Return of the Big Stick

Should we change our country’s motto from “In God We Trust” to “In the Military We Trust”? A 1986 Gallup poll asked a random sample of Americans to rate their levels of confidence in United States institutions. Sixty-three percent of the respondents said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the military, compared with only 57 percent who had confidence in the church. For the first time in over a decade, the church failed to rank as our most-trusted institution, raising renewed fears of creeping militarism.

Misplaced institutional confidence is not the only sign of growing militarism. Toy manufacturers report a 600 percent increase in sales of plastic rifles, G. I. Joe action figures, and miniature war vehicles between 1982 and 1986. Applications to West Point, the Air Force Academy, and Annapolis are not only at their highest level ever, but the academies are attracting the very best students, “the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop,” according to Lt. Col. Dan Hancock, head of cadet selection for the air force. Participation in ROTC on college campuses has increased 50 percent since 1975.

Several disquieting factors make this apparent trend toward militarism (a belief that the military is the principal answer to life’s problems) ominous for the church. The rapid growth reflects an intensity usually associated with major social changes. Further, because toys and television are imprinting their violent messages on our youngest children, we must seriously consider them as possible mental time bombs set to explode unpredictably for generations to come. Finally, because the military has supplanted the church as our most-trusted American institution, we are faced with the troubling question of why.

The Reasons

In one sense, the answer to that question lies not so much in the failures of the church as in the publicity given the military. The current administration’s emphasis on strengthening the military has contributed to an increasing public consciousness and even pride in the armed forces. Congressional battles over budgets, Star Wars debates, sorties into Grenada and Libya, and recent events in the Persian Gulf have all helped put the military on the front pages of our minds. Even though the Vietnam War seriously eroded public confidence in our military capacity and judgment, many Americans want to be assured that we are doing something about restoring the “big stick.”

Second, the world is being armed and fought over at an alarming rate. Nuclear weapons are no longer limited to the superpowers. The tiniest Third World countries have sophisticated airplanes and tanks donated by influence-seeking superpowers. Over 20 wars of (depending on your political view) communist expansion, democratic liberation, or religious crusade are being fought around the globe. And in terrorism we have realized the ultimate twentieth-century nightmare, the one-man war. In a world wracked with such conflict, military preparedness makes very good sense.

Although less easy to prove empirically, culture watchers suggest that a third reason for our tip toward militarism lies in current socio-economic conditions. Historically, militarism has arisen in countries where the economic fortunes of the more privileged classes, particularly the middle class, begin to slip. A. Vagt, in his massive History of Militarism, notes that middle-class Prussians of the nineteenth century first defined militarism this way. Under such conditions, the officer corps becomes an acceptable career path for middle-class young people formerly drawn to other professions. In addition, values held dear by upper-middle and middle classes—such as loyalty, obedience, and hard work—find their fullest expression in the military setting.

In an increasingly chaotic and ill-defined social system, the military, with its emphasis on order and efficiency, shines like a beacon in the dark night of frightening confusion. Inevitably, countries that find themselves undergoing these changes rely more and more on the military leaders as their primary decision makers.

All three of these conditions—a slipping middle class, a relativizing of traditional values, and reliance on military answer men (this administration has placed more military officers in nonmilitary positions than any other in the postwar period)—are evident today.

The Church And The Military

All of which makes it imperative that we note some differences between the church and the military, and the relationship between them. Scripture never denounces the military as such; it does, however, clearly consider it an institution of limited, pragmatic purpose, especially when set over against the ultimate, enduring value of the church.

The Old Testament, for example, shows God as caring very little for the size and strength of Israel’s army. He frequently commanded them to use extraordinary force to further his purposes. But the size and strength of the Israelite force was not a reliable indicator of the success or failure of a mission. Superior forces sometimes lost battles (Josh. 7:1–5) and inferior forces frequently won them (Judg. 7). The determining factor was obedient use rather than superior firepower. The implication for the modern church, perhaps, is that our role should not be one of lobbying for technological weaponry advances as much as constantly calling into question the appropriate and inappropriate uses of those weapons.

The New Testament reinforces the obedient use principle by insisting that love and peace (values that fuel the engines of the church) are superior to the military values of loyalty, courage, and power. This elevation of love and peace does not negate the military values. It does relegate them to “second class” status, at least when placed against the Great Commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The church models love and peace, and seasons and salts necessary military realities with them whenever possible.

The church has not always done this. The Crusades are an example of a time when the church adopted the military ethos as its own, declaring war on the Muslim infidels and setting out to recapture Jerusalem. The results betrayed the seriousness of the error. The lesson to be duly noted by us moderns is that it is best if the Christian church remembers its role. Fortunately, that role is the most important one. The church cannot and must not administer, participate in, or be the military. But the church can support the military in ways congruent with its nature—the chaplaincy, for example.

More important, the church must make its voice clearly heard as the conscience of the military. When armies on the march inevitably jettison the heavy niceties of morality and ethics, only the church can pick them up and reshoulder them for our secular society.

By Terry Muck.

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