Being a Christian and a soldier has its own particular set of difficulties. Some may call you a hypocrite, and they would be right but for the wrong reasons.
You see, all of us Christians are necessarily hypocrites. We proclaim loudly that no one should sin, yet we admit to doing it every day. That truth holds for me as I suspect it holds for many of you, and therefore as a Christian, I am also a hypocrite. Being a soldier, however, does not make me a hypocrite. I can be a soldier and still live as Christ and God expect me to.
Even a cursory glance at the Bible shows that God does not punish the soldier. Abraham conducts the first recorded night raid to rescue Lot, Saul had his thousands, David his tens of thousands. Even in the New Testament, John doesn’t tell the repentant centurion that he must quit, and both Peter and Jesus commend Roman soldiers for their faith.
The military is very much the context under which my faith was born. What started as a ruse to get communion bread in Ranger school resulted in my actually hearing the word of God. Slowly I began my conversion.
Two groups that typically have larger percentages of religious belief are soldiers and the elderly. Both groups have come to grips with their own mortality. I realized this quickly after my first firefight when the whizz and crack of bullets all around me showed me that it was luck, or maybe grace, that one of them didn’t find me as its target.
I accepted that I was indeed going to die one day. All of us know this intellectually, but to believe and embrace it is quite a different story. Many people see their eventual death as they get older and their body begins to break down. As an Infantryman I realized that it really could happen any day, not in an intellectual way, but I knew it…I felt it.
Not everyone is built to do this job. Some hesitate in a door, some don’t fire, and some will suffer emotionally for years. Then there are the warriors who move with no apprehension straight into the face of danger and inflict whatever violence is necessary to eradicate the threat. I’ve come to believe that you need to be designed that way, that’s not something that can be trained or taught.
In my walk with Christ over the years I’ve met men that can preach sermons that bring you to tears, others that give me goose bumps when they pray, and other still that can make music that brings you right into the very presence of God.
Some of us were given a different skill, like Peter who didn’t hesitate to draw and cut off a Roman soldier’s ear when they tried to take Jesus, we shouldn’t hesitate when confronting evil. Also like Peter, however, we should be willing and able to show mercy, empathy, grace, and love.
Although some evil requires action in the physical realm to eradicate, other types of evil live in man’s heart, and can only be reached with love. One of the efforts of CONUS Battle Drills is to teach you how to quell that beast so you can find love, compassion and empathy and live it in your daily life.
Violence is a tool, but it shouldn’t be your only tool. When you lean on Christ you will find many other tools to add to your arsenal and you will not only be able to fulfill your purpose as a warrior but also as a Christian.
