Onward Christian Soldiers?!
A Sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
May 21, 2006

I John 5: 1-6
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³ For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴ for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵ Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? ⁶ This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.* 

The great philosopher, Plato, was very suspicious of music. He wrote that music would raise the passions of men and women and thus obscure their ability to reason. Plato did not know a thing about churches or church music, hymns and songs, but he sure hit the nail on the head. In many churches the music department is called the “war department”. I would say that among the most volatile things that churches deal with, music is among the most intense. During my ministry, there have been two publications of a new hymnal. The first thing that people do when the see a new hymnal is to check and see if their hymn made the cut. One of those controversial hymns that divides people is “Onward Christian Soldiers”. Those who object to it claim that it is militaristic and brings back thoughts of crusades in the name of God. Those who love it, usually recall that it was one of the first songs that they learned in Sunday School. (It was the first hymn I learned in Vacation Bible School).

My message today is not the story of that hymn, rather the idea that is expressed in it. It uses an image of a great battle to describe the church. Its members are soldiers in the battle and they are moving to the front line. I believe that some of the negative press that this hymn has gotten is unwarranted. The battle is not with communism, nor is it with Islam, nor is it with whomever our enemy happens to be at the time. The battle is with evil in all its forms. The weapons are not guns and airplanes, tanks and missiles. The tools used in this war is Christian love. Today I want to first look at the theme of John’s first letter because it uses battle imagery. Second, I will give an overview of the battlefield. I would like to conclude by reiterating the challenge of “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

I

John wrote: “for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.” The language of conquest runs through the New Testament. The apostle Paul wrote that “we are more than conquerors.” The book of Revelation described the final conquest….by a lamb! But this language of conquest is not about military or political conquest. It describes something completely different. It proclaims a faith that conquers. It proclaims a faith that is made visible in love. Consider the context of this passage. It is in a section that deals with Christian love and the power of that love. That is what I preached about last week. Faith, manifest in action, (love) conquers the world. Kings and empires pass. Great armies are ultimately defeated…. Only one thing conquers.

My fear is that we usually sentimentalize this message. My fear is that we often give it lip service in worship, but believe that it really doesn’t work “in the real world.” (I challenge anyone to tell me what works in the “real world”). The love that John wrote about; the love that Jesus lived and practiced; the love that runs through the message of the gospels is not sentimental. It is hard, demanding, and requires discipline. It often leads us to struggle with ourselves when we are confronted by the unlovable. Love challenges us to love this world and the people in it, just as God loves this world. Love challenges us, in the face of evil, not to give in by responding to evil with evil. Love challenges us to say “no” to the cycle of hate, killing and death that seems to characterize life.

II

Let us examine the battlefield. What is it that love seeks to conquer? This weekend one of the big news stories was the release of the movie The DaVinci Code. The book was fun and held my interest, but there is no doubt about it. It is fiction. I cannot believe that we are getting so much energy up over this film, (which I understand is not that great.) There are websites all over the place giving the Christian point of view. There are protests planned. The media is having a field day interviewing any clergyperson with an opinion. A great deal of money is being spent for posters, and signs, books to refute the message of this movie. A number of my colleagues are preaching special sermon series on this. Sony, the company that is funding this film anticipated this reaction and used it cleverly to market the movie.

The pundits refer to this as an example of the culture war, and indeed it might be one… but that is not the battle that we are called to fight. While we are spending our millions on films and websites to disprove whatever the message is of this movie, millions are going to bed hungry in the evening in our own land. The violence continues in the Middle East and Iraq. Innocent people, mostly children and women are being abused and killed in the Darfur region of the Sudan. We still have thousands who are displaced from the damage of hurricane Katrina. The AIDS pandemic in Africa threatens to destroy half the population of that continent. While we protest this film, people are hurting and suffering the world over. Where is the battlefield for “Christian soldiers”? It is not in front of the cinema. It is assisting in a soup kitchen, a clinic for the poor, building or rebuilding homes and lives in East Asia and the Gulf region of our country. We got a glimpse of the battlefield two weeks ago when Doug Baker was here and shared with us the powerful message of reconciliation that he and brave women and men are bringing to the conflict in Northern Ireland. The battlefield is also in our Sunday school rooms, teaching our children the values of love, the stories of faith and the heroics of our spiritual ancestors. The battlefield is close to all of us. It is where relationships have broken, where hearts and souls are scarred, where anger defines relationships. It is learning to love those who are near to us. It takes courage to step on to these battlefields… moral courage… and most of us find it easier to whine and moan about some movie that is here for a couple of weeks and gone.

III

We should be careful when we stand up and sing hymns. Charles Merrill Smith, a Methodist clergyman, wrote a book a number of years ago entitled How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious. He had one section on hymns and there he warned the aspiring bishop to be careful in the selection of hymns. Imagine the president of the local bank singing: “Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold” Or the members of the gourmet club singing “Earthly pleasures vainly call me… Nothing worldly shall enthrall me… “ Consider all the hardnosed successful executives and community leaders enjoying all the fine things of life singing: “Others may choose this vain world if they will, I will follow Jesus;” And then there is “Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war”…. That is not a hymn for the timid. It is a call to battle, but not a military battle. It is battle of love and compassion, a battle of healing and hope, a battle of rebuilding and healing. Victory is not measured with land or territory conquered but is on the cross and the hope that is offered in the love and forgiveness of the one who died: Jesus Christ our Lord. “Onward Christian soldiers”… can we follow Christ and conquer in his style? His spirit? His name? His love? Can we follow Christ to the cross? Amen.  

*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org