We were gay soldiers

"For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish."
Isaiah 60:12

Admiral Mullen

Admiral Mike Mullen and Senator John McCain went nose-to-nose in the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting on Thursday over whether homosexuals should be able to serve openly in the military. 

A post-modern Chief of Staff and a former POW turned career senator.  The one welcomes, "Swing open the door!" while the other cautions, "Not so fast with Pandora's box."

On Friday, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Staff of the Army sided with the Senator.  "Not so fast, please."

Here's the sober truth.  Apart from a people who strive to live their lives in honor of the God who created them and thereby in accordance with his word, homosexuality and every imaginable sexual knotting will become accepted.  Without an objective source of truth to which we can appeal, all bets are off.  If homosexuality is now okey-dokey, why is polygamy frowned upon?  Why do the NAMBLA folks get such a bad rap?  Who's to say when the age of consent should be?  Try running openly homosexuals by Curtis LeMay or George Patton.  But Mike Mullen's just ducky with it.

Senator McCain



Who's to say, apart from an objective determinant for right and wrong?

Well, Christian, get over it.  In case you've been napping the past thirty years, America civically, culturally, academically, and spiritually has dismissed the God of the Bible (who happens to be the God of our heritage).  I challenge you to find a commandment (of the Big Ten) that most Americans still accept as valid.

American Christians have never known persecution, but the lions are roaring.  Consider what's happening in the military:

• A military friend noted today that he can't talk too openly about his relationship with Jesus Christ and what that means, but he could chat openly about his homosexual relationship (if he had one).
• Chaplains will either stop preaching the Bible or they will be speaking openly against a policy endorsed by the Department of Defense and their Commander in Chief.  Most chaplains don't preach the Bible anymore anyway, but those that do will now face military discipline for disobeying a superior's directives.

So what's a Bible-believing Christian to do?  Some thoughts.

First, we are sojourners.  While I passionately love the United States of America, her vistas, her cities, and her heritage, this is not my home.  Should she decide to turn her back on the living God, I will weep and grieve for the death of such an ideal and for her people, but I will not follow.  That said, I will continue to be the very best citizen that I can be until that conflicts with the word of God.

Consider Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael (aka, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego).  Those gents lived in about as pagan a land as you could hope to live.  We refer to moral trash heaps as Babylon for a very good reason, and that was the land where they were dragged and made to serve within the government.  They did very well, thank you, and did not compromise despite high-temperature quarters and gruff and growly roommates.  They served and served with distinction in a land hostile to their convictions.

I alluded to it above, but the second point is the most important; a Christian cannot compromise when the world (or his country or his commander) demands him to do so.  Daniel, when told not to pray, continued his habit of thrice-daily prayer with windows wide opened.  The three amigos, when told to bow, stood tall in a sea of genuflecting moral mice.  How's that for standing out in a crowd.  Both instances would have brought certain death but for the amazing intervention of God.

But as the three declared, it didn't matter whether God delivered them from the furnace or not.  They knew he would deliver them--ultimately.  Peter and John faced the same issue.  Either buckle under the Sanhedrin's threats and omit the politically incorrect name of Jesus Christ in their preaching or face cultural alienation and disciplinary beatings.  Their response?  "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard...We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 4:19-20, 5:29).  Jesus' disciples took a beating for that, happy that they were "counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name" (5:41).

Cutting to the chase, the Christian soldier, like Daniel and his three friends, should still be able to serve and honor God.  Crossroads may loom.  Chaplains, too, can still serve, but they know that they will be required to stand before the military Sanhedrin and declare their higher allegiance to God.  The only way the military will be able to handle that pile of goo is by either dissolving the chaplaincy in its entirety (for the first time in our nation's history) or only enlist a chaplain corps that holds to a neutered version of the Bible.

Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials...