Presented on September 25, 2007, this is the first in a series of talks given by pastor and author Johann Christoph Arnold to an assembly of high school students at the Woodcrest community in Rifton, NY. Woodcrest is part of Church Communities International whose members have practiced pacifism and conscientious objection since 1921.

Here we are looking out over nature and it looks very peaceful. But the time is coming, where you might see a mushroom cloud here, and everything destroyed. You young people have heard very little lately about peace and alternatives to war. So tonight I am going to speak about that, and hopefully you will be helped and inspired to prepare for your future.

We live in a country that has been at war now for over four years with Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq alone almost 4,000 Americans have been killed. And the tragic thing is there is no end in sight. Our President has no intention of changing his policy on Iraq. He wants to leave the question of bringing troops home to his successor. This is the atmosphere in which you young people are growing up. So you have to ask the question: what is your duty as young Americans? What is your duty to our nation? Should we choose to go along with war, or should we choose conscientious objection?

There is a very important passage from Romans, which the governments use as the reason to wage war. It is from Romans 13. (It should be taken very seriously because it means we need to respect and honor our government; we need to respect our President, our congressional leaders, and we need to respect authority). So it says here:

Rom 13:1-4: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain!

It is important to remember, that government does not bear the sword in vain. “For he is God’s minister as an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”

So, Jesus challenges us to love all people, also those who go to war, and to condemn nobody. That is the reason why we respect our government and pray for our President. Romans 12:17 says: “Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.” And that’s what you young people, as you grow up, need to think about:

Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

This is the end times. Wars are always associated with the end times. And already 2,000 years ago Jesus spoke about the end times to his disciples, and that passage is pertinent today. It is from Matthew 24.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation (exactly what we are experiencing today). For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (Just recently there were a lot of earthquakes.) All this is to be, but it is the beginning of the birth pangs. Then they will deliver you up to tribulations and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.

You better start thinking about this because up until now, you have suffered absolutely nothing. But that is to come, and it probably will come in your lifetime. It says here: “Then they will deliver you up to tribulations and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.” So in other words, wars and violence are always going to be part of our lives.

Your parents are convinced that war in any form is wrong, and that is the history of our community movement, and the history of the Hutterian movement of over 400 years, that war in any form is wrong. We are willing – and we promise this at our baptism – we are willing to go to prison or to die to make this peace question a reality. And many brave people have done this in the history of mankind, and now it is your turn to make your decision. So all I ask you tonight, all your parents are asking you tonight, is to respect your parents’ convictions, is to respect the community’s convictions, even if later on you choose to do your own thing. And remember: you have an obligation to God and to your fellowmen for the way you have been brought up.

So the questions arises: was the bloodshed in the history of mankind (which started with the murder of Abel by his brother Cain) part of God’s original plan when he created Adam and Eve in Paradise and then placed them on the earth after Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s instruction by listening to the serpent? The answer to that is a definite “No.” And you actually know it because you have known the 10 commandments since you were children, especially about honoring father and mother, and the sixth commandment which says, “Thou shalt not kill.” In the modern translations this is changed, tragically, to “You shall not murder,” but in the original it says, “You shall not kill.” Another quote from Matthew where Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.

And in another place in Matthew it says:

You have heard that it was said, (and that’s from the Old Testament) ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

In the history of mankind, in Hutterian history, there are many who have sacrificed themselves. There is a wonderful story of WWI where four Hutterite brothers were jailed because of their conviction that military service is wrong. And two of them, Joseph and Michael, died because of cruel treatments and starvations. And when WWI started, my grandfather, Eberhard Arnold, eagerly responded to military duty. Now when he did that, he did not have the background that you have had of hearing about peace and conscientious objection. He thought it was his duty as a young German to report for military duty. He was then discharged for health reasons, and later on he saw that military duty was not the will of Jesus, and so he started to proclaim the gospel of peace. He became convinced that war was wrong, and your parents and the community gathered here feel exactly the same. We have tried to teach it to you since you were small, but you have to come to your own convictions. It is so important to respect and honor the convictions of your parents because in Proverbs it says,

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and discipline. Listen, my son, to your father’s instructions, and do not forsake your mother’s teachings.

So God is saying to you to listen to your father’s instructions. Think once about it: what is it that your father instructed you since you were small, and are you listening to it? Because that is the plea from Proverbs: “Listen, my son, to your father’s instructions, and do not forsake your mother’s teachings.” This is a very, very important word.

Now when I was about a 7th grader, I had no plan to join the community whatsoever. But one thing I was sure of because of what my father taught me (and I knew what my grandfather wanted, even though I never knew my grandfather), that military service was wrong, and I would never join the military. And that was because of what I was taught. I knew instinctively that if I would violate this, it would deeply destroy something in my soul. And then later, as our community was in Paraguay, I lived in Asunción for a while. One evening, we had visitors from America. (America seemed like Mars to us!) And these people (it might sound funny to you) were dressed in jeans, they had T-shirts on, and had a crew cut. They looked like aliens to us! But these four people told us about the anti-war movement in the United States; and the civil rights movement with such a joy and enthusiasm. And then (we had never heard a Negro spiritual; and didn’t know what that was) they taught us “Gonna' lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside.” We said, “Wow!” And then, “Swing low, sweet chariot.” That was such an experience to hear these songs. They were like an answer to prayer, pointing us to something that we knew was true in our hearts, but we were immature like you and didn’t know how to verbalize it. And that song, “Gonna' lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside,” expressed everything that was on our hearts. It was an incredible experience.

These strangers from America planted a seed of Jesus into our heart which bore fruit later. My prayer tonight is that a seed for Jesus will be planted in your heart which might only bear fruit years down the road, but the main thing is—it doesn’t really matter when—but that it does bear fruit, because God’s kingdom needs that.

Now it is getting serious. The time we live in is no fun, and you young people, you need to find a faith in Jesus, but you need to become realistic. The powers that be are beating the war drums more than ever before. When you are in high school you hear and see military recruiters. Their propaganda machine is so cunning, so slick, and it sounds so enticing. It has one aim: to sweep you off your feet and you will say, “Wow, this is something for me; this is something I have been looking for. I can be something in the military. The military is my family.” All that is hogwash, and you really sell your soul to Satan. There is really nothing else to say than that. That is what the propaganda machine is doing very effectively. It is much, much harder to say “No” to that.

You all know that we have had a lot of contact with military families, with vets, law enforcement, and with people who have returned from the Iraq war. We know from them that volunteering for military service, being rushed off to the battlefield and being wounded and killed, that that takes a tremendous amount of courage and conviction. And they need to be in our prayers; their families need to be on our prayers. But let’s not forget there is a much, much better way.

On Sunday our children sang in Beacon with Pete Seeger. I was not there, but someone told me the amazing thing that Pete Seeger is such an optimist. Remember he is over 85 years old. He remembers WWII; he remembers the two nuclear bombs our country dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He said he is more hopeful about mankind today than he was at the time the two nuclear bombs were thrown at Japan. He thought that was the end of the world. Now I am not such an optimist as Pete Seeger, so I have a lot to learn. And that is where you people have to find the way between optimism and realism.

In my lifetime – I am 67 years old – just think of all the wars that have happened. I was born when WWII was just one year old and shortly after that we traveled to Paraguay over the ocean, the ships being attacked by submarines, and you all know the story, and the war ended with the horrible nuclear bombs on Japan which killed thousands of people. So that happened in my lifetime even though I was very, very small, and I don’t remember it. But then there was the Korean War, and then there was the Cold War which really affected everybody; the conflict between the communist block and the western block. And then there was the Vietnam War, and we all know different ones who have been Vietnam. That war had many, many casualties -- 58,000 Americans died. Then there was the Persian Gulf War, and now the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. And now, as I said in the beginning, they are just on the verge of starting a war with Syria and Iran. In fact, a few months ago Israel had an air strike against Syria which nobody has talked about. Nobody really knows yet what happened there.

Now I always had the question which many of you probably have also thought about: what is the purpose of war? You wish that one day people would realize that war really doesn’t achieve anything and people will start living in peace. You wish that would happen, but it does not. WWII and WWI were fought to end all wars, and it didn’t stop. I believe, as the end times progress, that wars will never stop. In fact, they will get a lot worse. Thousands and millions of people are going to be annihilated and killed, possibly including us here, and there is going to be great suffering and destruction. This can be very scary; it can be very fearsome to think about. But in actual fact what I am trying to say is, the worse the violence gets, the worse the wars get, the more exciting it actually is because it can only mean one thing: that God’s kingdom isn’t far away.

The only reason why such destruction happens in the world again and again, and is getting stronger and stronger, is because Satan is becoming desperate. God is at work. We just don’t realize how God is at work. So Satan is trying to shoot all his fireworks, thinking that he will be successful, but then just when we believe that everything is lost; just when we believe that there is no hope left, at that moment God’s kingdom will come. And it is this that we have to believe in, and it is this that you young people have—in fact, it’s the only thing you have—to hold on to.

So my plea to you tonight is to seriously think, to talk with your parents, to talk with one another. For goodness’ sake, do something! It takes only one “No,” one person who has the courage. Like in the time of the Vietnam War, I remember the billboards of young people like you who said, “Hell no, we won't go.” That was the attitude of college students during that time to shout out: “Hell no! We won't go.” These students had courage. Now what courage are you going to have to say “No” to this power which wants to sweep everybody, including you, along like dead trout in the spring rains? Are you going to be a dead trout that will be just swept along with everybody else? Or are you going to have courage and say “No” and make a difference? That is our prayer tonight.

 

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