Do all soldiers go to Heaven? Only if you are American.

It's Easter eve and I can imagine some of you may be dying eggs, visiting a bunny suited person at the mall, or even eating cadburry creme eggs (I'm waiting till tomorrow/next week when they go on sale!). If you are reading this after Easter go get some discounted candy after you finish! I wanted to make this week's post more in line with the first Easter than the popular ways most Americans observe it by hearkening back the the good old days of purity and sound theology:

Before we delve into this bit of newsprint I want to give some perspective about the newspaper's importance in 1917: It was THE source for news and opinion.

The first internet web site didn't go public until 1993, however, it wasn't a common current news source until 1998.

The first tv news broadcasts occurred in the 1920's but outside of New York City most people wouldn't even have seen a tv in their own home, or received regular news from it, until the early 1950's

The first radio news broadcasts didn't happen until 1920 and people didn't rely on it as a source of news until well into the 1930's.


Imagine something being on EVERY channel, radio station and web page and you will have some sense of how influential the newspaper could be in 1917 when this story was published.

Keep in mind as you read the statements below that 4.3million Americans were DRAFTED and mobilized to go over to Europe to fight. They were not all selfless volunteers.

Now an excerpt from the beginning paragraphs:

"A most interesting and vital religious discussion has arisen concerning
the eternal future of the soldier killed in battle. Does the soldier who
bravely dies in battle, fighting for the right cause, go to heaven, no
matter what his past life may have been? is a question widely asked.


The answers so far made by ministers on this subject generally agree that
the American soldier who dies in this way must certainly go to heaven,
because he is fighting purely for humanity without hope of gain, and
because his every act is a perfect expression of Christian faith and
sacrifice."

Interestingly the British soldiers were said not as likely to have had this "assurance" because they were defending their homeland/interests. The French soldiers are said to have "still more doubt" than even the British because their homeland was invaded. What about the German soldiers?

"Authorities are divided between those who assert that nothing but
eternal punishment can await them and those who assert that the
divine mercy will save only those who have sinned in ignorance"

Here is one minister's justification for the American soldier being assured heaven no matter his religion. This was preached at fallen soldier's funeral:

"Let no one question which was the sect of these heroes, or if, indeed,
they were outside the fold of the church. Salvation worth having is
only such as character will bring."


I'm really appalled that ministers were saying such things and newspapers were printing them.

Things really don't change over time, people continue to sell a perverted and worthless gospel to millions.

This Easter I hope you will not buy into the kind of little god that is impressed with the good you do or the "side" you are on.

Truth is, Jesus suffered and died to save the most wretched and horrible people. If you draw breathe you are in that category. No one deserves or can earn the favor of God.

While you are eating that nice meal, wearing that new dress, and hanging out with your family take a minute to express thankfulness to the God who knew the nastiness of your heart and still sent his only Son to suffer your punishment.

Don't let the dyed eggs and candy distract you from Christ's rising again on the third day. In a world of deception and broken commitments it's nice to know God is a Finisher, He will be back to finish all of this and when He does some ministers and newspaper editors may be surprised to find the line of sheep has some German soldiers in it and some American soldiers will be found among the goats.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me"

-Jesus

Showing respect to "A Memphis Blue" & "a fightin' coon."

I almost hate my first ever blog post being about a subject like this, but if you know me at all, you know I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am committed to posting once a week for an entire year as we strip and sell this material; as I do this I hope to find interesting and funny things to share with you (certainly the "German Madame is Vampire Spy"  story looked like a candidate) but the thing that struck me most this week was from 1918 edition of a Cleveland Ohio paper called The Sunday Leader. It was on the front page of it's section "Weekly Magazine of the War." The main text on the page reads: "A Leader Artist Puts a Grin On the Grim Visage of War." There wasn't a lot of color ink in the paper back then, so a full color page of sketches really stands out while looking through them. I'll have to admit, when I first saw this I thought it was nice "black Americana" and would sell easily for a decent price. Later yesterday evening I was flipping through to find it when I noticed what was written beneath the photos of the two black soldiers. At first I kind of laughed uncomfortably to myself about how ridiculous it seemed that someone would put that under the sketches. Then it dawned on me that these were AMERICAN SOLDIERS fighting for their country and it wasn't some far away editor or typewriter jockey that captioned that drawing, it was the american artist in France who was amongst them. My reaction turned visceral almost immediately. Sure I'd heard about things like this but this was a lot different than hearing some historian or great-great granddaughter of a slave on tv talking about mistreatments and attitudes of whites toward blacks during this period of American history; this was like seeing it first hand. This was an actual paper, from the north (where we are often led to believe they were somehow so nice and enlightened on this subject), that was in a PUBLIC LIBRARY! Children would probably flip to this first since there wasn't a comic section yet!

To be clear, I'm not upset that white people looked at black people like this; I'm upset that any person would look at any other person like this. I think something like this needs to be preserved, seen, and discussed. The danger after seeing something of this nature is to see this as just a "black/white" issue and/or an issue in our past. Truth is we look down on people all the time, individually and as groups. Southern people with a heavy accent are stereotyped as comedy much like these black men were then. Mexican descendent's, legal Americans or not, are treated as serfs (it's fine for you to cut my grass for cheap or cook my food but I don't want to see your children at school/church/hanging out with mine). People who are either from or descended of parents from the Pakistan/India area are looked at as terrorists, and often scrutinized/ostracized simply because of the way they look. Treating these issues as separate, or different than one another, is ignorant and prejudiced in itself.


The heart of the issue is seeing people as less than people. All the signs are here of the same hate that spawns wars and genocides. It starts by calling them animal names (Jewish people were referred to as rats in Nazi propaganda films), and drawing them to resemble an animal more than a person. The last part is really the most insidious, make it seem as though they are ok with it: "I'se one of them fightin' coons from South Chicago, I is." No Sir; you were a soldier, a brother, a son, and a friend to someone and that's how I'll choose to remember you... as a man.  

I have decided to stick with love. 

Hate is too great a burden to bear. 

-Martin Luther King Jr.