Martin on Memorial Day

For any who might doubt, yes, I can employ the writings of Martin Luther in the observance of any holiday or otherwise special occasion. For Luther, the question of whether military force could or should be employed by Christians was more than a mere theoretical issue. With the constant threat of violent force being brought against Reformational believers in Germany, this was an issue of the utmost practicality. While it would be foolish to read Luther's conclusions uncritically (I think I would have to take issue with a number of the specific statements in the following passage), his no-nonsense approach is quite refreshing. Here is a selection from Luther's treatise, That Soldiers, Too, Can be Saved:

When men write about war, then, and say that it is a great plague, that is all true; but they should also see how great the plague is that it prevents. If people were good, and glad to keep peace, war would be the greatest plague on earth; but what are you going to do with the fact that people will not keep peace, but rob, steal, kill, outrage women and children, and take away property and honor? The small lack of peace, called war, or the sword, must set a check upon this universal, world-wide lack of peace, before which no one could stand. Therefore God honors the sword so highly that He calls it His own ordinance, and will not have men say or imagine that they have invented it or instituted it. For the hand that wields this sword and slays with it is then no more mans hand, but Gods, and it is not man, but God, who hangs, tortures, beheads, slays and fights. All these are His works and His judgments. In a word, in thinking of the soldiers office, we must not have regard to the slaying, burning, smiting, seizing, etc. That is what the narrow, simple eyes of children do, when they see in the physician only a man who cuts off hands or saws off legs, but do not see that he does it to save the whole body. So, too, we must look at the office of the soldier, or the sword, with grown-up eyes, and see why it slays and acts so cruelly. Then it will prove itself to be an office that, in itself, is godly, as needful and useful to the world as eating and drinking or any other work.

On this Memorial Day, I would like to thank those brave soldiers, past and present, who have not hesitated to take up the sword as appointed by God at the proper time. Specifically, thanks to those from our own congregations at New Covenant Church, Major Paul Wynn and Second Lieutenant Steven Ottolini, who are currently serving the U.S. Army in Iraq. We are grateful to you for willingness to defend our freedoms, and we are praying that God will keep you in the power of his Holy Spirit.