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Since the earliest days of the church, theologians have wondered whether certain vocations, including that of soldier, are compatible with being a Christian. However, since Emperor Constantine of the fourth century, the compatibility of Christianity and the military has been assumed nearly universally. My own United Methodist denomination, for example, produced a video that matter-of-factly asks potential confirmands to consider the future direction of their Christian journeys.

"What might your life hold after high school? Will it include college? military service? a family?"

During the 79 days of bombing in Yugoslavia in 1999, one major figure in another denomination asserted without argument: "Sometimes we just have to go in and use force." Not only in this country, but in many others, powers great and small have subtly seduced the church into marriage with the military.As Christians we are called to bring up our children in the ways of the Lord. The purpose of military service includes not only a willingness to kill, but also preparing for it. I heard a report on National Public Radio about young Marines at boot camp chanting "We can kill" as they marched. At the time I knew a teenager, active in his church youth group, who had just joined the Marines. One week he was singing "He is Lord," the next chanting "We can kill."

Is there not something wrong with this scenario?

As we enter the twenty-first century, we are at a crossroads on the issue of military service and Christian service. Can a church that sees itself as a "contrast society" accept the values and activities of the political status quo and its military machinery? Can a church that acknowledges the centrality of nonviolence in the New Testament accept the use of violence to defend or extend an empire that it exists to replace as the world's guiding light?If we accept this new understanding of the church's vocation—which is not new at all—then we must be courageous enough to accept the theological and practical consequences of it—divorcing Christian faith and military service. Carrying out this divorce will take creativity and energy, so much so that some will claim that the divorce is impossible even if it is right. After a century of horrific violence and bloodshed, and careful consideration of the New Testament texts, we need finally as a church to recognize that those who seek justification in the New Testament for Christian participation in violence of any kind, including military action, will always seek in vain. Why? Because violence is part of the false gospel of the world's counterfeit lords and empires—Herod, Pilate, Nero, Domitian, and the like.It is not the way of the true Lord, whose gospel and empire give to us—and demand from us—an alternative allegiance and vocation.Michael J. Gorman is dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology and professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. He is the author of Abortion and the Early Church (reprinted by Wipf and Stock, 1998) and The Elements of Exegesis (Hendrickson, forthcoming) and is completing a study of Paul's spirituality.

For a recent history of tensions and embracing between the church and the military, see "For God and Country, Ambivalently | American Christians and the military." The article, by Indiana State University history professor Richard V. Pierard, appeared in the May/June 1999 issue of our sister magazine Books & Culture. The article also generated several interesting letters.See also Ajith Fernando's dispatch from Sri Lanka, "Bombs Away | How Western military actions affect the work of the church." The article appeared in the June 14, 1999 issue of Christianity Today.

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March 6 2000, Vol. 44, No. 3