The Allied victory in WWII rid the world of Hitler's threat. I suspect also that it helped provide fodder for today's apparent mindset that military force is the answer to all evil. We live in a very militaristic society, witness the tank or airplane along the roadside in front of the National Guard armory, or the thrilling display of power as the Air Force Thunderbirds fly overhead, or the oohs and aahs of the crowd when the roar of a B-52 flyover stuns the senses. Do Christians ever stop to think that these are killing machines? Do we really think that God thrills at the display of our military might?

I suspect that pre-WWII Americans would be surprised at present-day American willingness and even eagerness to rely on military power. Americans were drug kicking and screaming into WWII but today seem all too ready to fly the flag with military might wherever in our world threats to our existence seem to emerge.

I am not a pacifist in the strict sense of the word. I do believe, however, that American Christians have been all too willing to accept militarism as a way of life and as the means to be protected from all evil. Someone once said that even as the cross was God's supreme revelation so war is the supreme revelation of human evil. When entered it should be with great sorrow and humility. Christians for too long have gloried, not in the cross, but in American military might.