I never celebrated Veterans Day, until I became a Conscientious Objector.
Even though serving in the military was a family tradition, we never celebrated Veterans Day.
I never knew what a conscientious objector was until I was mistakenly called one when I was caring for a patient who had tried to commit suicide at 4 am in middle of a dusty hot tent clinic in Iraq. He assumed because of the medic badge I wore that I carried on the long-standing tradition of those who oppose war and taking lives because of their moral compass or religion, a Conscientious Objector, and serves as a medic instead.
Veterans Day holds a different weight for me today.
My conscience demands hard things of me today. I’m watching bombs drop on refugee camps, hospitals, schools, and kids. As a medic on the Iraq battlefield, I never saw anything like this. Because these unimaginable war crimes have never been done before. I was in a country with Al-Qaeda, soon to be ISIS. Watched Afghanistan fall on TV, and be taken over by the Taliban. I drank tea in my neighborhood with an asylum seeker who made it out…she was a female soldier just like me. Her tales were chilling. But nothing like the children being bombed and maimed in Gaza.
To be sure, we can honor those who have served in the military and at the same time ask the question, “what are we serving?” and “How are we serving?” Because the army core values include honesty and integrity. Which means we tell the truth and we honor the truth. Even when it’s hard.
Conscientious Objectors are soldiers who are opposed to killing on the grounds of their religion or their conscience. I had no idea what this soldier was talking about, but his assumption that I was a conscientious objector and his own story of refusing to take a life because of his faith was one of many electric moments throughout the war that felt like CPR was being done on my faith. Resuscitating it from the spiritual deadness of God, Guns, and Country that raised me to love Jesus and to be blind to his call to nonviolence.
Right now, we are all being asked to be Conscientious Objectors in our lives, our faith communities and as Martin Luther King, Jr. named it, The Beloved Community. As Americans, our conscience requires us to ask ourselves about the lives our weapons are taking in Gaza. Sofia Orr, a 19-year-old Israeli, shared on the recent Faith Forum her conscience asked her what it would mean for her to join the IDF? To support what the Israeli Defense Force was doing in the West Bank and occupied territories. Did she want to publically and politically support that? Her conscience did not allow it. So she refused and served a prison sentence. Ahmed, A Palestinian, also chose his conscience and is working for Peace as part of Combatants for Peace, a grassroots Israeli and Palestinian group working together to end the violence and create a shared future together.
As a Christian, I didn’t question war, until I was standing in the middle of Iraq being given a direct order to keep my convoy rolling at all costs, even if an Iraqi child was pushed in front of my humvee. That night, laying on my cot praying, I heard Jesus tell me that he loves Iraqis just as much as he loves me. My Baptist Sunday school teacher would have called it a “rebuke”.
Love always wins. Love never fails. And it changed everything for me in the tent that night. Like a lightbulb clicking on, I could finally see everything through the bright light of Jesus’s Love. The scriptures were lit up now, “Love your enemies”, “Do not kill”, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” Somehow I could see it all now and I felt overwhelmed with a sense of God’s never-ending, unstopping kind of love. I felt free for the first time in my life. And I’ve never lived a day without it since.
Choosing to disarm myself of violence is how I found how to start living in technicolor. This was the freedom that I never knew I was missing. I didn’t ask the army for permission not to kill. Because every human being has the right not to kill. No government can take that away from us. I became a citizen of the kingdom of heaven first, and a citizen of my country second that night. I’ve never looked back.
Today, I’m a radical Conscientious Objector. Because in a radical moment, when my soul needed to feel it’s worth, to say yes to following Jesus, it did. Without asking the army for its permission first.
The question for us today is:
Will we be willing to let Jesus challenge our Christian conscience on war and violence?
Following Jesus means disarming ourselves of our loyalty to militaries that take life instead of give life. We can have only one allegiance.
Perfect Love casts out fear and refuses to take lives. We arm ourselves with a self-sacrificing love that knows no borders, only a radical debt to love.
There is a rich history when it comes to conscientious objectors—people who refused to fight in war because it violated their faith or conscience. In particular, Christians who follow Jesus, “the Prince of Peace,” have been war resisters for centuries, going back to the earliest days of Christianity. Red Letter Christians are trying to live like Jesus meant the words he said. Blessed are the Peacemakers, not the Warmakers. To love our neighbor is a tall order, and we certainly aren’t doing it as well as Jesus, but not killing each other has to be a starting line. We are offering Conscientious Objector resources for those serving in the military. Will you support soldiers by sharing this information today?
It’s courageous to speak up and it’s costly. As an RLC community we are committed to supporting and celebrating Conscientious Objectors. Please give a word of encouragement, a practical support by following and/or donating to their organization.
Relationship is the best encouragement and currency there is! So, please give them some love today.
Conscientious Objectors:
Diana Oestreich @dianaoestreich @wagingpeaceproject
Sofia Orr
Ahmed, Elik: cfpeace.org, https://www.facebook.com/c4peace/, https://www.instagram.com/combatantsforpeace/
