{"id":18,"date":"2010-05-31T14:40:34","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T14:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/memorial-day-perspective-from-church-history.html"},"modified":"2010-05-31T14:40:34","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T14:40:34","slug":"memorial-day-perspective-from-church-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/memorial-day-perspective-from-church-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day: Perspective from Church History"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Every Memorial Day, I remember how early Christians almost uniformly rejected any kind of military service–and how little we have learned from their witness to peacemaking.  As we pause today, it may well be good for our souls to consider this perspective from church history about what it means to be both a Christian and a soldier.  This reflection is excerpted from my book, <\/span>A People’s History of Christianity<\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

* * * * * <\/font><\/p>\n

A
\nfew years ago, I was touring a church named St. Martin-in-the Fields with a
\nlovely stained-glass window depicting a soldier sheltering another man in his
\ncloak.  <\/span>“You know the story, I
\nsuppose,” my guide said.  <\/span>“That’s
\nSt. Martin.  <\/span>He converted to Christ
\nwhile a soldier.  <\/span>One day, his
\nregiment was guarding the city of Amiens and he met a naked beggar on the
\nroad.  <\/span>Martin took off his cloak,
\ntore it in half, and covered the beggar. 
\n<\/span>He literally followed Jesus’ teaching to give one’s coat to the poor.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking
\nup at the window, I remembered the rest of the legend as well.  <\/span>Jesus appeared to Martin in a dream
\naffirming the soldier’s act, saying, “Martin, a simple catechumen (one who is
\nlearning the Christian way) covered me with this garment.”  <\/span>The episode became stuff of regiment
\ngossip and the cape was rumored to have miraculous power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin of Tours (ca. 316-397) was born into a pagan family,
\nbut as a young man expressed interest in Christianity.  <\/span>His father hated Christianity and forced
\nMartin to join the Roman army. 
\n<\/span>While a soldier, Martin’s curiosity about Christianity grew, as did his
\nstrong sense of morality, until he became a catechumen.  <\/span>While still an inquirer, the cloak
\nepisode occurred.<\/span><\/p>\n

When
\nhe was baptized, Martin followed another early Christian practice and asked to
\nbe released from the army: “I am Christ’s soldier and I am not allowed to
\nfight.”  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Martin
\nwas not a conscientious objector in the modern sense–he was only stating what Christians
\nbelieved.  <\/span>Long before theologians
\nAmbrose and Augustine argued for just war, Christians were not allowed to
\nfight.  <\/span>No record exists that
\nChristians served in the Roman army before 170.  <\/span>The strong consensus of the early church was that war meant
\nkilling, killing was murder, and murder was wrong.  <\/span>In the third century, Cyprian of Carthage noted:  <\/span>“The world is going mad in mutual
\nbloodshed.  <\/span>And murder, which is
\nconsidered a crime when people commit it singly, is transformed into a virtue
\nwhen they do it en masse.” Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and
\nOrigen all specifically condemned participation in war.  <\/span>“The Christian fathers of the first
\nthree centuries,” states theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill, “were generally adamant
\nthat discipleship requires close adherence to the nonviolent and
\ncountercultural example of Jesus’ own life and his sayings about the nature of
\nthe kingdom.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Related
\nto their horror of killing, the military posed a second problem: soldiers were
\nrequired to perform acts of worship to the state, the gods, and the
\nEmperor.  <\/span>From a Christian
\nperspective, soldiering demanded idolatry. Tertullian pointed out that even a
\nsoldier’s tokens of victory, especially the crown of laurel leaf, were symbols
\nof death, hollow triumphs made at the expense of other human beings:  <\/span>“Is the laurel of the triumph made of
\nleaves, or of corpses?  <\/span>Is it
\nadorned with ribbons, or with tombs? 
\n<\/span>Is it bedewed with ointments, or with the tears of wives and mothers?”
\nSince the military practiced both violence and idolatry, Tertullian insisted
\nthat there was “no agreement” between serving God and the Emperor.  <\/span>To even wear the uniform of a soldier
\nsymbolized blood violence; as a result, the church did not permit Christians to
\nenlist or converts to continue to serve after baptism.<\/span><\/p>\n

While
\nTertullian emphasized the negative aspects of the military to Christian
\ndiscipleship, Origen pointed out the positive vision of a life of Christian
\npeacemaking.  <\/span>He criticized the
\narmy as a society of “professional violence,” pointing out that Jesus forbids
\nany kind of vengeance against another. 
\n<\/span>“We will not raise arms against any other nation, we will not practice
\nthe art of war,” he wrote, “because through Jesus Christ we have become the
\nchildren of peace.” <\/span><\/p>\n

When
\nhe asked to leave the army, Martin followed the way of peacemaking as taught by
\nthe early church.  <\/span>As soon as
\nMartin was free from military obligation, he studied theology and became a
\nmonk. He proved a popular bishop. 
\n<\/span>He planted churches, converting many people throughout France, and founded
\nthe first monastic community in the northern part of the Empire.  <\/span>Many people believed that the former
\nsoldier, once a member of the feared Roman army, possessed the gift of healing;
\nthey came to him for relief from illness and disease.  <\/span>He served the poor, and outcasts, even on one occasion
\nprotesting the death penalty of a wrongly condemned man.  <\/span>Unlike so many of his peers, he died
\npeacefully in bed, of old age, having dedicated himself to a non-violent
\nway.  <\/span>A soldier for Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every Memorial Day, I remember how early Christians almost uniformly rejected any kind of military service–and how little we have learned from their witness to peacemaking.  As we pause today, it may well be good for our souls to consider this perspective from church history about what it means to be both a Christian and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-history-and-theology","category-holiday"],"yoast_head":"\nMemorial Day: Perspective from Church History - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/memorial-day-perspective-from-church-history.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Memorial Day: Perspective from Church History - 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}