In Defense of Morality: The War on Terror and Strategic Bombing in WWII

It is rare, sadly, to find someone interested in what the perspective of history has to teach us about current events, politicians seem particularly oblivious to this need.  That being said, the bombing of German and Japanese cities during WWII as part of the Strategic Bombing campaign carried out by the British and American air forces offers us a much needed dose of morality regarding Western Civilization's (and these days, seemingly civilization in general) now fifteen years of actively fighting against those who would utilize terrorism for political/religious ends.  Early on in the British attempt to bring the fighting to Germany after having evacuated the continent at Dunkirk, it was discovered that attempts to selectively hit targets such as factories producing munitions and armaments had failed miserably, as "Less than one-third of its bombers were dropping their loads within five miles of the specific industrial targets they were attacking." (from Williamson Murray, "Did Strategic Bombing Work?").  Failing to destroy the intended targets was compounded by the horrendous costs to the bomber crews paid to achieve such paltry results.  Having failed to selectively target legitimate war-related targets, Bomber Command switched to "area bombing" hoping to "dehouse" the Germany urban population and break the morale of the Nazis by killing non-combatants because hitting the center of a city with firebombs is a much easier task that would certainly produce "results".  Until the end of WWII, this policy was continued, with the Americans eventually attempting their own strategic bombing campaign and eventually joining in with the British to wipe German cities off the map (with the corresponding effort in the Pacific to demolish Japanese cities).  Despite the horrific loss of life, hundreds of thousands of non-combatant men, women, and children killed, the will of the Germans and the Japanese to fight on never wavered.
In his essay on the effectiveness of the Strategic Bombing campaign in WWII, historian Williamson Murray wrote, "World War II was a matter of national survival, a war waged against a tyranny that represented a hideous moral and strategic danger.  Consequently, any judgment on the Combined Bomber Offensive must rest on the grounds of expediency rather than on those of morality."  In that essay, Murray seeks to establish that the bombing campaign was indeed effective in helping shorten WWII, but the vast majority of the evidence he presents revolves around actual strategic bombing of transportation networks and military targets (which was effective) rather than the indiscriminate destruction of cities (which was not).  Why did the Allies target cities?  Because they felt the need to do something, and this was what they could actually do.  Plus, there was also the desire to punish the German and Japanese people for the actions of their political leadership and military, and the unspoken belief that the lives lost in the bombing campaign were a part of the cost of winning the war, thankfully, being paid by the other side.
How do we evaluate Williamson's claim, and what does this have to do with terrorism?  The claim that any national emergency can set aside morality as the judge of our actions, and WWII was certainly a serious existential threat that is not in dispute, must still be categorically rejected by a Christian worldview.  If we can abandon the principles by which we seek to imitate Christ when our lives or even our civilization is threatened, of what value are those principles?  It is when we are being threatened or oppressed, as individuals, as a Church, and as a nation, that our feet should be most firmly planted on the solid rock of Christ.  If we instead call a "timeout", wage war by any means necessary to protect ourselves, and then seek to put the genie in the bottle again afterwards, we will instead only discover that we ourselves have changed in the process of defeating our foe, and not for the better.  I don't doubt for a moment the valor and service of the men who flew the bombers over Germany and Japan in WWII, but I cannot accept the defense of the strategy that sent them there to firebomb cities as being "necessary" at the time.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also the author of immoral behavior.
The War on Terror that started, for most of our awareness of it at least, with the horror of 9/11 and the deaths of so many innocent people, cannot be allowed to devolve until we are little better in our actions than those we are seeking to destroy.  We have already made mistakes and taken steps in that direction, the fact that politicians and talking heads debated whether or not torture should be one of the tools of our forces tells us as much.  The shame of Abu Ghraib is another example, along with the ongoing secret targeting of threats with drone strikes, suggestions that we can solve the ISIS problem by "carpet bombing" Syria, and now the ludicrous suggestion by one political candidate that Muslims be banned from entering the United States.
Terrorism is not nearly the threat to Western Civilization that the fascism of the Nazis and Japanese was.  Terrorism also is not nearly the threat to Western Civilization that Communism once was.  Terrorism is psychologically disturbing, creating fear that never seems to dissipate, but all the world's terrorists and would-be terrorists have a comparatively tiny amount of power versus the threats that have already been defeated in the modern era.  It would be a strategic mistake, and certainly an ethical one, if we allowed terrorism to change who we are, if we abandoned our optimism and desire to help those in need because of fear.
The morality taught to us by Jesus Christ is not an optional morality.  We cannot put it on when useful and take it off when it gets uncomfortable.  We must live, regardless of the threats against us, as disciples of Jesus Christ, the last thing we need to do is to start targeting the innocent alongside the guilty.

Sermon Video: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." - Luke 18:9-14

If the actions of two individuals are outwardly identical, or at least nearly so, how would you or I differentiate between the two if we suspected that one was valid and the other was not?  We'd try to look deeper, we'd try to get behind the facade to see the thoughts, emotions, and attitudes that are prompting the actions.  When it comes to God, the same action may be acceptable and pleasing to him from one person and entirely unacceptable from another because God knows the heart of the matter and sees through all our masks.  In the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus uses an example of two men praying at the same time at the Temple to illustrate the principal that outward appearances are not what impresses God.  The Pharisee, with his spotless reputation and over powering self-confidence, prays thanking God for how awesome he is (not how awesome God is), and expounding upon how well he is keeping even the minutia of the Law.  The tax collector, by contrast, offers but one thought, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Because he is self-aware, knowing the depths of his own sin, the tax collector offers nothing in his own defense, nor does he attempt to speak of his good qualities, he simply acknowledges his woeful state before God and prays for atonement to be made on his behalf.
Two men, both praying at the Temple, one of whom is in the process of becoming right with God, the other of which is drifting further and further away.  Pride is the key factor in the downfall of the Pharisee, trust in himself has replaced dependence upon God, and along with that pride has come prejudice toward everyone else who seems beneath him.  Such dedication and effort to fulfill the Law, by the Pharisee, and all of it a waste, for the grace of God is far from him.  The tax collector, pitiful though he is, and with a history full of sin, has found the grace of God, for he sought it as a drowning man grasping for a life preserver.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: Always pray and don't give up - Luke 18:1-8

In this passage, Jesus utilizes a parable about a widow seeking justice from a corrupt judge to illustrate the value of persistence and the need for ongoing prayer by comparing her difficult journey to finding justice to our close relationship with him who is our Judge, our Heavenly Father.  The widow struggled to find justice and only found it by wearing the corrupt judge down, but our Father is eager to send mercy and justice to his people, his "chosen ones", which transforms our prayers from acts of badgering to acts of obedience.  God is not pestered by our persistence in prayer, he is pleased by it.  When we pray, we take yet another small step of faith, certainly not a leap, for we know of God's goodness and mercy and every reason to expect that he will answer.
So we must continue to pray, and we must remain faithful.  That requirement does not belittle the pain and suffering of those who must wait for an answer to prayer, nor those for whom the answer from God turns our to be "no".

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: "good news of great joy" Luke 210-11

What news could you receive that you would consider to be good?  More than that, what news would also cause you great joy?  When an angel of the Lord appeared to several shepherds near Bethlehem, he brought to them "good news of great joy", but not just for them, for all peoples.  What news could fulfill that hype?  As we know, that news was the advent of the Christ child, the arrival on earth of the Son of God, in the flesh, to begin the process by which he would offer salvation to mankind.  The shepherds could only wonder at this news and the child they hustled to find, but we know the full impact of that miraculous birth, for he is indeed the savior of the world.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: "give him the name Jesus" Matthew 1:21

A short message from the Christmas Eve service.

The message of the angel to Joseph, to enable him to understand how Mary's pregnancy was not a blemish on her character, also revealed crucial insight into who this miracle child would one day be.  The name given by the angel to Joseph, Jesus, is the Greek version of the common Hebrew name, Joshua.  Joshua means, "the LORD saves", but Jesus' use of the name would be different, for as the angel said, HE would save his people, and not from oppression or injustice, but from their sins.  What's in a name?  For the Son of God, a lot, for it would indeed be the LORD that saved, this time in the flesh.

To watch the video, click on the link below: