A Christian and a soldier
Growing up in my Presbyterian youth group, we read about the Bible’s centurions with the assumption that they’re the antagonists. They help arrest Jesus, nail his hands and feet to the cross, mock him, gamble over his clothes and finally pierce his side. Other biblical warriors we read differently—like Samson, who mightily fights off a lion and bravely brings down a Philistine temple, killing all the enemy inside.
Then I spent six years in the army, including a long deployment to Iraq, and my perspective shifted. I focused on the centurion of great faith in Matthew and Luke, as well as on Cornelius, the first gentile convert who did not undergo circumcision. Like the centurion, I found myself “a man under authority”—and I too needed heroes to guide me in my journey of faith. These biblical characters provided a rubber stamp to seal my superficial faith.
But after I came home from the hell of war, everything seemed in question. The battlefield had taken itself to my heart and mind; forces raged within me between the common good and necessary evil. Who was friend, and who was foe? Were these soldiers saints or sinners? Heroes, or monsters?
