Fearless Faith

There is a surreal quality to the events of this past week when Russia invaded Ukraine. In the past we might have dismissed it as a distant and largely forgettable concern. The world has since changed, embracing perspectives that have come about through the marvels of modern communications on a variety of platforms. No longer can rats scurry to the dark corners of the room; cell phones, texting and social networking have all contributed to fresh light and a new dawn of accountability where transparency is an expectation.

It is not easy to peer through the haze and declare with certainty what lies beyond. Hopefully, the chances of being misled are greatly reduced when we take personal responsibility as prudent and knowledgeable consumers of goods and services. Like all consumers, we have a choice what is placed in our shopping carts. Is it reasonable and informed? Does it build up rather than tear down? Is it healthy and sustaining or merely empty carbs? Time and reflection in future years will be the final arbiters of whether our righteousness was ill conceived or well founded.

Uncertainty and rationalizing go hand-in-hand with modern day conflict. How can we hope to make sense of it all? As a young child, my father rationalized that war in the Pacific would take time to reach the Iowa heartland where he lived with his parents. As a five- or six-year-old, I too rationalized that it was safer to live on the front range and plains of Colorado, imagining that the vastness of our country would provide a buffer for friends and family wherever they lived and whatever violence attended their relatively sheltered lives.

Reality soon intruded however as the early sixties brought a growing awareness of how unsettled we were as a culture. It was underscored by false reporting of Vietnamese enemy incursions and battles won, of vague and dubious objectives which we were expected to confidently ride to victory. The daily body counts mentioned on noon radio reports always favored our side in Vietnam. As long as more of ‘them’ died than ‘us,’ everything was in our favor from my young perspective. Reality testing came full circle in November ’63 as I stood silently in a department store with a small group of strangers in front of a bank of televisions. Several were in tears as if to wash away our disbelief as we tried to make sense of the events in Dallas.

What does the Christian community have to offer in response to the invasion? Everyone has an opinion, spoken or unspoken, as we eye yet another ‘just war’ scenario. Like it or not, it is our responsibility to wrestle with such questions in light of the Christian experience. Is it easier to commit weapons of war than face the hard and necessary work of examining our roles and complicity in a world that embraces, even welcomes, violence as a norm? It might not be a popular route to take for many of us as we are called upon as representatives of the faith, but it is necessary. Encouraging an ethos of peace is never easy amid the throes of violence. One can pray that we are up to the task.