Our Warfare
We find ourselves on a highway with the rest of humanity in the midst of
murky darkness compounded by human war, rumors of wars, violence and
terrorism -- not to mention natural disasters such as ice storms, floods, fires,
tornadoes and earthquakes. A couple of generations ago it might have taken
days, weeks or months for news of such disasters to reach us -- unless they took
place in remote areas we would never know about.
Today, however, we are bombarded constantly with documentation of
horrendous situations from (to us) the most obscure corners of the globe. How
can we live with this? How has the world suddenly gotten so dark?
Students of history and geology know that the earth was never a place of
complete peace and rest. Yet, there are times when it seems as if some greater
mass insanity takes over entire groups of people, and all the rules of civilized
behavior are trampled under foot along with those who try to uphold
them. “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war” is Shakespeare’s description of
this phenomenon (from Julius Caesar). Deuteronomy gives us Moses quoting the
Lord: “For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol,
devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the
mountains. And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them;
they shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and
poisonous pestilence; and I will send the teeth of beasts against them, with
venom of crawling things of the dust. In the open the sword shall bereave, and in
the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking
child with the man of gray hairs...” (32:22-25)
Beginning with Jesus Christ, the Church has called this mass insanity
“demonic.” Those who have lived through the violent storms of nature often
become aware of something that feels almost like a malevolent personality,
sweeping all before it. These storms of humanity are very similar. During times
of war, even those who are not directly involved in armed combat at the front
will be caught up in amazing behaviors. Families and friends can be split by
agonizing, heart-felt differences. Mobs can be driven in opposing directions;
pacifist individuals and groups can become as violent as the military forces they
demonstrate against.
These same demonic storms can overtake smaller groups even within the
Church: parishes, monasteries, jurisdictions, national churches can be split into
warring factions. I remember being contacted by people from both sides of a
parish split. Each would begin the conversation by talking about exactly the
same things: blindness, unethical behavior, disobedience, breaches of trust and
faith, etc. etc. It might take several minutes before I could tell from the
conversation which side of the split this particular person was on. Each side saw
the other as being what St. Paul described in 2nd Thessalonians: “Therefore God
sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false...” (2:11)
In the middle of such conflicts, phrases such as “He/she is crazy!” “They
have to be insane!” “How can any normal person possibly believe/do/say that!”
are frequently heard. People feel driven by their honor to defend what appear to
them to be life-and-death situations. And in truth, such situations exist. It has
not been better when people have “refused to get involved” and turned a blind
eye to the systematic genocide of Stalin, Hitler and others, thus becoming passive
accomplices in the murders of millions of people. “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” is a question that has been asked down the millennia.
Yet St. Paul reminds us: “we are not contending against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this
present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to
withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having
girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of
righteousness...” (Ephesians 6:14)
Many of us know that it is far easier to sit back and analyze what seems to us
to be the insane or criminal behavior of others than to deal with our own
personal demons. The fight is not less intense; the psychic pain can in fact be
greater. Yet unless we are willing to face and fight our own personal demons,
we may well become the people the Lord speaks about in Luke’s Gospel: “ Or
how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in
your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to
take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” (6:42)
A review of Father Alexander Webster’s book, The Pacifist Option: The Moral
Argument Against War in Eastern Orthodox Theology, states: “In the Church there
are two accepted paths that one may take in the face of violence: One, the path of
radical pacifism, characterized by the moral virtues of non-violence,
nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness...” The
other path is described in two essays published in Paris in 1929 in St. Sergius
Leaflets. After pointing out that a surprisingly large proportion of the saints and
willing martyrs for Christ have been soldiers and military officers, it states: “The
armed forces of Byzantium gave any talented and brave man the opportunity -given some luck -- to make a career, but they provided something else as well: Its
hardness and severe discipline were rooted in the great and deep ideals of
patriotism, self-sacrifice, duty and religious feeling which, even if misguided, are
still planted in the soul of man by God.” (...) “When defending the state, the
Christian soldiers raised their threatening swords, yet these experienced fighters
would not even raise their unarmed hands to defend themselves.”
St. Pachomius, recognized as one of the first founders of communal
monasticism in the fourth century, became a Christian while a soldier in the
Roman imperial army. He went on to plant the same ideals which produced so
many military martyrs, in the hearts of his monastics. Only those willing to
strive with themselves first, to subdue their own demons through prayer, fasting,
obedience and the other disciplines of the ascetic life, can be true soldiers for
Christ in any arena.
But can Christians today even in monasteries, let alone parishes, hope to take
on such asceticism? The answer to this question could be an entire essay in its
own right. Here, let us just say that the answer is yes, if we are willing to make
choices -- and look at the choices that we already live with, often
unconsciously. We choose daily to submit to the demands of the media around
us, from computers and televisions on down to Muzak and video games; we
choose to say that the demands of our frenetic society are more important than
our life in the Church. It is not lack of ability that keeps us from becoming saints,
it is the inability to see that we have choices; that no one holds a gun to our head
to force us to sit at the computer or in front of the television for ridiculously long
hours or to stay away from time with our families and children or to avoid
gathering as the people of God. We need balance in our lives, so we can use our
technology and enjoy our society, not be taken over by them.
May we so strive that we may be free to answer God’s call to sanctity,
whether it lead us through the ways of peace beginning with those who
surround us, or whether it be at least during some periods of our lives, the way
of public service, including “military service, the essence of which is not to kill
but to offer one’s life as a sacrifice for one’s society, killing enemies merely out of
necessity, for we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil
one.” (1 Jn. 5:19) (quote from St. Sergius Leaflets, Paris , 1929)
Note: I am indebted to the website www.incommunion.org for The St. Sergius
Leaflets and the review of Father Webster’s book.