The late months of the year bring many changes–the days become short, the weather cold, the landscape bare, the ground hard. During this season, the country has paused to remember–the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the 93rd anniversary of the Armistice.   Amidst these sobering times of reflection, the Church prepares to celebrate the seasons of Advent and Christmastide–times of joy and peace. Yet the question arises in these times of remembrance, “Where has the Church been during the times when war, not peace, has covered the earth?” All too often it seems that the Church has made itself an accessory to war instead of calling all warring parties to account.

In a recent work on the battle of Musa Qala Wadi in southern Afghanistan, the author told of American soldiers driven by the “preaching of evangelical padres who viewed Afghanistan as a kind of American jihad against Godless heathen.” Such a tone from the ministers of the Church sounds eerily reminiscent of the fervor surrounding the evangelical support of the first World War. It was a fervor so intense and widespread that even men like Billy Sunday and Harry Emerson Fosdick found common cause in calling the Church to support the war. Yet in the end, Fosdick and many others came to question their initial support.

As today’s armed forces become more religiously diverse, and as the moral underpinnings of traditional strategies are questioned, the Church will find its traditional message of “Dues vuelt” no longer fully accepted. Perhaps these events and the questions naturally arising from reflections on ten years of war will prompt the Church to rethink its relationship to society and war. A healthy skepticism of political power and a return to rigorous ethical decision making instead of patriotic jingoism will greatly aid the Church in reevaluating its past and preparing a clearer message for the conflicts of the future. Perhaps only then will the Church be able to focus itself on the message that “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”