My Soul Is Troubled Within Me

My judicatory will hold its annual convention next year at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Some hairsplitters will suggest that the Hope Hotel is not really on the base since it’s outside the gate. However, the hotel is built on property owned by and leased from the base. It was built to support military and civilian personnel who do business on or with the base.

Wright-Patterson is the primary research base for the United States Air Force. Buildings, offices, and labs belonging to military contractors ring the sprawling facility. Wright-Patterson is the largest employer in the Dayton area, and regional economic development organizations see job and regional economic growth as more and more tied to it.

The University of Dayton, a strong Roman Catholic University, used to refuse (on religious grounds) research projects that were directly related to weapons. However, in recent years the appeal of big money has caused U.D. to succumb to the lure of weapons research.

Wright-Patterson is home to the U.S. Air Force Museum with its primary focus on displays of military aircraft. School children are regularly taken through the museum. A recent activity of the Dayton region’s arts program for youth (the K-12 Gallery) was to have the kids decorate model F-16 fighter planes that now “enhance” light posts throughout downtown Dayton. Every performance by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra begins with a rendering of the national anthem that celebrates “the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air.”

Although I have been warned by a friend not to say that Wright-Patterson’s mission is to devise new and more efficient ways to kill people, I would submit that more benign and even benevolent activities related to the base take a secondary position to this primary role.

Many people in my parish work in or with the military or the research associated with the base. Others work or volunteer with the museum. Still others are retired from there. Livelihoods, families, education, economic wellbeing, and even the arts in the greater Dayton area swim in a sea of militarism, a celebration of war and war-making machines, and depend upon the oxygen that comes from that sea. Therefore, there’s little or no critique, and a deep reluctance to overtly explore how our baptismal faith might put every one of us in a quandary.

I am paid, in part, by money earned and contributed to the church from salaries that come through Wright-Pat. I pay taxes that support the military. I am a citizen of a country that is governed, as many commentators have observed, by the Pentagon and the vast military/industrial complex. My brother, a retired Air Force colonel, now works at Wright-Patterson as a civilian. I have a son who is on active duty in the armed forces, which is the only place he could find a job, training, and benefits to support himself and his family. So I write not as one who disinterestedly stands outside of the sea of militarism. I swim there, too.

Much of the time I join the vast conspiracy of silence. But my soul is troubled within me. I promise to follow the Prince of Peace who came proclaiming the kingdom of God in direct contrast to the kingdom of Caesar ruled through violence. This last Sunday (November 7, 2010) we heard the gospel proclamation, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Our congregation renewed our baptismal vows:

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

“I will, with God’s help,” we all proclaimed after each question. But do we really want God’s help in fulfilling these promises if they mean resisting the sea in which we swim, if we understand that the oxygen we take from it is toxic, if we become more deeply conscious that even our silence collaborates with the kingdom of Caesar?

As I write, our President is traveling the world like a an old-fashioned peddler, hawking American goods (including very high-priced and very dangerous weapons) as a way of producing jobs here at home—while the holders of those new jobs will also become addicted to the toxicity of the military/industrial complex.

Something about our Diocesan convention meeting on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has struck a discordant note within me. Maybe we can’t get out of the martial sea. But I hope and pray that we can find a way to talk about this. I do not want to simply go to that convention and to have the world see us meeting there, and to think that we are there to baptize what takes place there in the name of and for the sake of Jesus.

I hope and pray that other souls are as troubled as mine.