Military Service: Clarity From Adventist Church President

In "Clear Thinking About Military Service" (Adventist World, March 2008, 8-10), Jan Paulsen, president of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church, upholds the Biblical pacifism asserted by the church's founders.  In a time when, according to the Adventist News Network, approximately 7,500 Adventists serve as combatants in the U.S. military, Paulsen addresses the church's loss of clarity and failures in providing moral guidance on this issue.  Excerpts:

War, peace, and participation in military service are not morally neutral issues. Scripture is not silent on these things, and the church, as it interprets and expresses the principles of Scripture, must be a voice of moral authority and influence. This is not an “optional” responsibility—one that we can put aside should it become uncomfortable or go against majority feeling. If we are silent, we fail in our duty to God and to humanity....

As the church expresses itself on this issue and offers counsel to both its own members and broader society, it must never allow itself to forget this one unchangeable fact: the God we serve is a healer and a Savior. Healing and saving are also the first business of the church....

The historic position of our church regarding service in the armed forces was clearly expressed some 150 years ago—very early on in our history, against the background of the American Civil War. The consensus, expressed in articles and documents of the time, as well as an 1867 General Conference resolution, was unequivocal. “…[T]he bearing of arms, or engaging in war, is a direct violation of the teachings of our Savior and the spirit and letter of the law of God” (1867, Fifth Annual General Conference Session). This has, in broad terms, been our guiding principle: When you carry arms you imply that you are prepared to use them to take another’s life, and taking the life of one of God’s children, even that of our “enemy,” is inconsistent with what we hold to be sacred and right....

Yet, in talking with church members in many different countries I have sensed, at times, a certain ambivalence toward our historic position—a sense, perhaps, that “that was then, and this is now.” And yet I know of no reason why this should be so....

Have we at times neglected our role as a moral compass on this issue? In the absence of guidance from their church, do some of our young people view joining the military as “just another career option,” rather than a complex moral decision with potentially far-reaching, maybe unforeseen, consequences for their own spiritual life?....

So, when military recruiters come to our universities and colleges, or even our secondary schools, laying out before young students the opportunities that the armed forces present, is the church providing a clear, alternate message? Is there someone also asking: “Have you considered this? Have you thought about what this may do to you? Have you thought about the price you may pay in terms of the basic values you really treasure?” The Department of Chaplaincy Ministries at the General Conference is developing some specific initiatives to help provide much-needed advice and counsel within our schools and churches, and I welcome this.

I feel especially for those individuals who have taken the “calculated risk” and find themselves drawn into a combat situation, the very position they had hoped and prayed to avoid. They see no way out. What should their church say to them? “I told you so?” “Shame on you?” No! The church is a ministering, healing, saving community. This is the moment when a young person, regardless of poor choices or wrong turns, needs to feel the embrace of their church.

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Comments

[Johnny A. Ramirez]

This is great news!

[Jared Wright]

I'm certainly glad to see concern from Adventist leaders about the military recruitment of students at Adventist schools. I not only appreciate the offering of alternatives to military service, but I would also appreciate programs at schools - ethics classes and religion and history classes that affirm Adventist non-combatancy and offer statements like President Paulsen's statements here. Adventist education needs intentional "no's" where military involvement is concerned.