Shooting our own soldiers

This is a guest post from my friend Dave, on the topic of the church. I think the a verse from Galations, which I read this morning, applies to this topic. After reminding the Galations of the commandment to love one another (5:14), Paul goes on to say: "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!". We have to be careful to make every effort to avoid this! I am not sure about all the details of what Dave has written, particularly the last paragraph, but I'd be intersted to hear your thoughts! This is a topic which is worth considering a lot more than we do.

In the first world war, the military on both sides made extensive use of trenches in battle. Ultimately, the goal was to fire upon and destroy the enemy and then move forward, capturing ground. One can imagine a number of platoons, perhaps from various allied nations, constructing trenches close together. The men in the various trenches would probably have different backgrounds and cultures, and their trench-making habits are likely to have differed somewhat: some may have been deeper than others, or with differently sloped sides, or with all manner of other, subtle differences. Nevertheless, all of the groups within these trenches had a common over-arching goal: to defeat the enemy (and they had no doubts as to whom or what that may be). Now imagine some of the trenches fighting not against the enemy, but rather shooting men in other, allied trenches in the back, because the former platoons disagreed, perhaps, with the trench-building style or the colour of the uniforms of the latter. If this kind of behaviour continued long enough, it wouldn’t take long, to be sure, before the enemy hardly needed to bother with an offensive at all. They would win by default as their opposition crumbled into a heap.

This, unfortunately, demonstrates the way Christians often function. The analogy was related to me by a close friend and as soon as I heard it, I was struck by the truth of it. Christianity is divided into a plethora of what could perhaps be called “sub-groups”, denominations, but despite the differences, we are all under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, our king and our general. He has given us one battle plan: thus we all fight the same battle and we use the same weapons. It is fair to say that the strategies of different captains in particular skirmishes may differ, but does it follow that these captains may be fairly accused of defiance or mutiny on that basis? I think not, and therefore cannot understand the enormous amount of vindictive squabbling that seems to go on within the church.

Now I also think it is important to understand what this analogy is not saying, and perhaps where it breaks down. There are certainly some groups, who are classified as Christian, whose beliefs cannot be aligned with scripture, and therefore, with such groups the church cannot be associated. Such groups have fallen into deception: they have eaten from the fruit of false teaching. This does not mean, however, that we must “shoot them in the back”, because, despite their being deceived, they are still not the enemy. I would argue that they are no different from “flower power”, peaceful objectors-of-war who perhaps don’t understand all of the issues. As a result, I would say that groups which are not aligned with scripture are not even fighting the right battle: it is more likely that they are not on the battlefield at all. I think the church quite simply needs to be clear about not following false teachers to false battlefields. That way we don’t need to shoot them in the back! We will have made the most enormous mistake, as a church, if we are in the wrong battle (in effect a non-battle), shooting at anyone except the enemy. How rebellious captains are dealt with is not for other captains to worry about: that is the prerogative of the Lord alone.

by Dave Drew