Is military service a wise choice for Christian men in the New World Order?
Having spent 1981 – 1990 in the U. S. Navy, I witnessed many changes. And many more have taken place since then. The military is often viewed as the ideal testing ground for those interested in social engineering experimentation. Before I joined the military, race relations classes were mandated proponing “can’t we all just get along?” While I was in the service, Equal Opportunity classes were initiated teaching the boys not to bother the girls. After my discharge, Sensitivity training was instituted to teach everyone not to bother the sodomites.Aside from the military’s imposition of perverted values on young men (I enlisted at 17), one has to remember the ultimate purpose of military personnel is to kill people. The moral question that has to be answered is, “Am I killing as an act of legitimate self defense of my family and nation in obedience to God, or am I being used as a tool by wicked men to accomplish evil objectives?”
Today’s military ventures are much more about “nation building” and expanding the neo-polytheistic empire than about defense of home and country. As a part of this effort, U. S. military personnel often serve under United Nations commanders in actions that have nothing to do with the security interests of the United States. If a young Christian man objects by maintaining that he swore an oath to support the U. S. from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that to put on the uniform of the U. N. violates his sworn oath to support the U. S. Constitution and military uniform regulations, he will be discharged with a bad conduct discharge. Witness what occurred a few years back to Michael New, a home schooled Christian, when he refused to be subjugated to U. N. officers and uniform insignia.
As our military is often used to put down one nation and support another, one has to ask exactly what the purpose is of these military invasions of other sovereign nations. Frequently, what we witness is the advancement of the interests of big business and the protection of the profits of global corporations. One would have to be blind to not see the fight over oil markets as the center of many conflicts. Currently, the U. S. government has military personnel in over 126 countries around the world with U. S. taxpayers footing the bill, required to work several months out of each year to pay for these “police actions” or “peace keeping” missions.
If one is going to be involved in killing other human beings, made in the image of God, the question of legitimacy must be answered. To merely say, “I was just following orders” is not good enough. As Christians, we believe we must answer to God’s standards of righteousness, regardless of whether or not we are justified by the faddish, relativistic standards of men. To kill people for political or economic considerations is not something Christians can wash their hands of by saying, “I was doing my duty”, and not asking, “Would God approve of my actions?” If following orders is enough of a justification, then many mercenaries could say, “I was only doing my job” as a legitimate defense of their actions.If Christians are involved in invading sovereign nations, confiscating weapons from combatants and noncombatants, and changing established governments (often for unjustifiable reasons), could not the case be made that these young men have become mercenaries, doing what they are told and collecting paychecks the first and fifteenth of each month?
If Christian men are to be true to their oath to support the Constitution of the United States, then one part of that document needs to be remembered. Wars are to be officially declared by the Congress of the U. S., not by the president. The president does not become the Commander in Chief unless the U. S. Congress gives him that authority. We do not have a king. We have separate branches of government with checks and balances. It should at least be a troubling matter to the conscience of Christian men to serve under a man who has not been given the authority to authorize military action, and then to follow that man’s orders to kill people and break things for the nebulous goals of “preserving peace and stability” or “furthering democracy” around the globe.
My question is not whether it is sinful for Christian men to serve in the military. I am questioning the wisdom of promoting the idea to young Christian men, as though it were as good a vocational choice as any other. In the first place, the military is not a job like any others. For example, a Christian man may be an attorney at a corrupt law firm, stand upon his convictions, and be forced to leave his place of employment. He must then find a new job. However, in the military that same young man is being told to kill people and must make moral judgments about the legitimacy of the order, in what may be a very short period of time, with irreversible consequences.When an order is given via the military chain of command, that order is not open for discussion. A junior officer or NCO must carry out that order or face a court martial. During times of war, insubordination may be punishable by execution.
These kinds of life and death decisions. and ascertaining whether the larger organization is justified in its goals, are very difficult for mature Christian men, and even more difficult for the young man of 17 or 18. At this stage of life, he is still new and relatively inexperienced in relation to the larger world he has been studying while still in school.In the Gospel of Luke 3:14, John was asked by the soldiers who repented how they should live. He told them to be content with their pay. The question was being posed by those who were already in a difficult situation. John was not encouraging all the young Roman converts to aspire to a to a military career in service to the emperor as though it were one form of employment as good as any other.I believe it is a fundamental lack of wisdom to encourage young Christian men to join the military of today and to be used as an instrument to advance the social, political, and economic interests of questionable legitimacy, and likely wicked conceptions, around the globe. Today’s military “is not your father’s Oldsmobile”. Nostalgic notions of the way it was in World War II no longer apply. Young Christian men will be faced with great pressure to compromise their biblical convictions or face court martial proceedings, and an RER1 bad conduct discharge, or worse. Such a permanent strike against a young man can make future career choices difficult or impossible.
My original question remains the same. Is this wise?
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