\n<\/em><\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
In the wake of the 9\/11 terrorist attacks, the Attorney General of the United States John Ashcroft, a prominent advocate of the war in Iraq, wrote a song called \u201cLet the Eagle Soar\u201d (you can listen to it here<\/a>). \u00a0It is a deeply patriotic song, one he liked to mix with morning prayer meetings at the Department of Justice. Here are some of the words: \u201cLike she\u2019s never soared before, from rocky coast to golden shore, let the mighty eagle soar . . . Oh she\u2019s far too young to die; You can see it in her eye; She\u2019s not yet begun to fly.\u201d Many Americans found the lyrics and tune touching, even if some Justice Department lawyers did not like his brand of religious patriotism in the workplace.<\/p>\n In 2006, the year after Ashcroft stepped down from the George W. Bush Administration, Sarah Palin was elected governor of Alaska. Her words often struck a martial tone. On her reality television show \u201cSarah Palin\u2019s Alaska,\u201d she spoke frequently of \u201clocking and loading.\u201d She has used a crosshairs graphic to target politicians who voted for the Affordable Care Act. And she has been very eager to project and use American power abroad. She called the Iraq War a \u201ctask that is from God.\u201d She has been critical of Barack Obama, no peacenik himself. She said, \u201cPresident Obama actually seems reluctant to even embrace American power.\u201d Elsewhere Palin mourned, \u201cWe have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn\u2019t appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n What do these high-profile persons have in common besides nationalism and conservative politics? According to authors Jay Beaman and Brian Pipkin, who profiled Ashcroft and Palin in a recent book titled Pentecostal and Holiness Statements on War and Peace<\/em><\/a>, both are affiliated with the Assemblies of God<\/a> denomination. Every time Ashcroft has been sworn in to political office, he is anointed with oil (in the manner of King David). Palin was a longtime member of Wasilla Assembly of God. These two prominent politicians do not exactly represent Pentecostalism<\/a> or broader evangelicalism, which sometimes features a more measured just-war posture or an interest in peacebuilding. But close observers of Pentecostal churches, which often feature an American flag on stage, would recognize the God-and-country flavor of the contemporary movement.<\/p>\n This twenty-first-century iteration of Pentecostalism, however, would have been utterly foreign to movement progenitors. In the wake of the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906 and at the founding of the denomination in 1914, the Assemblies of God were officially pacifist. As late as October 1940, the Assemblies of God still claimed that \u201cmilitary service is incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that a Christian cannot fully follow the teachings of his Lord and Master if he engages in armed conflict.\u201d Several scholarly works have already recovered this forgotten history. Robert Mapes Anderson\u2019s Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism<\/em> (1979) and Grant Wacker\u2019s Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture<\/em> (2003) treated this lightly. More recently, Paul Alexander narrated a full-scale account of Pentecostal pacifism in Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God<\/em><\/a> (2009).<\/p>\n By contrast, the Church of God<\/a> (Cleveland, Tennessee) persisted longer. They were not only against war, but for<\/em> peace. In an official denomination statement, the denomination called upon their members to attempt \u201cexploits for Peace on Earth as risky as do men of war.\u201d More specifically, they called in the late 1960s for the diversion of war budgets to social programs for the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n Why did Pentecostal churches lose this orientation? You\u2019ll have to read Paul Alexander\u2019s Peace to War <\/em>for the full story. Interestingly, there seems to be signs of rapprochement with the past as Anabaptists and Pentecostals in recent decades have begun meeting outside their respective enclaves. Brian Pipkin, who grew up attending Assemblies of God and Foursquare churches, learned about pacifism at a Pentecostal seminary in the Philippines, where he read The Upside-Down Kingdom<\/a><\/em> by the Anabaptist scholar Donald Kraybill. Paul Alexander<\/a>, who was a licensed minister with the Assemblies of God and co-founder of Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace and Justice<\/a>, attended Pasadena Mennonite Church for a time. Martin Mittelstadt, a professor of New Testament at Evangel University, calls himself a \u201cMennocostal\u201d who rejects nationalism and embraces counter-culturalism and a \u201cSpirit-led, story-based hermeneutic.\u201d To meet many others, check out the PCPJ website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m on a blogging break while conducting research in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I hope you find this post from 2014 to be an intriguing counter-narrative on this July 4 holiday.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013David *** In the wake of the 9\/11 terrorist attacks, the Attorney General of the United States John Ashcroft, a prominent advocate of the war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1483,"featured_media":32978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[500,28,833,1193,1550],"tags":[1506,1505,4322,1551,282],"class_list":["post-32969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-religious-history","category-christian-nation","category-david-swartz","category-pacifism","category-pentecostalism","tag-brian-pipkin","tag-jay-beaman","tag-john-alexander","tag-john-ashcroft","tag-sarah-palin"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2018\/06\/Palin-with-rifle-186x300.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2014\/04\/New_book_2013-193x300.jpg\" "\\"New_book_2013\\"")
<\/a>But Beaman and Pipkin\u2019s book Pentecostal and Holiness Statements on War and Peace<\/em> <\/a>(2013) offers something new: hundreds of fascinating primary sources showing the pacifist orientation of the Pentecostal movement. Take, for instance, this 1938 column from the Foursquare Church, founded by the colorful Aimee Semple McPherson: \u201cShould a Christian take up arms in time of war? The question is perhaps, a little late. It already has been answered\u2014IN THE BIBLE. Until the Ten Commandments are repealed the Christian has no alternative but to stay aloof from war and its consequent destruction of human life. Should one be drafted? Well, prayer changes things. And the God who saved Noah from the flood, and preserved Daniel in the lions\u2019 den and his brethren in the fiery furnace, surely can \u2018handle\u2019 so inconsequential a thing as a little draft-board. Prayer, wisdom and the proof of patriotic loyalty on our part, couple with a willingness to serve our country in non-combatant service should turn the trick for any obedient child of God.\u201d Beaman notes that the Foursquare Church grappled with the pacifist impulse until WWII, when it capitulated (or came to its senses, depending on your theological persuasion) and embraced the use of lethal force and the preservation of a \u201cChristian America.\u201d<\/p>\n