My uncle died in World War Two. My sister-in-law's father never lived to see his daughter because of World War Two.
Was this war really a Good War? Was it absolutely necessary? Could it have been prevented?
Has it taught us anything about the value of human life since that day at Omaha Beach some 65 years ago?
Can pacifism show a way so we never see another Omaha Beach, a Tet Offensive, a blanket bombing of Dresden,a Pearl Harbor, a Hiroshima, a 9-11?
All of the battles and/or atrocities listed above are not successes. No, they are each signs of failures...failures of diplomacy and toleration, of humane treatment of peoples, of people having access to the necessities of life (food, water, clothes, shelter).
We can argue that of course, what leads up to a war is a failure of a national country to get along with another. President Obama says, for example, that the Allies had to fight the evil of the Third Reich, that no one could say that the Second World War was not a necessary war.
And we did try, we are told, to negotiate with Hitler before we went to war against him. But Hitler thumbed his nose as he went through Europe, defeating one country after another. What alternative was there to such an onslaught?
But there were cases of non-violent resistance during this war. (See http://blogs.setonhill.edu/...
Most importantly, let it be said that no war would be possible without the complicity of those who serve under tyrants and other leaders who command the military.
(I know there are now corporations who probably could also conduct their own war with hired mercenaries and ammunition and armaments, including the new weapon, unmanned drones, but that is another blog.)
Today we mourn for those thousands who lost their loved ones on Omaha Beach some 65 years ago in France. In all, nearly 100,000 soldiers lost their lives during the two months that this battle continued.
The Second World War was a result of failure of Christianity to stay true to the ideals of the God they worshiped. Instead of valuing the early faith of Jesus's followers, who were pacifists, leaders in the church instead vilified the people from whom Jesus came, the Jews.
It was this extreme bigotry against Jews throughout Europe and beyond for nearly 2,000 years that left an opening for Hitler to capitalize on that very suspicion in order to get Christian Germans to follow him so obediently. And it was also because we punished Germany so harshly after World War One that the Germans did experience hardship postwar. But their target was the Jews, their scapegoats.
Of course, we know that this bigotry led to the holocaust against the Jews, as well as others who defended the Jews or who were considered of a lesser ethnic background than the Aryan race itself, or had some other unacceptable trait such as homosexuality.
Jesus, the ultimate pacifist, gave up his life rather than fight for his life. His followers did the same up to at least 300 years after his death.
From there, Christianity went into a Dark Age that lingers yet to this day.
Whenever a religion aligns itself with a government, that religion will more likely compromise its highest held moral ideals in order to fit in with the common denominator of the government.
And even though here in the United States, where there is separation of church and state, in order to be accepted by good patriotic Americans, the church has a very difficult time not being patriotic, as well, encouraging its young people to serve in the military when their country needs them.
To this day, even though I was born post World War Two, I feel that war was not the good war. No war is ever good. No war is reason to send off thousands, even millions of young human beings with whole lives ahead of them, to be slaughtered.
Leaders start wars because of pride and posturing. Young men and women fight the wars because of obedience and patriotism.
Meanwhile God in our souls cries.