In one of my online classes today I did an historical survey of WWI, The Great War. I was amazed (as I always am when studying past wars) at how many casualties were taken in the first few months of trench warfare along the French-German lines. Over 100,000 men killed by the newly developed machine guns, the devastating artillery and the mine fields and small arms fire. The thing that seemed to cause such casualties? Fighting new wars with old tactics.
Frontal assaults worked fine in the open fields against an army arrayed against you, standing as openly on the field as you were. However, the advent of machine guns and withering artillery forced soldiers to develop new tactics - specifically, dig yourself in deep so the bullets and bombs don't get you. Yet, over and over, generals sent the troops out of the safety of their own trenches to assault those of the enemy - right into the chattering teeth of machine gun fire and across the deeply pitted landscape where the artillery was already dialed in.
This brings to mind the age old definition of insanity: Doing things the same way and expecting different results. The new twist: Doing things the same old way despite differing circumstances. An inability to adjust to the enemy's updated tactics, the new social landscapes and the weaponry arrayed against you is certain defeat in war. Our military is adapting all the time to the new challenges of asymmetrical warfare.
Christians have not adapted well to the changing culture. We are definitely a "post-Christian" nation, as scholars have pointed out and as the latest polling shows (those in America identifying themselves as Christians down to 75% now, from 86% in 1990). My Bible commentary, written by generals of the old paradigm, insists of 1 John 2:15-16, that "Believers must...condemn openly (unbelievers') sin." Fix bayonets! Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! Take that machine gun nest!
Not only do I find little in the rest of Scripture, or in that passage, to support open condemnation of our fellow humans who are not of our faith, but I find many admonishments about not judging (1 Cor. 4:3), Jesus being judge (Ja. 4:12) and the Holy Spirit providing the work of conviction (Jn. 16:8). In a society in which we are increasingly facing hostility to our faith, throwing back condemnation may not exactly win too many listeners for the Gospel we wish to proclaim.
In my unit I have several people who are openly hostile to faith, to church, to "organized religion." They have been testing my "responsiveness" to their mild hostilities, seeing if I will jump out of my trench and run hell-bent for leather into their kill zone. I know I have a year with them, so I have patiently endured, chuckled at and engaged them. Tonight, while giving the unit suicide prevention briefing, two of them openly challenged me on a point of religion (I won't take the extra time to detail it here). I could have swung back with anti-heathen epithets, or perhaps quoted Scriptures implicating them in the sin of the world and exposing the judgment that would engulf them at the end.
I did not fall for the temptation to fight this battle as my predecessors have fought previous wars. Seeing that God's Word was not in them and that they were again testing my willingness to be in conflict, I chose the route of logic and humor. Without appealing to Scripture (oh, no), I overcame their objections with simple, dispassionate argumentation, concluding with a little joke about them being the weapons and demolitions experts now intruding into "my lane" as the expert in religion and philosophy. The laughter it aroused showed that my parry had succeeded. There will be plenty of time this year for the "religious" conversation. Indeed, some of it has already been happening.
Lastly, the rule of love must prevail. In dealing with the topic of suicide, I wanted the unit to know they could come to me without fear of proselytization - that I deeply cared about THEM and, while I would love to win them to Christ, I would never insist that they endure a sermon in order to gain my help. It was then that one leader spoke up, backing me on this claim on the basis of a conversation they had with me earlier last week.
The flanking maneuver successful, the tactic subtle but sure, the door to my office was made clear and accessible. Now it is up to God to open it, and up to them to enter. I have a year to see who walks in. In the meantime, I will pray for each of them, as I joked with them that I would unilaterally be doing, whether with or without their permission. I do reserve the right to use undue influence on them on my own time, when they are not present to object. :)
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