University of Virginia Professor of Religion Charles Marsh is one of my favorite writers. His books on the history and theology of the Civil Rights movement (including The Beloved Community, recently released) offer vivid arguments, wrapped in well-told stories, for why “ideas matter.” For example, in God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights, Marsh explores the mystery behind the fact that both civil rights marchers and leaders of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan claimed that it was devotion to Jesus Christ that motivated and informed their role in the struggle for (and against) racial justice in America. White, “Bible-believing” churches during the Civil Rights era often taught that the church should not involve itself in such “worldly matters” as race, politics, or social protest. Their silence provided cover for church members to participate in the KKK, believing that they were “purifying” a nation that had lost its way.

Well, such “worldly matters” have been dealt with and settled, haven’t they? Haven’t they? Then we read in today’s Rocky Mountain News about the re-segregation of Denver’s schools since the end of court-mandated busing, and are reminded once again that we’ve still got plenty of homework to do on the issue of race. But that’s for another discussion...

Marsh has an editorial in yesterday’s (January 20, 2006) New York Times called "Wayward Christian Soldiers." (The full article can be found here.) This time, however, Marsh has shifted his focus from civil rights to war in Iraq.

Marsh, who identifies himself as an evangelical, wonders how much the witness and integrity of the evangelical church have been damaged by our coziness with the highest levels of political power in the US generally, and by evangelical support for the war in Iraq in particular (87% support in 2003, and a still-high 68% today).
Marsh has been reading the sermons of well-known evangelical pastors in the days leading up to the Iraq war. Charles Stanley’s argument that "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," was typical of what Marsh found in his study. It seems these pastors saw the war as opening up new opportunities for evangelism among Muslims, as well as a possible focal point for end-times events. As a professor of religion, Marsh was dismayed by how little theological reflection was demonstrated in these pro-war sermons. “The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.” One exception to the rule is well-known British author, theologian and pastor John Stott, who believes that going to war without UN sanction was a moral error.

Full disclosure: I was, and remain, torn about the war. I’m frustrated by my own indecisiveness on the issue, which is not for any lack of effort or study. I’ve felt cursed by an ability to appreciate both sides of the issue, while being offended by the extreme views of both left and right – and by the dearth of meaningful theological reflection on the reasons Christians chose one side or the other. Yet all my own reflection has left me hovering somewhere in the middle. Truthfully, I tilt toward opposition to the war, but recognize that a very grave situation existed that demanded some sort of action.

Marsh’s final words in today’s NYT certainly are challenging me to end my neutrality, however belatedly; “What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.”