Comment on your article: '1914-2014, the same but different'
IN EXPLANATION for even those Christian believers who try and avoid employment in the arms trade and the armed forces: By our taxes and the parties we vote for, we are all implicated in the Middle East violence. I think, we all have blood on our hands - even the most righteous of the righteous of the Lord.
SASRA stands for Soldiers Airman Scripture Readers Association
It was very good to have your area rep, Mike speak at our morning service yesterday at Hasbury Christian Fellowship. I was the guy who spoke to him afterwards about compromising Christians serving in the military who have to put their allegiance to their Commander in Chief before their allegiance to their Lord and Master - or their conscience, for that matter.
Even if the Lord was/is yet another man of violence and aggression, I think the 1914-18 war was a most inappropriate action for true Christians to be engaged in.
Our politicians were in far too much of a hurry to declare war on Germany. They knew that our island status had deterred Germany from including an invasion of our shores in their 1914 war plans. The mainland of Europe (and conquering France and Russia) was their preoccupation. In other words, we committed an act of aggression when our country was not in danger of being attacked. Not even in serious danger of invasion, even after we declared war on Germany. Not at any time during the 1914-18 half of the 20th century world war. Therefore, our declaration of war was illegal, as it was not an act of self defence, in my opinion.
Defending Belgium neutrality from an outdated 1839 treaty by going to war was all too late when German troops were sweeping through the country and all we had was a far too small an army of only five divisions of 'Old Contemptibles', as you put it in your article. Our army was no match for the German army in August 1914 - and the politicians and military knew that. Yet, they still foolishly marched off to war instead of biding their time, bringing in conscription and re-arming, in case they did have to defend Britain's shores.
Our premature declaration of war was strongly argued for by Churchill in July 1914 in order to defend the biggest empire in the history of humanity and to maintain the balance of power in Britain's favour. Again, for Christian believers to be fighting for an empire is a total betrayal of their Saviour, Lord and Master who, even before His ministry began, rejected empire building in the temptations. Even if, as so many believers argue that the Prince of Peace is in favour of violence and aggressive acts, they have to admit he was against earthly empires.
In His time we had the Roman Empire; now we have the US/UK/NATO empire ruling the world and deciding what is allowed and what is not. For Bible believing Christians to defend and promote earthly empires and, in so doing, reject the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, is a betrayal of the Gospel. When that involves them having to accept that Christ was a man of violence that is, in my book and the Bible (and possibly the Koran), nothing short of blasphemy.
The one World War in two halves was the culmination of centuries of off and on warfare between the supposedly Christian Western European nations - including the true, Bible believing, born again Christians who should have had no truck with gladly going off to Europe to kill Germans on the 4 August 1914. That decision led to the Nazis and World War part two: '39-'45. The Muslims have had 1400 years of far less violence and aggression and killing - until their patience, finally snapped with 9/11. This came about after nearly one hundred years of military intervention, British duplicity and coercion in the Middle East by the Western Christian powers. Churchill seems to have started it with his decision to convert our coal fired warships to oil when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. He then had to secure Muslim oil for that purpose. Militant, extremist, militaristic Islam is now as rampant in the Middle East, as Judeo/Christian militarism is in that region.
In my opinion, the three great Abrahamic faiths are morally flawed. More so now than they have ever been from the sheer level of violence and of human inhumanity to human. There seems little difference to death by beheading or death by fire and flame. One man beheads another (Muslims) or mass, anonymous, push button death by being vapourised or bombed to smithereens (Jews and Christians). The USA Empire, like the Roman Empire from 300 AD, is devout and is largely a Jewish/Christian majority - both nominally and in practice.
Repentance and salvation should begin and end in the House of the Lord.
With best wishes and every blessing
Tim
