Simon’s Says
It was California Senator Hiram Johnson who reportedly said, in 1918, ‘The first casualty of war is truth.’ His words came to mind when I read the (to me) dubious-to-unbelievable headline, “Military Leaders Say Iran War Is So Trump Can Bring About ‘Armageddon.’” (I’m reading these in both The Guardian and The New Republic.) According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, more than 100 troops have complained their superior officers are framing the war as a blessing from God, which whether intentionally or unintentionally (the divine mind is an inscrutable thing) will bring about the Second Coming of Jesus. You understand why I was dubious. As it turns out, there is more truth in the charge than not, and all I could do was shake my head. As I’ve told you before, in earlier days I cut my theological teeth among evangelicals whose entire worldview was based on the rapture, the return of Jesus in glory. But as Paul wrote in I Corinthians 13, ‘When I grew up, I put away childish ways.’ The idea that the war against Iran has anything to do with hastening the second coming (which itself is a patently unbiblical idea) is repugnant and irresponsible. Anyone with a whiff of religious understanding knows God does not work this way. Granted, Middle East politics (and war) have always had an apocalyptic flavor to them, but God is neither motivated nor manipulated by human terror and destruction. For those who stand against this war, we believe God stands, not on the side of one nation against the other, but rather on the side of peace, of compassion and justice.
Links to Sunday’s bulletin and service are below, and remember to set your clocks ahead Saturday night! While the delicious cakes that will be available at Sunday’s Un-birthday Party will indeed await you at 11:00, the rest of the congregation will await you at 10:00, Daylight Savings Time. 😊