“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’
And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”
(Isaiah 6:8)
If you’ve been a Bible reader or an avid listener of sermons for any length of time, you know God was commissioning his prophet Isaiah to do the difficult and dangerous job of proclaiming his Word. He was calling him to preach the truth to 8th century B.C Israel and their neighboring countries. Isaiah’s “Send me!” to God’s “Who will go for us?” would frame his life’s purpose from then on.
It probably didn’t hurt that along with the call came a vision of a bunch of angels crying “Holy, holy, holy” around the throne of the Almighty. As a sign that he was forgiven of his sins and qualified to speak for God, one of those awesome creatures touched his lips with a hot coal from the altar,.
Would you agree that this call could be applied to anyone willing to be sent by God to proclaim the truth to the people he loves? And would you also agree that this is a call to preach, not to kill? I’m saying, he wasn’t ordering Isaiah to kill his enemies, but to appeal to them to repent and believe. So, would you agree then that for someone to apply this passage to send people into battle to eliminate one’s enemies would be gross misuse of this passage?
One could argue that there are many other passages in Scripture where God did tell his people to go to war and kill their enemies. First of all, this isn’t one of them. This passage has an altogether different purpose than those. Secondly, applying even those other passages to justify sending any country since then to war is highly suspect, if not immoral.
Nevertheless, not once, but on two separate occasions this year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth invoked this passage in Isaiah to rouse American soldiers on their way to war. During both the West Point graduation and the 82nd anniversary of D-Day in France he used Isaiah’s call to prophesy to whip up the troops to go out and fight their enemies.
It comes as no surprise then that Hegseth, who fancies himself the “Secretary of War,” has as his mantra, “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” In other words, internationally accepted rules of engagement matter less than getting at the job of killing the greatest number of the enemy. It’s what he calls a “warrior ethos.” This just gives us a window into his mind regarding his role and the role of the military over which he presides.
There is a certain elasticity to one’s application of Scripture (which is different from its interpretation). But it mustn’t be so stretchy as to break with its original intent, which is what Hegseth did.
I get that it’s not his job to teach the troops to knit scarves for terrorists. But his deceitful twisting of Scripture to fit his agenda and to frame our military’s ethos, especially so egregiously out of context, offends me. And if you’re a follower of Jesus and love his Word, I think it should offend you as well.
I do love the Bible. It’s been a lamp to my feet and a light to my path for over fifty years. It’s like those bowling-alley bumpers on both sides of the lane. I may not roll a strike, but at least it keeps me from tossing my life into the gutter. Like anyone, I am subject to misinterpreting it, but in my opinion Hegseth’s attempt to sanctify his agenda by using God’s Word out of context is a bridge too far.
David Dark said that the real terror threat in the United States right now is biblical illiteracy. Case in point would be the way slave owners used the Bible to justify their atrocities against humanity. Did you know that one of the slave ships responsible for bringing Africans to the Americas was named “The Jesus”?
There are sermons and then there are sermons. Know what I mean? The sermons to watch out for are the ones that are clear, dynamic, funny, vivid, creative, passionately delivered—and wrong! They’re wrong in proportion to the preacher’s lazy, if not intentionally ambitious use of the Word of God. There are no perfect preachers. We’re all subject to misunderstanding the Word of truth. I’m sure it’ll all be bleached out in the wash in the next life. But the calculated distortion of truth to push one’s agenda is something altogether different.
You might feel I’m being unfair to the Secretary. After all, he’s not a preacher. He self-identifies as a Christian, but as far as I know he doesn’t claim to be a spokesman for God. Well then, I would strongly urge him not to use the Bible publicly to push his agenda. I imagine he has other Christians in his orbit, maybe even some Bible scholars. If he insists on using the Scripture in his speeches, maybe he should ask them to verify how he uses it and when. Otherwise, maybe he should just stick to The Art of War by Sun Tzu or The City of God by Augustine instead.
barney wiget 