Peace Is the Will of God!

The setting for the address below was the Anabaptist Consultation on Alternative Service: Implications for Anabaptist Christians in the U.S. - March 4 & 5, 2005 at the Church of the Brethren Offices, Elgin, IL. The speech was made during Session II: Military Recruitment and the Economic Draft and the remarks were to address the question, "How does our theology lead us?" Ninety invited guests were present.

Dick Davis is the pastor of Peace Mennonite Church, Dallas, Texas. He also serves as the facilitator of the Mennonite Church USA, Peace and Justice Support Network.

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Listen to the words found in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verses 43 through 48.

⁴³"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

This is the text that troubled me the most when I was an Army Chaplain and the text that the Holy Spirit used to ultimately move me out of the military Chaplaincy.

Most of us in attendance today affirm the Christian faith from one of the many Anabaptist traditions. While each faith tradition may formally state their own understanding of Christ's peace in slightly different ways, I think most of us could agree that peace is the will of God.

Article 22 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective¹ begins with those exact words: "Peace is the will of God." This short but profound sentence sets aside the complex theological and sociological discussions of how the church and state are to relate to one another and simply reminds Anabaptist Mennonites that peace (the well-being of God's creation) is of special interest to the Creator. It is this understanding that drew me to the Mennonite Church.

With a name like Dick Davis it does not take a genius to know that I'm not an "ethnic" Mennonite. No. I'm a convinced Mennonite coming to the Mennonite Church after a long sojourn in the Southern Baptist Convention where I pastored for 13 years and was endorsed as an Army Chaplain, serving for 15 years.

It was after "Gulf War One" that I resigned my Regular Army commission. That action was the result of years of reflection on Jesus' sermon, which finally convinced me that I was a conscientious objector to war and, therefore, had to leave the Army as an act of faithful discipleship.

When I entered the military I had to swear to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which I did. Years later I realized that I, as a disciple of Jesus, could no longer serve as an Army Chaplain and maintain my allegiance to Jesus Christ. For too long I had fooled myself into thinking that I could serve two masters and finally understood the depth of my idolatry.

I now pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ, and to God's kingdom for which he died -- one Spirit-led people the world over, indivisible, with love and justice for all.²

I was discharged in May 1992 and soon began looking for a church whose official documents stated that they were a "peace church." I wanted to belong to a church that formally and clearly stated that they were formed around Jesus' teachings of nonviolence and love for the enemy. I wanted a community of faith that would help me un-learn the way of war and help me discover the blessing of being a peacemaker. To accomplish that, I needed a community of faith that sincerely believed in Jesus' way of peace and had a clear biblical statement about nonviolence.

Our faith statements about such things are important at this hour in American history. When our country begins to warmly embrace imperialism, it is important that the Church of Jesus Christ clearly confess a nonviolent Christ before an administration that so quickly embraces violence and preemptive war. If our churches are silent on this issue we betray Jesus Christ and begin teaching a different gospel than his.

Faithfully confessing Christ is the church's primary task and never more so than in an environment co-opted by militarism and nationalism.

Our Anabaptist theology clearly guides us to say, "Peace is the will of God" during this time in American history when "a theology of war emanates from the highest circles of American government and is seeping into our churches as well."³

Our Anabaptist theology clearly guides us to say, "Peace is the will of God" during this time in American history when "the language of righteous empire is employed with growing frequency."

Our Anabaptist theology clearly guides us to say, "Peace is the will of God" during this time in American history when "the roles of God, church, and nation are confused by talk of an American 'mission' and 'divine appointment' to rid the world of evil."

Our nation needs a church that believes Jesus was serious when he said to "love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you", rather than killing our enemies.

Such a belief leads quite naturally to the rejection of the ongoing reality of military recruitment. The present aggressive recruitment practices of the Department of Defense are, in reality, a "back door" draft that provides people for military service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of military conflict.

We have an ongoing "back door" draft at the moment. It operates under the legal provisions of the 2001 No Child Left Behind law and is fed by present economic unjust conditions that exist in some of our communities. Under this law, schools that receive federal money are required to supply military recruiters with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of their students. Private schools, of course, don't have to supply this information if they are not receiving federal funds.

Armed with the names of our youth, a horde of 15,000 full-time military recruiters invade our public schools looking for students to recruit into the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Recruiters know where to hunt and often target the most economically depressed communities in our nation looking for students who want a way out of poverty, and who naturally are interested in economic assistance for higher education.

The present circumstances that support the back door draft work through:

• aggressive recruitment in public high schools and community colleges,
• laws that restrict federal funds for higher education and access to federal jobs to those who have registered at the Selective Service System (SSS),
• State laws that require registration with SSS if you want a driver's license to drive a car, and what young person does not want to drive a car?
• offering a way out of poverty to African-American and Latin-American young people,
• offering people who join the National Guard a way to provide additional income to sustain economically depressed farm communities
• "stop loss" orders that involuntarily extend enlistment contracts beyond the terms of service, and by
• repeated year-long deployments of National Guard and Reserve units.

We have a draft today! It quietly operates to bring in the necessary human resources to "man" the needs of the military. It quietly operates in communities that are deeply scarred by racism. It feeds off of economic injustice, crass capitalism, poverty and the human desire to better one's living conditions.

But why should Anabaptist communities of faith be concerned about a back door draft when a good number of our children attend private schools located in economically stable communities, where life is good?

I suggest to you that our concern over the back door draft is rooted in God's love and God's desire for the wellbeing of all people. If we are people of God's peace then we will embrace the biblical call to pray and act for the shalom of all God's people.

We Mennonites state that, "Peace is the will of God" and that the Mennonite Church USA is a missional church. If those two professions are anywhere near the truth, then we must find ways to link Christ's way of peace and the missional nature of the church. That linkage is made when God's people understand that nonviolence is at the core of the gospel and then work, in Christ's name, to eliminate economic injustice inside and outside the church. This type of ministry is a faithful expression of our peace commitment, as well as our commitment to being a missional church. Being that kind of church will also limit the effectiveness of the back door draft.

If, however, the draft is addressed solely as an "in house" concern (a concern for Anabaptist Christians exclusively) then perhaps we will need to modify the opening sentence in Article 22 of the Mennonite Confession of Faith so that it will read something like, "Peace is the will of God for Anabaptist Christians only". If we do that we should, also, stop calling our denomination a missional church. Surely we will not have to take such drastic action!

Let me remind you that the early Anabaptist movement showed great concern for the lives of those who were not in their community of faith. The story of Dirk Willems⁴ is just one example of a 16th century Anabaptist who had great concern for a person who was outside his community of faith. Can we offer the hand of salvation to present day people who are outside our communities of faith, as Dirk did?

Let me close with an updated version of Dirk Willems' story. What if Dirk was a high school student from one of our congregations and the person attempting to catch Dirk was a recruiter for the United States Army? Are we the type of people who would have instructed Dirk in the way of Christ's peace so that he would extend the hand of salvation to such an outsider, even if that outsider were a military recruiter? Can we, the people of God's peace, hear God call us to offer the hand of salvation to all people --even to those people who would do us harm?

Can we show concern for young people who are facing a "back door" draft even though they may be from outside our religious communities? I sincerely hope that we can.

I trust that we will live lives in ways that reflect the vision that our denomination has set before us. That vision states: "God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow as communities of grace, joy, and peace, so that God's healing and hope flow through us to the world.

Peace is the will of God! And we are people of God's peace! Let us act out our professions of faith.

Amen.

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1. Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, published by arrangement with the General Boards of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church, Herald Press, 1995.

2. A Christian Pledge of Allegiance by June Alliman Yoder and J. Nelson Kraybill, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind., 2004. Available as a wallet card. Contact .

3. God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, pages 152-153, Jim Wallis, Harper San Francisco, 2005.