c. 2003 Religion News Service

(David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)

(UNDATED) It is impossible to write about anything other than the war. Who cares about faith-based initiatives, welfare reform or the future of Social Security right now?

That is, of course, one of the costs of war: The president’s attention turns to his responsibilities as commander in chief. The nation’s attention follows the president’s.

Somehow domestic business continues, but by default. No creative new initiatives, no domestic reform agenda can find any oxygen. We stay as we are _ actually, we slowly deteriorate _ on the domestic front. Pressing problems remain unsolved a while longer.

War is also not the time for retrospective analyses of whether the conflict should have been entered. That time has past.

One of the key factors in wartime is domestic morale. If the nation too quickly loses confidence in its leaders or their strategies, then pressure for a quick retreat will grow. Constant critique of why we entered the war, and constant carping in the media about details of military strategy, undermine domestic morale.

That is why I choose not to engage in such carping. Nor would I join a peace protest. The time will come for political and military leaders to be held publicly accountable for their performance during these days. The time may come when the public rightly begs its leaders to end a conflict whose costs clearly outweigh any conceivable gains. But a few weeks into the war is not that time.

This is the time of the generals and the soldiers, not the moralists and the critics. The military must be permitted to do its work.

And yet there is another kind of discourse that seems appropriate just now. It is not the angry protest in the street but the mournful lament in the sanctuary. It is not ill-informed second-guessing of military strategy but well-informed grieving over the tragedy of war itself.

We grow accustomed in wartime to hearing dispassionate accounts of rocket launchers, AK-47s, cruise missiles, bunker busters. We hear of skirmishes and battles, enemy forces destroyed and positions held and lost.

But underneath the language of war is the human reality. And underneath the human reality is the God who makes each human being.

A maintenance battalion staffed by ordinary men and women takes a wrong turn. We later see a very scared woman paraded as a hostage by the Iraqis. We don’t know what has happened to her. She is a mother. She is probably dead.

Iraqi children are going shopping with their mothers in Baghdad. A bomb drops on their market. Many of these young ones die, their bloody little shoes all that is left of them.

American soldiers lower their weapons to approach a surrendering group of Iraqis. It is a trick. They are blasted to their deaths for having the decency to try to honor the rules of war.

A van carrying a dozen Iraqis, mostly women and children, runs through an American military checkpoint. Following the cautious rules of engagement established for such situations, our troops open fire. Seven Iraqi women and children end up dead. No one knows why they ran the checkpoint.

Combatant or noncombatant, male or female, adult or child, American or Iraqi _ these are categories that matter to us during war. But underneath the categories are human beings, all made in the image of God, all with hopes and dreams, friends and families; all with lungs and kidneys and muscles and skin and memories, all fearfully and wonderfully made by a gracious Creator, all loved by Him and by many others; all blown to bits by weapons of war that turn people into bits of flesh in an instant.

War is hell. Even if justifiable, it is marked by atrocious carnage. In war, the demons dance. Those who have returned from the battlefield are usually the first to admit it.

Do not be afraid to grieve. Surely God does.

DEA END GUSHEE