Soldiers For Jesus

There is a curious, tight bond between evangelical Christians and the militarism of the United States in the past few years, especially that aspect which involves mortal combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. On one level, it makes some sense: Christianity promotes, at least in theory, the idea of selfless sacrifice. And soldiers either patrolling a hostile, foreign environment or engaging in open fighting are definitely putting themselves in harm's way, an act that could be realistically regarded as selfless. But they are also killing people whom Christianity regards as being lost, i.e. those who don't accept Jesus as their savior. If a believer, a TRUE believer in Christianity and its doctrine of eternal life after death being possible ONLY by accepting Jesus as savior, enlists in one of the armed services and goes overseas to fight and kill the "lost", then isn't that a sort of blasphemy? Isn't that soldier condemning, according to his or her own confessed belief system, the fallen enemy to eternal damnation? So I ask, isn't there something wrong with that?

There was one instance during the life of Jesus on Earth when an armed conflict was taking place around him and he had a chance to weigh in on it: the very time he was being arrested by the Roman soldiers. His disciple Peter reportedly instantly went into a state of intense combat, in the process lopping off the ear of one of his adversaries. The reaction of Jesus to this was not to encourage and praise Peter in the spirit we nowadays go about "supporting our troops": on the contrary, the Lord of the Christian faith rebuked Peter and ordered him to stop fighting. And then he healed the soldier's ear. H-m-m...

There is still a minority of Christian thought that still holds true to the pacifist teachings of Jesus, but they are just that: a minority. Most Christians, especially within the evangelical churches, hold on to this strange two-pronged, mutually-incompatible worldview: on one hand, they invest so much time and resources to take the Gospel in missions projects throughout the world in order to save as many souls as possible. On the other hand, they have no qualms about non-Christians dying in war at the hands of their believing sons and daughters.

I just don't get it...