World War II, 70 years after

                                                    

The 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe came and went in May with relatively little fanfare.

Perhaps the milestone passed quietly because fewer people personally remember the largest armed conflict in human history. The last U.S. president to serve in the military during World War II, George H.W. Bush, now 90, left office more than 20 years ago. Barack Obama wasn’t born until 16 years after the war ended. Of the 16 million veterans who helped win the war — and lift America out of the Great Depression and into global leadership — fewer than 1 million are still alive. They are dying at a rate of nearly 500 per day.

But we all live with the consequences of World War II, whether we realize it or not. It forged the modern world in fire and blood along with its horrific predecessor, World War I. The “Great War” of 1914-18 destroyed old orders and empires, set the stage for revolutions and economic upheaval and led to far greater devastation two decades later. Before World War II ended in 1945, more than 60 million people had died, an average of 27,000 per day. Many of them were civilians caught up in the fighting — or deliberately massacred.

“Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity,” writes World War II historian Max Hastings. “Among citizens of modern democracies to whom serious hardship and collective peril are unknown, the tribulations that hundreds of millions endured between 1939 and 1945 are almost beyond comprehension.”

For all its suffering, however, World War II unleashed economic energies that would lift entire nations from poverty to prosperity in the postwar era. It ushered in a new age of technological and scientific progress. It hastened the end of European colonialism. It sparked a Cold War with Soviet communism that the West ultimately would win, spreading political freedom far and wide.

And it opened vast areas of the globe — especially in Asia — to the Christian gospel. Western missionaries streamed into ravaged countries after the war, bringing help and hope. The disciples they made helped turn Christianity into a truly global movement. Its expansion has continued in the generations since, bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to new areas of Africa and Asia, to the post-communist world, to previously unreached peoples.

Postwar chaos eventually gave way to order and development in many parts of the world. But it’s become increasingly clear that the era of relative global stability that followed the war — albeit guaranteed for long periods by the weapons of superpowers  — has come to an end.

“To put it simply, a vast swath of the Eurasian landmass (understood to be Europe and Asia together) is in political, military and economic disarray,” says George Friedman, chairman of the Stratfor global intelligence analysis agency. “Europe and China are struggling with the consequences of the 2008 [global economic] crisis, which left not only economic but institutional challenges. Russia is undergoing a geopolitical crisis in Ukraine and an economic problem at home. The Arab world, from the Levant to Iran, from the Turkish border through the Arabian Peninsula, is embroiled in politically destabilizing warfare. The Western Hemisphere is relatively stable, as is the Asian Archipelago. But Eurasia is destabilizing in multiple dimensions.”

In Friedman’s view, forces have re-emerged that the old postwar order cannot control.

“After every systemic war, there is an illusion that the victorious coalition will continue to be cohesive and govern as effectively as it fought,” he observes. “After World War I, the Allies (absent the United States) created the League of Nations. After World War II, it was the United Nations. After the Cold War ended, it was assumed that the United Nations, NATO, IMF, World Bank and other multinational institutions could manage the global system. In each case, the victorious powers sought to use wartime alliance structures to manage the postwar world. In each case, they failed, because the thing that bound them together — the enemy — no longer existed. Therefore, the institutions became powerless and the illusion of unity dissolved. This is what has happened here.”

The only thing that seems certain is uncertainty. Will Europe collapse as an economic and social entity? Will the Middle East descend into all-out regional war? Will a new Cold War break out between East and West?

History has shown that such times are risky for the church, but productive for God’s mission. Risky, because Christians will face increasing persecution as societies crumble, and increasing danger as they take the gospel worldwide. Productive, because people seek truth when everything else they have relied upon falls away.

The chaotic period during and after World War II, when the world Christian movement truly went global, is a case in point.

(Explore ways to lead your church into God’s global mission.)

Jesus in disguise

                                                  

Christmas 1914 on the Western Front witnessed a remarkable event.

The Great War, now known as World War I, had begun. Years of unimaginable death and destruction lay ahead. Yet during the week leading up to Christmas a century ago, many German and British soldiers put down their weapons, crossed battle lines and shook hands. The informal “Christmas Truce” brought enemies together to talk of home, exchange food and cigarettes and engage in impromptu soccer games. Some even sang hymns and carols together.

In the darkest places, Christmas brings light. Enemies make peace. Old hatreds die, and mercy is born. Christ is glorified.

On the first Christmas, God willingly entered enemy territory, disguised as a helpless child, to make peace with those who had rejected Him over and over through the ages. Only a few recognized Him when He walked among us. Even fewer followed Him. He was reviled, betrayed and denied before being put to death on a Roman cross. Yet He changed everything through His life, death and resurrection.

Have you encountered the Lord in disguise?

Jesus told his disciples: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me: I was in prison, and you came to Me. … Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:35,36,40b NASB).

This Scripture passage formed the essential mission strategy of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who took Jesus’ words literally. For her, every hungry person, orphan and refugee was “Jesus in His distressing disguise.” The more distressing the disguise, the greater the need for our love.

In 1946 she sensed a “second call” from God to leave her original vocation as a teacher in a Calcutta convent and go to the streets, which were filled with the refugees of communal violence, poverty and indifference. One day she stumbled over a starving woman, eaten with worms, lying in the gutter. She picked up the woman and took her to a hospital, refusing to leave until someone cared for her. City authorities eventually gave Mother Teresa an abandoned Hindu hostel, where she could take the nearly dead to die in the arms of love. Thus was born her mission to “the poorest of the poor.” In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, gradually expanding her ministry to lepers, disaster and war victims, the unborn — even affluent Westerners afflicted with loneliness and isolation, which she regarded as the worst diseases of the developed world.

Mother Teresa carefully schooled her missionaries in simple acts, like touching.

 

“We train ourselves to be extremely kind and gentle in touch of hand, tone of voice and in our smile so as to make the mercy of God very real and to induce [others] to turn to God with real confidence,” she said before her death in 1997.

Which brings me back to my earlier question: Have you ever encountered Jesus in a “distressing disguise”? How did you treat Him?

Maybe He showed up in your town recently, speaking a strange language and carrying all His possessions in a plastic U.N. refugee bag. Maybe He’s sitting in the county jail, with no visitors except an overworked public defender. Maybe He’s working at the convenience store near your house and has nowhere to go for Christmas.

Maybe He’s living in an Ebola-stricken area of West Africa, in a refugee camp on the Syrian border or among a spiritually lost people group never touched by His modern-day followers, wondering if anyone will come bringing light and hope.

Were Jesus’ words about visiting Him by visiting others symbolic? Perhaps. But Mother Teresa’s lovingly practical approach to the “least of them” makes a lot of sense to me. One thing is for sure: God Himself personally visited us on the first Christmas in the form of a child, walked with us as a man, died and rose for us as a Savior.

One day in eternity, He we will ask us who we visited in His name.

 

Rumors of wars

                                                          

 

2014 will mark a grim anniversary: 100 years since the beginning of World War I.

It was to be the “war to end all wars.” If only.

World War I is rapidly disappearing from modern memory. At the current pace of events, we often forget what happened last week, much less a century ago. We are twice as far removed from 1914 as Americans in that year were removed from the Civil War era. Another world war and scores of smaller ones have occurred in the generations since. Revolutions have shaken and reshaped entire chunks of the globe. Technology has transformed almost everything.

But we should never forget the consequences of “the Great War.” Aside from its staggering bloodshed and suffering (more than 30 million killed or wounded), it brought the end of the old order in Europe and laid the groundwork for a new one. It swept away monarchies and empires, set the stage for revolutions and years of global economic struggle — and ultimately led to an even more devastating global conflict.

Some historians believe we are entering a similar era of endings and beginnings. If Christians intend to make an impact on the world, we must strive to understand the times. We also must deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. If you’re waiting for general stability and peace before you launch out to the nations or lead your church to go, you’ve got a long wait ahead.

 “[T]he coming conflicts and challenges are pretty clear,” writes Gordon Adams, professor of international relations at American University, in Foreign Policy magazine. “We will hear a lot about the Syrian civil war, the fate of the Iranian nuclear program, conflict in Iraq, the departure of U.S. forces from Afghanistan — not to speak of what applecart Vladimir Putin plans to upset next, whether the North Korean regime will implode, and whether China and its neighbors intensify their conflict over the rocky outcroppings they all want to own. …

“As we reflect on this [World War I] anniversary year, however, there are deeper rumblings afoot, rumblings that will color and shape many of these conflicts. The same was true 100 years ago. … At the start of that new century, the shape of world politics was about to transform, while class conflict rose and shook the very foundations of the monarchies of continental Europe. Between these two forces, they would wipe out the Austro-Hungarian Empire, remove royalty from power in Germany, bring revolutionary turmoil to Russia, undermine the colonial systems established by France and Germany, and bring a new power — the United States — to the center of the world stage.”

Now the United States and its allies seem to be receding as global power players, by circumstance or by choice, while economic, political and military conflicts simmer around the globe. If that withdrawal or decline continues, other forces will fill the power vacuum.

In some cases, the vacuum itself will bring chaos. It’s an old historical pattern, repeated many times through the ages.

“Why so much anarchy?” asks Robert Kaplan in a new piece for Stratfor, the global intelligence analysis service. Twenty years ago, Kaplan warned in an influential Atlantic Monthly article (“The Coming Anarchy”) of “unprecedented upheaval, brought on by scarce resources, overpopulation, uncontrollable disease, brutal warfare and the widespread collapse of nation-states and indeed, of any semblance of government. ... Welcome to the 21st century.”

Some of those predictions came true; some didn’t. But “what is not in dispute is that significant portions of the earth … are simply harder and harder to govern,” Kaplan reports. He identifies five major causes for the persistent upheaval of recent decades:

n  The end of imperialism: Empires and spheres of influence built by international powers often oppress and exploit the peoples they absorb. But they provide (or enforce) order. When they crumble, freedom may follow. Or chaos and blood.

n   The end of post-colonial strongmen: National dictators replaced departing colonial authorities in many places during the post-colonial era in the 20^th century and again after the Cold War. Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi, Hosni Mubarak and many other strongmen are gone. But who — or what — will replace them? 

n  No national institutions and feeble national identities: Post-colonial dictators typically ruled by fear and secret police, not strong social and political institutions. “It is institutions that fill the gap between the ruler at the top and the extended family or tribe at the bottom,” Kaplan explains. Without such institutions, “the chances for either [more] dictatorship or anarchy proliferate.” States with such weak national identities become particularly vulnerable to “non-state identities that fill the subsequent void.” Think al-Qaida, organized criminal cartels and other bad actors.  

n  Doctrinal battles: Religious struggles have sparked many wars in the past. It’s happening again in the Muslim world “as state identities weaken and sectarian and other differences within Islam come to the fore, often violently,” Kaplan notes. Americans tend to focus on radical Islam versus the West. But the great ideological battle now tearing apart the Middle East — from Syria and Iraq to Iran and Saudi Arabia — is the blood feud between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

n  Information Technology: Smartphones “can empower the crowd against a hated regime, as protesters who do not know each other personally can find each other through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media,” Kaplan acknowledges. But they “cannot provide [or] maintain political stability afterwards. This is how technology encourages anarchy. The Industrial Age was about bigness: big tanks, aircraft carriers, railway networks and so forth. … But the post-industrial age is about smallness, which can empower small and oppressed groups, allowing them to challenge the state — with anarchy sometimes the result.”

What comes next?

“The real question marks are Russia and China. The possible weakening of authoritarian rule in those sprawling states may usher in less democracy than chronic instability and ethnic separatism that would dwarf in scale the current instability in the Middle East,” Kaplan warns. “The future of world politics will be about which societies can develop responsive institutions to govern vast geographical space and which cannot. That is the question toward which the present season of anarchy leads.”

That might be the political question. The spiritual question for Christians: How do we continue to go into the world, declare the Gospel and make disciples among all nations as yet another era of upheaval unfolds? There are as many answers as there are nations, cultures and peoples.

 But retreat is not one of them.