the national Mall. Inspired by Washington DC perhaps, a broad green
sward descends from the parliament house to the lake: and across the
lake, it continues in an avenue of memorials leading to the Australian
national war memorial.
The effect is impressive: from the door of the Parliament, your eye
cannot help being drawn to the war memorial. It's as if the war dead
are watching over all who come and go from the seat of Australian
Democracy, reminding them of the blood-price of that place. I guess
the American Mall includes a number of war memorials, and the British
Offices of State overlook the Cenotaph, but the effect in Canberra
seems particularly striking: attention is not on a statesman, or a
nation-builder, or a king, but upon those whose lives were laid down.
Each name on that memorial represents a life broken, a family
shattered. Each individual loss seems callous and senseless. Each
individual could have been someone else, were it not for that stray
bullet, that piece of shrapnel, the path of that disease, that
particular fire: though some undoubtedly were in harm's way precisely
because of a sense of duty or as a result of conspicuous valour.
But the combined effect of those individuals is something else
entirely. Wars arise for good reasons and bad: undoubtedly, some
should not have been fought. Some have genuinely, measurably, reduced
the amount of tyrrany in the world. Notwithstanding a few WW2
expeditions by the Japanese, Australia's borders have never really
been threatened since European settlement: but her sons (and
daughters) have travelled to Europe, Asia, Africa, for causes
percieved as just.
Can we decry that? The criteria for a Just War seem defensible: there
are situations when an aggressor can be stopped only by the use of
deadly force. Our willingness and ability to act may be patchy, but
that does not diminish the value or worthiness of doing so.
Where is today's Christian in this? In the days of conscription, our
parents and grandparents struggled with this issue in a way that few
of us have to: pacifisim and conscientious objection was no coward's
way, but it certainly wasn't the route of social acceptability. Most
of the time, few of us think about it at all, I imagine.
When bringing military remembrance into church, we often give thanks
for the freedoms we enjoy - not least the freedom to worship - these
having been brought about by those who fought and died `for freedom'.
Whether freedom to worship is the thing we should be most thankful
for, I'm not sure. But more importantly, I'm not certain that that
line of thinking holds water in every case - the Just War criteria are
not crafted around the concept of freedom, as such. Its undoubtedly
true that in some conflicts our own freedom has been enhanced by
fighting to install decidedly non-freedom-loving regimes in foreign
parts.
It seems to me that the main point of occasional wartime remembrance
in worship is for the sake of the pastoral care of those touched by
war and conflict: delving deeply into geopolitics is better left to a
differnt context. Too readily we wander into a kind of Christian
nationalism which rather confuses the kingdoms (and republics) of this
world with the kingdom of God: there's much sloppy thinking here, and
its best avoided altogether.
I can only respect those named on the Australian war memorial: and on
memorials in towns and villages across the whole of Europe - and I
imagine America and much of the rest of the world. Would that we
could say "never again": but while the world contains leaders bent on
violence, "never" seems wildly optimistic. In the meantime, the
location of that Australian memorial contains much wisdom. Our
leaders, and we who put them there, would do well to look daily into
the eyes of those commemorated in memorials across the world, and
recall the cost of our way of life.
