Bryan Fischer responds to the latest outrage he has provoked with his recent blog post decrying “the feminization of the Medal of Honor.”
As he typically does in these situations, Fischer reacts by accusing everyone else of intentionally misrepresenting his point and then proceeds to “clarify” it by reiterating his position in such a way that it makes the extent of his extremism all the more obvious, as if the problem was that somehow people just misunderstood him the first time.
And so we end up with posts like this in which he explains that all he was saying was that we as a nation need to start honoring soldiers who kill lots of people because such actions are greatly pleasing to God:
The Scriptures certainly know nothing of such squeamishness. Remember what drove King Saul into a jealous rage was when the women of Israel commemorated David’s exploits in song:
“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7).
And this was not the last of David’s exploits in just wars. He went down to the town of Keilah where he “fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow” (1 Samuel 23:5).
Then he went after the Amalekites, and we are told that “David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day, and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who mounted camels and fled” (1 Samuel 30:17).
Again, “David did as the LORD commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer” (2 Samuel 5:25).
Further we read in 2 Samuel 8, “David defeated the Philistines and subdued them…he defeated Moab…David also defeated Hadadezer the son of Rehob, king of Zobah…David struck down 22,000 men of the Syrians…and the LORD gave victory to David everywhere he went…and David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt…and the LORD gave victory to David wherever he went” (vv. 1,2,3,5,6,13,14).
And this, remember, was “the man after (God’s) heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).
Christianity is not a religion of pacifism. Remember that John the Baptist did not tell the soldiers who came to him to lay down their arms, even when they asked him directly, “what shall we do?” (Luke 3:14).
War is certainly a terrible thing, and should only be waged for the highest and most just of causes. But if the cause is just, then there is great honor in achieving military success, success which should be celebrated and rewarded.
The bottom line here is that the God of the Bible clearly honors those who show valor and gallantry in waging aggressive war in a just cause against the enemies of freedom, even while inflicting massive casualties in the process. What I’m saying is that it’s time we started imitating God’s example again.
I guess you could say that Fischer is more of a Psalm 137 Christian than a Matthew 5 Christian.
