Why We Aren't Any Good at Limited War

Paul Gleiser's commentary this week on our local news/talk radio station, KTBB was called "The Unbearable Cost of Discount War".  He made the point that "half wars" are far too expensive.  He has a point. It's hard for Christian people to wage all out war. There must be a clearly defined and "evil" enemy. In WWI and prior, the news media gave sanitized coverage of the war that over-exaggerated how evil the enemy we were fighting was.  People bought their papers and believed what they were reading.  Even the hostile anti-war members of the press in those days didn't have damning film to back up their criticisms of the war.  It was easier to wage total war without the film coverage. Nowadays, you can get lots of exciting film that makes us look bad, but no one shows the really horrible stuff the bad guys do. Nothing makes people turn off the TV faster than acres of rotting nerve gassed corpses. They'll run shots of piles of naked "live" Iraqis next to foolish grinning soldiers till we're sick of it and angry at our own soldiers.  They won't show you the live television beheading of an American engineer or a young soldier or piles of naked dead Iraqis in a ditch where they have been machine-gunned by their own government.  Is it any wonder so many have lost interest in fighting a war where we're being portrayed as the bad guys night after night because it's the only film that doesn't make people turn off the television and spoil CNN's ratings.

Film coverage began in WWII and it was still highly sanitized, but traumatizing. One wonders what Americans would have done had they been able to see the film of the real atrocities. When an American magazine published pictures of dead Americans on a beach in the South Pacific, it cost the government a great deal of public support for the war.  Even though they couldn't show the pictures at the time, General Eisenhower made his historians and embedded reporters photograph everything at the death camps as did MacArthur in the POW camps. It helped us later, when we were distanced somewhat from the carnage to come to terms with WWII and the havoc we wreaked on Japan and Germany to see the evil that we had been fighting up close.  Who can forget the heaps of naked, dead Jews and emaciated POW's and the acres of murdered Chinese. When we understood the enemy we had fought, we supported the total effort we had to make to defeat them. We didn't even blame the Germans and the Japanese, preferring to think it was only the leaders who participated and we rebuilt those two nations into powerful allies.

Like the Jews, however, we still shrink from waging war Jehovah style and it comes back to haunt us. Sadly, with war, it's all or nothing. Limited war is too expensive, too invisible to the people who pay the bills and too far away from their own concerns for people to care very much.

We also have the problem that the media views war through its own peculiar prism, forged by decades of leftist university journalism professors. If one were to tell the stories of what we put an end to in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, the American public would have little trouble supporting an effort to end that war.

But for every journalist who tells the story of villagers nerved gassed (a most hideous chemical form of Saddam's so-called nonexistent WMDs), villagers lined up and machine-gunned, then bull-dozed into a ditch or fathers and mothers and even children tortured brutally in the prisons of Abu Graib, there are ten who tell stories of Americans committing atrocities, soldiers dying pointlessly (according to the commentator) or corrupt leaders profiteering off the war.

Oddly, for some reason Americans would prefer to believe we are being bullies and thugs than they would to believe that such horror could be going on somewhere. It seems an easy solution to bring our boys home and stop fighting wars altogether.  Then we would be guiltless.  - that's easy so long as we disbelieve the "jingoist" reports of what sort of truly evil stuff is going on in those nations.

For if we believe those things are going on, our Christian upbringing tells us we must do something to stop it. But that would be hard and risky and no one is hurting our families here in the states.  We don't want to know what's going on beyond the walls. It's too painful to look at, so we tune in the media that tells us the local gossip and focuses on our own problems.

We can't help the soldier children in Africa or the tribes being starved and tortured in the Middle-East. We just don't want to know about it so we can sleep at night in our fluffy beds.

9/11 shook us up. That's why we went to Afghanistan and Iraq. They hit us at home. They killed American mothers, fathers, grandparents and children.  Osama bin Laden is a very poor strategic tactician. If he'd just kept hitting us outside of our own borders, he could have systematically discouraged us and induced us to abandon our friends and allies in the world.

If he'd not made that colossal mistake, he'd be far closer to the Caliphate the Muslim fanatics dream of and the American people would never have allowed us to go to war to stop him. If he can just restrain himself from attacking us again, he still has a chance at victory. The mainstream media certainly won't cover that war as closely and Americans will ignore it until one day we look up and discover an angry, armed and hostile Middle Eastern superpower that has been made proud of their "technological contributions" to civilization by our NASA goodwill outreach program and they will be pointing some very nasty "technological contributions" right at us.  Only, unlike the Cold War, there will be truly insane madmen with their fingers on those triggers.

Can Anything Good Come Out of Nazareth

A friend whose opinion I normally respect did a serious riff on Glenn Beck's Theology the other day. He echoed the sentiments of others like Dr. Russell Moore and Jim Wallis who have characterized Beck as dangerous.  Reminds me of the reaction of the political/religious leaders of Jesus' time when John the Baptist and later, Jesus, showed up. They were suspicious of any charismatic leader who didn't report to and take orders from the Sanhedrin.  "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" they asked, then proceeded to plot against the popular young preachers.

At the end of time, scripture tells us that God will call us to "Come out of her My people." I, personally think that's happening right now.  So what if Glenn's a Mormon? Last week, I never heard anyone at the Restoring Honor Rally call anyone to come be a Mormon. Beck and his fellow speakers simply echoed the very call of Revelation to "come out of Babylon" and return to God.

Beck's critics are harshest in their criticism that Beck mingles religion and politics. That seems odd since Babylon as described in Scripture is a political as well as religious entity. You cannot separate the two functions of the entity John calls Babylon.

The religious leaders who are up in arms believe any revival should not only be led, but only spoken about by a purely religious leader-here, I imagine a guy in a Men's Wearhouse suit with that big plastic televangelist hair.  God seldom calls the same folks our politicians would choose if they could choose God's messengers for themselves.  Lets face it. They'd choose someone who would flatter them and acknowledge their power.  Certainly, Ahab would not have picked Elijah for the court prophet. Pharoah certainly wouldn't have picked Moses to represent the Jews.  God has always chosen his own messengers, taking little in the way of advice from the current crop of Scribes and Pharisees.

No, I suspect God will be quite able to sort out the sheep from the goats all by Himself. And who would I think I am to criticize God's choice of who is a sheep, much less what shepherds he sends out for the lost lambs? I believe that in the coming months we'll be surprised at who steps forward and begins to proclaim the same message of Restoration, faith, hope and charity that I heard last Saturday.

And it will be also, no surprise at all if the hounds of hell do not beset those messengers who call for a return to faith in God.

As to Beck's theology, I suspect a brief Q&A at the Pearly Gates will take care of any errors any of us might be laboring under and who's going to argue with God when he or she is standing on the Sea of Glass. A movement is beginning. It is without acknowledged leaders. Did you notice how quick the opposition came to assume Beck wanted to run for President?  Of course they did, because who among those who oppose his message would not jump at an opportunity to seize power if given such a springboard.  They cannot seem to understand that Beck isn't seeking power. He reminds me of that "voice crying in the wilderness". Beck constantly talks like a man who believes God must increase while I must decrease.  He knows that what he says will likely get him killed. He wore a bulletproof vest on stage because his wife asked him to, knowing he was only inviting a sniper's head shot.  Remember John the Baptist's messages were often political too.  Herod locked him up because John had the audacity to criticize the King. He executed John because his entourage (the bloggers of his day) demanded it.  The Sanhedrin convicted Jesus because he was drawing followers away from the "rightful" religio-political rulers of the day. Pontius Pilate executed him to satisfy the mob gathered at his gates.

I would echo Joshua's words today, "Choose you this day whom you will serve."  If it is any other than God, you're off the boat, even if that thing you serve is your church, a church leader or a political leader.  Anything between you and God is not from Him. That's precisely why church leaders are up in arms.  They see Beck as a threat, a sheep stealer. Like the Scribes and the Pharisees, they will seek any means to bring anyone down who does not acknowledge their power and authority. Who do you think those folks were working for?  Certainly not God.  Is it any wonder Jesus that the only name-calling he ever did was reserved for the nation's politicians and their business partners?


I choose to dedicate the next 40 days to prayer and meditation on what is happening, upon His soon coming and upon my relationship with God. It's a great idea. I'm glad Beck suggested it.  I see no harm in that.


Just one man's opinion....

Tom King

Ungrateful Church Leaders Hammer Glenn Beck

In the wake of Saturday’s Restoring Honor Rally and the now-famous “Gods Geese Flyover, radio host and author Glenn Beck is coming under fire, not only from the expected liberal/progressive/socialist/communist community, but also from conservative and progressive church leaders, many of who have instructed their own flocks to pay no attention to such supposed “signs from God”. Echoing the Huffington Post and other liberal weblogs, they cry, "It was only a flock of geese...." Expect Sunday sermons to include instructions from the pulpit to turn off the charismatic Beck's radio program. Church leaders apparently fear that Beck, the self-proclaimed “rodeo clown”, is planning to lead their flocks astray.

“Well isn’t that special?”

For most of my life, I have been reading scripture, especially the prophetic passages in Ezekiel, Daniel, Matthew and the Revelation. I have studied the Biblical ‘signs of the end’ and wondered how some of them would ever come to pass in America, the land of the free and home of the brave. For a long time, it seemed we were just grinding along the same old same old year after year with nothing new happening. I wondered when God would send the Holy Spirit upon his children and call them out of Babylon at last. I wondered when Satan would make his move to take over the governments of the world as was foretold would happen at the end.

Then, with breath-taking speed, signs that the end is coming began to happen right before my eyes. I heard people everywhere saying, “It’s time. Jesus must be coming soon.” Jesus Himself said that when we saw the signs we would know His coming is soon and that just before the end, He would call us to come out of Babylon and He would come for us.

When God calls "Come out of her my people," I believe He will call people from every faith, nation, kindred, tongue and tribe. We’ve all, in every denomination, give some lip-service to the idea that we aren’t the only ones God will save, but we figure most of them will belong to our brand of faith at the very least.

So when we see apparently leaderless Christians and people of good will banding together and calling for a return to God, obedience to His law and not the law of man and they are doing it without their church’s head guys at the head of the line, it is not surprising that church leaders would yelp. You betcha the leaders of denominations are going to be upset that this funny little Mormon guy is out there calling for a revival and more people are responding than you can count (if you try to tot up the TV audiences who sat glued to their televisions for hours on Saturday). They are as upset as the Republican leadership is over the Tea Parties and that whole unruly, out-of-control gang of conservatives.


Leaders don't like their followers thinking for themselves or paying attention to someone else. Of course, they will find something sinister in what’s going on. After all, it’s not their idea. It’s not some thought they jotted down in their notebook on an airplane to Chicago:

Let’s see….

1. Lube the car
2. Take the dog to the Vet
3. Start a revival
4. Pick up dry cleaning


I've been carefully listening to Glenn Beck for more than a year now and find nothing sinister in his message. His call on Saturday was a call to faith in God whatever you conceive him to be in whatever church you worship.

The Baptist* leaders ought to complain the least about Beck. They should be downright grateful. Beck actually told half a million Christians (many of them Baptists) that they ought to pay tithe to their churches. Most pastors, especially congregational churches like the Baptists, are afraid to give that sermon because they know they will lose half their congregation or better by the next Sunday. Beck’s challenge to his audience was, “If you believe, give your church 10%.” Oddly enough it was a tax increase that the notoriously anti-taxation crowd responded to enthusiastically. Beck, in effect, just gave most Baptist ministers a pay raise without them having to risk their jobs!

Ungrateful is what I’d call it.


I’m just telling you what I think….

Tom King – Tyler, TX

*P.S.   I know it's not just the Baptists that are squealing, it's just that Baptist Seminary President, Dr. Russel Moore, got pretty vocal right out of the gate.  He's not alone, of course, but Russel Moore called the Restoring Honor Rally "scandalous".  I wonder if he even watched any of it?  He makes assumptions about what was said at the rally that weren't warranted.  His article, published by the American Family Association, sounded more like "Wait for me, I'm your leader," than anything else; a lament, the theme of which is that traditional church leadership hasn't been able to kick up a decent national revival for years.

Glenn is, I think, doing the right thing. I may disagree with his theology, but I figure God will take care of our theological differences when it is important to do that. A group Q&A at the Pearly Gates ought to take care of it. 

Russell Moore would also disagree just as vehemently with my theology if I were to have given the keynote last weekend. Only an "official" Baptist at the mike on Saturday would have done for Doctor Moore. I think he's being really short sighted.

In the meantime, the call is "Come out of her my people." That's what I heard at Saturday's rally.  It was a clear call to me and I'm proud to say that my church has been preaching that particular sermon for better than 150 years. I'm just glad it's beginning to get a little volume to it and I welcome anyone who will sound the call whatever their faith, creed, nation or culture. Glad you guys are catching up.

And while I sympathize with the fears of leaders like Moore, I'm not worried. God is a lot bigger and more powerful than we sometimes give Him credit for and He makes a whole lot better leader than do the guys in the $500 suits and the plastic hair!

Again, that's just one man's opinion.

Tom