A Letter to Our Soldiers in Iraq
May 9, 2007 Posted by Roger Overton
Dennis Prager's latest column is an open letter to our troops in Iraq. I found the letter to be generally inspiring, so I'd like to get the word out about it for forwarding by those who are in touch with our military over there. I'd also like to point out one paragraph that strikes me as especially important for our reflection:
real good and real evil in the world. You have seen both more than any
of us at home will probably see in a lifetime. Why so many in America
and the West generally no longer believe that there is good and evil,
let alone in the importance of having good vanquish evil, is a subject
for a book. But that is the problem here. So when, God willing, you
return healthy and victorious, you will have another battle to wage –
on behalf of moral clarity. In that regard we are losing our way.
Millions of our fellow Americans — often the best educated — do not
understand that those who send young people to blow up weddings,
kindergartens, market places and college libraries in the promise of a
paradise filled with young women are the Nazis of our time.
Prager (obviously a conservative) has offered in the past an important question for conversing with those who are against the war: Are the people our military are fighting evil? If someone cannot say that we are not at least generally fighting evil people (or people or who do evil), then we have no common ground for discussion. If the people we are fighting are not evil (or do not do evil), then by all means we should pack up our things and leave immediately. But if we are fighting evil, then we must give extremely careful thought to whatever decisions we make regarding our future in Iraq.
The larger issue that Prager is getting at is our culture's acknowledgment of good and evil, or lack thereof. I believe this moral understanding is the foundation of what made the WWII generation “the greatest generation.” They believed that their country and what it stood for was worth fighting for, that what it presented to the world was generally good, and that what Hitler and his allies presented to the world was generally evil. I think many, perhaps most, Americans still believe deeply in good and evil- as evidenced by the success of things like Spider-man- but many are confused as to what is good, or they no longer believe that what America offers the world is generally good. How we got here would make a great book. I've met many people who believe that patriotism means being critical of their country, how did we get to this point? Why can't Superman fight for “the American way” any longer?”
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- The All-Consuming Self
- Tonight: Brokaw Investigates Evangelicals
- America Bewitched?
Posted in Culture, Main Page, Roger's Posts
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May 9th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I appreciate what you've said in this post and would like to respond to your question at the end. You said, “I've met many people who believe that patriotism means being critical of their country, how did we get to this point?” I think there are several reasons to take a critical stand of this country and I agree with some while disagreeing with others. There seems to me to be ways to criticize that are patriotic and ways that are unpatriotic. Is our criticism meant to call the nation to something better, or is its goal to tear the nation down. Chesterton is very helpful on this issue in the fifth chapter of Orthodoxy, “The Flag of the World.” I'll cite a large portion here.
I have been critical of our nation when I have seen actions or stances not in line with the ideals our nation has traditionally stood for, such as, in my opinion, the means by which we entered and prosecuted this war. And granted, as a Christian, I try to make the revelation of God the supreme measure of nations. The beauty of the US is that we have generally understood ourselves as a nation on a journey and have built within our systems means of criticism, petition, debate, and ultimately transition.
May 12th, 2007 at 9:56 am
What exactly are the historical American ideals?
Slavery and Lynchings?
The Trail of Tears?
Wars of Conquest and Imperialism? – (Spanish-American War, Mexican-American War, Vietnam, The Oil Rich Middle East)
The A-Bomb
I don't think its a matter of the people we are fighting being good or evil. Most agree that they are evil. It's a matter of what and who are we, and what we actually want.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Rom 3:12
If there is something inherently good in the American ideal, it's not an American thing. It's a Christ thing. If that is the case than these Christ things should be witnessed to in a manner consistent with the teaching of Christ.
See Matthew 5
There are good things in our history, the end of slavery for instance, but it is not a unilaterally beautiful history. As history marches forward, it is the role of the Church to bear witness to and call to account the state and culture.
I've talked about this on my post – Our Sometimes Christian Heritage
ps I am a war veteran – I know what it means to fight for my country. I'm trying to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
David, I think you make some great points — emphasis on great, not on some. When I speak of “the ideals our nation has traditionally stood for” I mean those best ideals of equality, justice, prudence, etc. (I know each of those terms needs their own defining, but I won't go into them now.) These ideals are often more theoretical than practiced; goals towards which we strive. You rightly show historical examples where we have failed miserably as a nation in embodying those ideals. And I think one can make the argument that our real ideals are those that we express. It is the tension and conflict between the stated ideals and expressed values that gives us the room to critique and call for change.
I believe that our nation has a tradition that it can point to in order to bring about good. For example, you bring up slavery and lynchings, great evils from which I don't know our nation has recovered. But it was the ability of some to look at both biblical texts and the stated — but not entirely expressed — ideals of the US that allowed them to criticize the practices of the US from within its own understanding of itself. The US has been hypocritical, but it has also been self-critical, which I think is an impetus for the change. For example, the US was certainly right in criticizing the racism of the Axis powers in WWII, but it was also hypocritical since within our own nation, people of color were second class citizens at best. It was the ability for some in the nation to look at what we tried to stop in Europe and apply that morality here that allowed us in part to move towards justice for all people in the nation. We haven't reached that ideal, and there were other factors in the criticism (most importantly, biblical texts), but we are closer to the stated ideals of our nation now than we were during Jim Crowism.
And I absolutely agree with you that many times if not most of the time, the US' actions and expressed values have not jived with those that Christ lays out in Matthew 5.
I suppose my point in all of this is to say that because our expressed values do not match our stated ideals as a nation, does not mean that our ideals have no power. I think we can use churches as an example. Churches have wonderful texts full of good (and I would argue achievable) ideals such as being communities that reconcile when conflict arises. Yet we all know that many of our congregations are splitting apart because of festering anger and long grudges. That does make us hypocrites, but that does not negate the fact that our ideals, those that the Spirit calls us to and shapes us for, are good and real and really apply to us.
May 14th, 2007 at 11:34 am
By the way, I read your post “Our Sometimes Christian Heritage” and commented on it. I liked it a lot.