CAN I GET IN QUICK AND GET OUT?

 

Our blog series based on John Wesley’s Manifesto leads to the statement: “avoid getting into wars.” Seems like a simple four-word phrase, but those four words say a whole lot more. War alone is a little word that has history and pain, emotional, political, historical.

 

The United States of America is a country that has only had a few wars actually on “its” soil. A brief amount of research says that “the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the War of 1812 (1812-1814) were all fought on American soil. World War II (1939-1945), the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and The French and Indian War (1754-1763) took place on areas that would eventually be part of the United States.”

Three wars on our soil and three others in areas that would eventually become part of this country. Not bad, but we are a fairly young country, only having been in existence for 244 years. No discussion that uses the words “American soil” can be had without the caveat and statement that the land that is “ours” is land that was here well before 1776 that was “captured” or “taken”. Total major wars since North America was “discovered” total 22, which does not include the attack at Pearl Harbor or the attack in New York City on September 11, 2001. This does not include any non-major wars or fighting that occurred prior to its “discovery”.

And then there are the wars not on American soil that we have been involved in. Just those off the top of my head are Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq.

After that history, we come back to the fact that “war” is not a simple word.  War is defined as an “intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces.”

At best, it results in death, injury, and destruction. Seems simple to say “no more war”, but what happens when we encounter a situation and feel called to fight against terror? Do we just avoid war entirely because it’s bad, or do we do something because the existing terror is worse?

I don’t have the answer to answer of these questions. I personally have been fortunate not to be intimately involved in war, nor to have close family members that have been involved in war, so my personal knowledge lacks a great deal. But for this discussion, I fall back on those words at the beginning “getting into”. It sounds like you just get into war like you get into a pool. A quick decision, quickly accomplished, no big deal. War IS a big deal, and it can’t be a quick decision.

John Wesley’s actual words say it this way: “War: What farther proof do we need of the utter degeneracy of all nations from the plainest principles of reason and virtue? Of the absolute want, both of common sense and common humanity, which runs through the whole race of humankind?” Some of these words are the complete opposite of the “get in”, “get out” kind of theory:

·            Utter degeneracy

·            Lack of reason

·            Lack of virtue

·            Absolute want of common sense

·            Absolute want of common humanity

And it ends with the words, race of humankind. If our race is the race of all of humankind, then it goes without saying that fighting a war is fighting against our own siblings, our own friends, our own families.

 That is not a get in quick kind of prospect, is it?