered to that it really is practically a religion and by practically I do mean practically. I've mentioned before how in my church growing up and in many churches that I've been into, the American flag and the Christian flag stand next to each other, right, side by side with, of course, the American flag holding the place of honor. And I remember thinking it strained even before, like, when I upheld the nation as just this glorious religious sort of thing, it did strike me as a little bit odd. I remember one Memorial Day back when I was in high school when The US flag and the Christian flag were walked in side by side but The US flag was held in higher esteem as it was held above the Christian flag and I think it preceded it too.

That was kind of strange, but not too strange because I understood it. America and Christianity were essentially the same thing. And because our story is is viewed as essentially the same, this Christianity and and America, and and it is essentially religious, these sacrifices of war, literally these blood sacrifices bind us together in so many ways, having birthed the nation, having grown the nation, having sustained the nation, and being our hope of future future, security and sustenance. Like, blood sacrifices are very meaningful to us. You know, you can you can represent these blood sacrifices in in a lot of ways.

And our patriotic rituals, whether that's July 4, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the way that we you can just watch commercials. Bet you just watch an hour's worth of commercials on TV if you even watch TV anymore and not Netflix or something. And just look at all the national symbols that you're going to see in there that kind of pay homage to sacrifices. We've got the flag and our anthem which my group cannot stand that people would kneel, not in disrespect, some many of them not in disrespect, where it's just saying, I I don't see the same thing represented in that that you do. And that's sacrilegious.

That's something that, you know, if we still stoned people, we'd stone people for. We even indoctrinate our kids in in schools. We have them saying the pledge of allegiance every day. I pledge allegiance to the flag, a nation under God. You can't get much more religious than that.

In Howard Wass' article, he he tells a story that I think is is really important. He he shows how this sacrificial system kind of plays out in warfare and he shows us this one battle in Porkchop Hill, in the Korean War called Porkchop Hill where there are about a dozen men left on this little hill and the army was considering, do we reinforce them because we don't really need this hill, if we reinforce them we know that we're going to have a lot of bloodshed. But at the same time, if we leave, the enemy is going to view that as weakness, they're gonna take it, they're gonna be triumphant about it and think about all the sacrifices of men that gave their lives to give up, to to take that hill, we are gonna dishonor their sacrifices by pulling back. And so rather than just withdraw the 12 men, we decided to reinforce them which led to many more casualties because we didn't want to profane the sacrifice of those who went before them, of those who took the hill. And I think that's important because it's very representative of something that we see in our society today.

We cannot admit failure or wrongs for anything that we do. We cannot admit failure in Vietnam. We we beat around the bush. We we just cannot, politically or militarily, we cannot admit failure, publicly at least. We do not want to believe that soldiers have died for quote, nothing or even worse, that they've died for wrong things, for things that our country was wrong about either innocently and and ignorantly wrong or whether it was wrong maliciously.

We can't think that our people, our priests who go off into battle, we can't think that they have done ill in the world. We do not want to to lose the honor or profane the perfect ideal that we believe we represent and uphold in the world. Unfortunately, by by doing this, we continue to give that blank check that that Yoder calls this of of a misapplied Romans 13 passage to our Christian nation's military. Right? So we say, the government bears the sword, so, you know, my government's bearing the sword, so I'm just gonna give them a blank check and whatever they decide to do, that's okay.

And because that's my religion, I'm gonna just assume that their intent is good and the ideal's infallible and so when people shed their blood, then I'm going to respect that and promote that and not ask questions and never admit a wrong. We just we are not self reflective at all in questioning our government, particularly when it comes to military action because the military are our priests. And our nation as a as a religion seems to me, at least in my community, that it's stronger than Christ's kingdom as our religion many times because we question our governmental kingdom, our military kingdom less than we question Christ. We don't question assassinations of world leaders, we don't question coups of democratically elected officials, We don't question twenty year long wars. We don't question invasions and occupations of countries on spurious grounds.

We don't question just about anything our military does, especially if the president who's leading the military is our party. But like the Pharisees did, we question God all the time. We question God about who our neighbor is. We vacillate where we need to to advance our nation and to define enemy love as bombing them. You know, we question God about who our enemies are and and what we can do to them, what violence we can do to them.

The kingdom's up for question when it contends with the ideals and advancement of my lowercase kingdom. Alright? I question the big k kingdom when it conflicts with my lowercase k kingdom. There's another good quote from, Howard Ross's article quoting another book that he references. So I'm going to read that here as it, it will advance the discussion a little bit.

In the religiously plural society of The US, sectarian faith is optional for citizens as everyone knows Americans have rarely bled, sacrificed, or died for Christianity or any other sectarian faith. Americans have often bled, sacrificed, and died for their country. This fact is an important clue to its religious power. Though denominations are permitted to exist in The US, they're not permitted to kill for their beliefs are not officially true. What is really true in any society is what is worth killing for and what citizens may be compelled to sacrifice their lives for.

Many American Christians have bought into an alternative kingdom and Lord. Yeah. I'm I could be stoned for saying such things, but, you know, we are practical idolaters in this regard. Christ's kingdom calls us to end the sacrificing of others, even our enemies, and give up the control of domineering power which lords itself over others flauntingly and coercively. And as royal priests who represent the perfect lamb who is self sacrificed once and for all, we are likewise only to sacrifice ourselves and to do so for all people.

Those aren't things that imperial dominance and war do. I know I've quoted this before but I love it so much, probably just because I like to say bastard but as General Patton said so beautifully and he said, No dumb bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won his war by making some other poor dumb bastard die for his. And that's that's just beautiful. General Patton right there shows us that that is what the military does.

The military isn't about sacrificing self. The military is about making other people sacrifice themselves for us to sustain what we want. Now, I'm not gonna say that I'm not thankful for the freedoms that we have, for the convenience and pleasure that we have here, But as a Christian, I can't say that it's good or that I want other people to go out and sacrifice others, even my enemies, to sustain such a thing. One thing that I really like about Harrowas is that he doesn't just tear down this ethic that, you know, of American idolatry, he replaces it. He doesn't replace it, he identifies a replacement for it.

And the replacement that Harrowas identifies is the ethic that all Christians should have, the ethic of the church. Just compare what the church is supposed to be compared to what our armies and our nation is. The church is supposed to be self sacrificial, humble, inclusive, borderless, enemy love. The nation, and particularly in the military, is the antithesis of of these things as it seeks to sacrifice other, flaunt power, revel in domineering victory, protect self, exclude other, build walls and borders, and destroy enemies. So as the church, while, we can pray for our nation and should pray for our nation, even our nation at war.

Our help to our nation is not in bearing arms and not in propping up idolatry or a a an alternative religion of military. It is to intercede and it is to be a prophetic voice and the example of true religious sacrifice, self sacrifice through holy living. Once again, Harwas here is gonna say it very beautifully as he reflects on the cross of Christ and how God has forever ended our attempts to sacrifice to him in terms set forth by the city of man. Harwa says, weak Christians have been incorporated into Christ's body and sacrificed for the world so the world no longer needs to sacrifice for tribe or state or even humanity. Constituted by the body and blood of Christ, we participate in God's kingdom so that the world may know that we, the Church of Jesus Christ, are the end of sacrifice.

If Christians leave the Eucharistic table ready to kill one another, we not only eat and drink judgment on ourselves, but we rob the world of the witness necessary for the world to know there is an alternative to the sacrifice of war. And that's beautiful. Howarwas shows us how the church is the sacrifice that we are to be for the world so that the world can see the alternative to war and violence and enemy hate and borders and all that. Hopefully, you can keep this kingdom contrast in mind now because I'm going to shift from kind of this this undergirding theme that I want to you you'd have in the back of your mind as I I take a more practical approach in the the next half of this show in telling you how I I think we should act and and think on a day like today, Memorial Day. So I would say that the first thing that I think we should keep in mind on Memorial Day, if if you adhere to nonviolence, is that we need to recognize the sacrifice of soldiers regardless of motive or results.

Now military men and women die exhibiting many noble characteristics like courage or selflessness, at least selflessness towards their, their brothers and sisters who are in battle with them. Their intention doesn't negate a life lost. If they're fighting what people deem as a just war or an unjust war, if they are a good soldier or a bad soldier, a selfish or a selfless soldier. When somebody dies, somebody in the image of God dies and that's tragic. The outcome, whether they win a battle or lose a battle, win a war, lose a war, it doesn't matter.

Life lost is a life lost. You know, and I, in episode from season one that related to this, I believe I used an example from Les Mis as to to kind of how I would view my feelings towards this. And a lot of people when when they hear you say that you think something is wrong and you make a moral judgment, they then think that when somebody defies that moral judgment that you feel hatred towards them or anger or it's like, well, I mean, they got what they're what was coming to them. But, you know, the the beautiful thing about nonviolence is that its whole premise is that we love enemies and and people who of most others don't think deserve it. So even if I think people going into the military or trying to do violence are morally compromised in that decision.

My non violence, my following of Jesus Christ means that I love them. And so when I see them die, I don't think, well, got what's coming to them. I think, how sad that they feel the need to do what they're doing in this broken world. An example I use from Les Mis is, I believe it's Fantine, I think that's her name, but now she was was kicked out of her job, she was fired and she turned to prostitution in order to feed her family or Valjean who went to jail for trying to feed his family and and became a thief. So whether you're a thief or a prostitute, we can look at Valjean and Fantine and we can we can look at the consequences that they faced for doing objectively immoral things, stealing and prostitution.

And I can look and I can see they had good intent, at least in part, to feed their families. There were bad results. They failed at providing for their families ultimately because Valjean went to jail, Fantine died. And like I said, they they were immoral in their execution of trying to do those things. But the last thing when you're watching the movie or reading the book, the last thing in your heart if you are human should be to just feel this over overall sense of, well, they got what they deserved, you know, sucks to be them.

That's their problem. No, it's it's sorrow. It's grief for the way the world is that people feel the need or have the need to feed themselves in ways that are so dehumanizing and ultimately cost them their lives or many years of their lives. That's how I feel about warfare. My overriding emotion isn't, well, those soldiers deserve to die or I don't care about soldiers, they're making a wrong decision and they shouldn't do it.

It's it's not at all that. It's the sorrow that we live in a world where anybody, but especially Christians, feel like the answer is to go and do violence to another person and to know that you are putting yourself in a position to have violence done to you in hatred. That's just that's sad. And when anybody dies in war, that's sad. So on Memorial Day, I can truly feel sorrow for those who have have died in war.

But beyond this, and I'm sure this will will trigger many conservative Christians. On Memorial Day, I can recognize the humanity and sacrifice of my enemies. I'll just pause there for a second because I know that some people are gonna be really upset at me saying that on American Memorial Day, I would sorrowfully reflect on the deaths of my enemies because my enemies didn't die for me, an American. My enemies died for their people and killed my people. But my enemies are human and my people are not Americans.

My people is the human or is the human race and in particularly, my people are Christians in the kingdom even more specifically. And such a statement should be able to be held by all Christians, and it's it's a very unique part of of Christianity and and just a handful of other religions that we can say that we should honor our enemies who've died in battle too. The true Christian position won't exclude anybody in mourning, especially not just because they are another nationality. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Jesus, pleaded for his executioners to be forgiven.

Paul would have gone to hell so that the Jews he was ministering to would have been saved, that his people would have been saved. Right? There is no other in Christianity. So whether it is the many, many innocent civilians in other countries that die when The US goes to war against them, or whether it's the enemy who shot at our people and killed some of our people, Our people meaning Americans here. See how easily I slip into that?

We we can mourn for all lives lost in war. And if you can't, as a Christian, you really need to search your heart because that is a problem. If you're rejoicing because, somebody some somebody from another country was executed or killed, dismembered, blown to pieces. If you're rejoicing without mourning, that's a problem. If you are praying just for somebody's demise and not for their salvation, that's a problem.

I remember before I became a pacifist, I prayed for some of the dictators of the world. I prayed for Kim Jong Un or Kim Jong Il. I prayed for Saddam Hussein while he was still alive, and I prayed for Osama Bin Laden. And I prayed even before I was a pacifist, and and I think God had worked in my heart at this point because five years before this, I wouldn't have prayed for it in this manner. But I prayed first and foremost that God would miraculously bring them to himself, and through that conversion, he'd bring their nations to himself.

That was my first prayer because I didn't I knew that whatever they did, God is a God of forgiveness and mercy. And if their hearts would have turned, he could have and would have saved them and could have used them. Secondarily, I prayed that they would be judged if they would not turn. And I think that is, at least the first part for sure, is the right way to pray. And even if you're gonna adhere to just war and not be a pacifist, you know, praying primarily for somebody's salvation is is the way that that it should go.

But I'll tell you, I hear from my community all the time. We are happy when terrorists get bombed. That's the primary emotion. And there is no sorrow in our hearts. Because when we say them and us, we mean Americans and versus other people.

If we really believe that phrase, but by the grace of God, there go I, then, you know, that should at least be enough to trigger some some compassion and love from us anyway. On a somewhat side note, I know it's Memorial Day and that's geared towards the military but now this this second point I think is also something that we should be able to recognize with something like the Black Lives Matter movement. It just it just irritates me to no end that I have to pick a side with with my group that I can't mourn cops lives who are lost and want their safety while at the same time, mourning black lives or minority lives who are lost and want there to be change in the system. But in our Us versus them mentality, it's black and white, kind of literally in this example, it's black and white, good and bad, just and unjust, pick your side. And it's just horrible that that's the way that it has to be and that's the type of thing that builds up barriers within a society and prevents us from having real discussions when we have to pick either the cops or the majority of black people.

That just that's just not Christian. Alright. So points one and two, I can recognize the sacrifice of soldiers regardless of their motive or results or the immorality of any actions that they have because people are humans and humans are in the image of God. And number two, I can recognize the sacrifice of my enemies. Number three, I as a non violent person, non violent Christian, am able to recognize the added sacrifice of moral injury because I think there is moral injury that goes on here because there is a moral component to killing somebody even if you think that you're killing them justly.

So many military deaths right now are from suicide. I forget what year it was, it was fairly recent, but there were more deaths in the military from suicide than there were from active duty being killed by the enemy. I'm sure there are many causes but moral injury is is certainly one of them. Many people, many soldiers return dead on the inside. And I've referenced a number of books in season one on this.

The book On Killing by David Grossman. Killing from the Inside Out was was really good as well. That's more of like a a deeper book. But then one that that I think most people would like because it's more narrative is called War and Moral Injury. And the author interviews a bunch of people in there and you get to hear lots of different stories about how people came back marred.

Some of them really simple, where a guy doesn't even really witness any violence, like physical violence done towards somebody. It's more of like an invasion of of privacy. And he just comes back and he he's affected and it doesn't make sense to him. It's just it's really good to see some of their reflections on on what violence or coercion has done to them. They go through some interrogators and people who have, you know, to wait outside while their commander goes and does different things to be it's just it's tragic.

But there are lots of books coming out on on war and moral injury. And because I recognize that there's a moral component of war, then I don't have to ignore this sacrifice. You know, it's it's it's actually my position is more helpful to soldiers because I don't have to act like, well I mean you go over and that's the enemy and you're just to kill them so you just kill them and that's you call it a day. Go back home, wash your hands and what's the big deal? You killed somebody justly.

I don't have to say that. I can recognize that that soldiers struggle with this moral aspect of killing somebody because there is a moral aspect to killing somebody. How are soldiers supposed to heal when they come back to a society that condones the killing of enemies? Because nobody understands that this thing that they think is okay, when you actually do it, it really isn't okay. When you see it done, you recognize it really isn't okay, whether you recognize that actively or subconsciously.

And thank God for that conscience. Thank God that he doesn't leave us alone to go on killing our enemies without having any consequences. For as for as much as I do not want soldiers to kill themselves, the fact that they are wrestling with something after seeing and doing the things that that they've seen and done, that's God's mercy. That is God's mercy that that is that that is there so long as that drives people to him. That's beautiful.

And when it doesn't, when people continue to suppress that or avoid it, that's not good. So rather than elevating soldiers here, we can recognize their humanness, we can recognize the human condition and the morality of killing. This is somewhat similar to the elevation that people have for other groups of people, whether it's police officers or pastors or missionaries. A lot of times you elevate people who do a certain job and you think, well, I couldn't do what they're doing. And that elevation is kind of ironically dehumanizing in a way.

And I know it's very different. You know, I as a missionary, we are not putting our our lives on the line. Some some missionaries are around the world, but we aren't. We sacrifice certain things, sure, but it really isn't that big of a deal to us. God God has equipped us to to do this kind of thing.

But, you know, some people elevate you, and it's almost like, well, if if they knew what my life was like, if they knew the questions I had, the doubts I had, the struggles I have, the sins I have, then what would happen? Because they think that you're different than them when you're not. And I think on a probably even a much bigger level, that's what happens with with soldiers, especially in a culture where the military is a religion. We elevate these people and in a way that's dehumanizing to them because they can't be human anymore. And when they come back to a society of humans, how do they live?

Number four, I have the ability to speak true truth, true facts. Now truth is vital for reconciliation, for peace, and for change. And Howard Wass has a has a good short video on this about how confrontation and conflict are good for peace because it forces conversation and it forces reconciliation. You don't have peace where you don't have truth. You know, evil, the Bible says this as evil and darkness recede when faced with truth and light.

AA and and other groups, they recognize this that when you admit that you have a problem, when you shine a light on the darkness, that is the first step to making the darkness recede. So I can speak true truth. I don't have to speak fictitious truth of my community who elevates the military and our nation as a religion. I can speak the truth about how our soldiers are imperfect and do bad things sometimes. I can speak truth about our imperfect nation and go home and sleep at night and be thankful that I do live here and have the comforts I do.

I can speak the truth of reaping the things that we sow. I can recognize the truth of cyclical violence in The United States of how, we have reaped some of the terrorist attacks and some of the violence, that that we've received from other countries. I can recognize the truth of how our embracing of violence as a means probably is at least one component, if not the major component of why we have a violent culture. It's it's strange to me that everybody asks, do you feel safe in Romania? And yes, we feel very safe.

Actually, when we come back to The United States, we don't feel as safe. Right? We have a we have a violent culture, particularly for how how developed we are. I can recognize the the truth of all of the resources we waste and the greed that we have as companies get rich off of war and as we bolster our economic resources by being overbearing on other countries and forcing trade that works to our benefit and impoverishes other people through our military force and sanctions. I can recognize that if we didn't waste those resources, we could provide for immigrants or we could provide for the poor.

The fact that that we waste what is it? Like, we spend more money in our military than the next seven nations combined. That just think of what you could spend on other things. And you look at countries like Panama and Costa Rica, which I just found out don't have standing armies. And with each other at least, they don't have a any real border at all.

And in Central America, their murder rates are ridiculously low for the region that they're in. And on top of that, they've been thriving because they're able to pump that money into education and and other things. I can recognize the truth of our wasted resources and that really when we say that we can't provide for the poor or immigrants, first of all that's a lie, but second of all, that's if that were true in any capacity whatsoever, it's really just we're saying that we don't prioritize that. We prioritize violence and war and greed over helping others, over peace even. And I can even I can recognize the truth of motives in war and why we fail to do justice at home and abroad.

You know, why do we go to war so much with the Middle East where there really aren't that many atrocities being done on as big of a scale as there are in places like Sudan, Rwanda. I wonder why. Could it be because of oil interests in one place and a lack of interest in the other? Yeah. We're not altruistic.

I can I can be truthful about that? I don't have to lie. I don't have to trick myself because I wanna continue believing in the God of America. I can tell the truth and still love living where I do and still love my fellow Americans and still seek the good of our nation. In fact, by being able to tell the truth, I am seeking better the the the, prospering of my nation because it's through truth that evil is repelled and that things can be addressed and that reconciliation can take place.

Number five, I can rest, truly rest in the sacrifice and peace of Christ. Military doesn't save me. Freedoms don't need to be worshipped. My hope is in Christ, not in the military, not my nation. I think you see this very very clearly in the Bible and it's beautiful that, you know, slaves can be told to obey their masters and just find their identity in Christ.

We don't have to overturn the the social system. We just say, look, if somebody's going to objectify me, that doesn't mean that I have to objectify them. I don't even really need to fight to overturn my position in life. I can just love and move forward in life and my identity is in Christ. If I'm a Christian, I don't have to take people to court, especially brothers and sisters to court.

I can be wronged and say, you know what? I'll just eat the cost because I don't need to drag a fellow Christian to court and get quote justice. I can be righteous in my eating of that cost and my forgiveness. I don't need protection from the state or compensation. Peter I believe talks about unjust marriages and Paul does I think as well.

But, you know, we might have a spouse that especially if you become a Christian and your spouse does not, then or I mean if your spouse changes, you can live in that marriage and submit and serve and not pursue a divorce. Not because that person is great and awesome and not because you don't deserve better but because your identity is in Christ and you got married, you made a commitment, you made a vow and you can stick with it because that person does not define you and it's not your freedom that's worshipped. It's not your convenience or comfort that's worshipped. But in The United States, it is freedoms that are that tend to be worshipped. The things that can make you independent, the things that give you comfort, and the things that we view our military as as protecting those freedoms and those comforts.

But Christians can rest in the sacrifice and peace of Christ. It doesn't matter what position we have. It doesn't matter if China invades us and takes over, and we become submissive slaves of the Chinese government. I don't want that to happen. I don't think that's good at all and that would be terrible.

It would be horrible. And I pray to Christ, pray to God that I would have a good attitude about it and be Christ like. But ultimately, if my faith holds strong and I stay true to the Bible, that doesn't really change my position in Christ. And hopefully, could find joy and contentment in those circumstances like Paul told Philemon and Onesimus to do. Hopefully, would see those Chinese people as my brother in Christ, and that I would love love them and show them enemy love.

Number six, pacifists are able to most effectively help unify. So on a day like Memorial Day, we can come alongside soldiers and families recognizing all their pain. Whether it's a soldier who was maimed, a soldier who had friends killed, a family who had a a spouse or a mother or father killed, we can come alongside them and recognize all their pain. We don't have to just recognize especially with soldiers, who maybe had friends killed. We don't have to just recognize the fact that they lost somebody who's a friend.

We can recognize they lost them violently, that they lost them to evil and that in that evil, there is even evil inside their own hearts as they've probably objectified and hated another human being, the enemy who killed their friend. At the same time, we can come alongside refugees of countries with whom we're at war. We can come alongside enemies from countries with whom we're at war or countries who have harmed us or we have harmed, and we can help and love them. We can also come alongside leftist Christians who are just so far left that they spew hatred towards the right and we can remind them of the true kingdom if they're Christian. And those on the right who are all for war and and just hate everybody on the left, we can come alongside of them and remind them of the true kingdom.

We can remind all Christians that we are aliens and our allegiance is not to The United States. Right? We don't have to pledge to the flag. Right? We pledge allegiance to the lamb as the the song goes.

And we we are called to act as aliens in our kingdom, refusing unobedience and unwavering allegiance allegiance to the idol that is America to many Christians, to the president, to a party, to a nation. We show disobedience where it diverges from our true king and our true citizenship. We remind Christians of the power of prayer that we don't have to fight. We don't have to do violence. We don't have to hate enemies in order to help our nation.

As Origen said, we help by being priests and by praying. We can show that our dependence and hope are in God, and we can show how our lives as the body of Christ, the church is the true power and hope and beauty and ethic of the world. And in that, we don't just unify Americans, we show unity to the world. We help all people come together as one. Isn't that what the church is supposed to do?

Isn't that what the church is supposed to be? So in summary, on Memorial Day, I mourn with my nation. Though I mourn and remember more fully than than most of the people around me do, I mourn the deaths of all, American and enemy. I mourn the way many of those soldiers who return have died on the inside. I mourn the way Christians have died not to self, but upon the altar of nation, or as the Bible so often calls the nation, Babylon.

I mourn compromise masked as sacrifice. I mourn fear masked as violence. I'm worn dependence masked as hope. I'm worn peace masked as security. I'm worn Christ masked as America.

Certainly, I don't have to unpack all of this to everyone. I can be gracious and loving to everyone I meet. The example of Bonhoeffer in one of our episodes in April, I think the the example of Bonhoeffer with his student is is beautiful where the student knows that Bonhoeffer disapproves of him having gone into the army. But when he meets him, Bonhoeffer just talks to him and meets him where he's at and is gracious. The student knows Bonhoeffer's conviction but Bonhoeffer doesn't have to just unload on him.

And I think that's that's how it is. I can be genuine and honest. If somebody confronts me, I can be open but I don't have to just unload this on people without being dishonest. I can genuinely mourn. And I don't think it's disingenuous to mourn American lives without declaring all the lives that I'm mourning.

You know, in my heart though, I'll mourn all. I'm ready to push back with true Christian truth, particularly with Christians who so readily equivocate the sacrifices of war and nation as being religiously on par with the sacrifice of Christ. That's all for now. So peace, because I'm a pacifist. And I say it, I mean it.