BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
Worshipping Peace More than God
The always high-caliber blog of Rev. Artillery, a/k/a Donald Sensing, is blasting away at a fellow United Methodist pastor who calls it a "pastoral failure" that one of his flock joined the military.
Pretty tough talk from someone who leads a life as sheltered as an American United methodist pastor, which is typically about the least risky occupation I can think of. I'd be interested to know whether the Rev. Magruder has actually ever truly risked his own life or suffered enduring hardship on behalf of any kind of great cause, whether religious or not. If not, what is his moral authority to tell others not to do so? His ordination orders? Oh, please.
He says the decision of the young woman to join the Army was one of his first pastoral failures. I don't know how long he has been a pastor. But consider: Christ never condemned military service but he did harshly denounce divorce. Have any of Magruder's parishioners ever divorced? If so, was he as upset about their unfaithfulness to Christ as he is about the young woman? Just a thought . . . .
Personally, I would consider my pastoring a failure if my young people didn't consider joining the military - not because I think that religious virtue demands military service (it doesn't, of course) but because I think that we must inculcate in our children the desire to risk themselves on behalf of great causes. They need to understand that consumerism and money-making does not define the virtuous life. So do something difficult and risky before you pursue the great American dream. The Peace Corps would be fine, for example. But I know very few pastors who have any greater vision for their church's high school seniors than for them to go to college and join the Wesley House United Methodist fellowship.
We offer our youth no worthy battle to fight, no cause to sacrifice for. Then we denounce them for finding such things on their own. And we wonder why when they grow into young adults they stay at home on Sunday mornings.
There's a lot more I didn't excerpt - go read the whole thing.
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