Having a friendly conversation with my room-mates about the U.S. war currently being waged in Iraq, someone made a phone call and patched another bright young, polit-cal man on the speaker phone to talk with us about his more unique philosophical viewpoints on things. I was very excited to bring him into the conversation because he seemed very informed and thought out on matters and I was curious about how we could come to such different conclusions. His main points were: that U.S. presidents have been operating military aggressiveness outside of constitutional allowanced for sometime, that America is intervening in too may stewed hornet's nests, that a war on terror is too ill-defined to hold anybody to account for success and restraint, that Israel can take care of themselves, that the U.S. is dealing now with "rogue powers" that earlier propped up and supported. I actually can't now remember all of his arguments, but that's okay because they aren't what I want to focus on.

My points to this younger man on the speaker phone was to talk about refraining from potential subversion, disunity, character mallignment regarding our current admistration--especially during war time, reminding of the warning of a "house divided" (which the U.S. very much is). I spoke of the right to defend one's self from a man who has shown himself to be a mortal threat, even to the point of shooting him before he pickes up the weapon he appears to go after accross the room. I mentioned the real dangers associated with radical Islam, the real need to attempt to finish what we start, fix what we must break, maintain strength in the eyes of many enemies. But when the dust all settled the discussion was brought back to the Christ-follower's hope, attitude, primary weapons and objective. These are what I thought worth pointing out.

Ben, the young man who turned out to only still be a teenager on the other line, helped remind that prayer, evangelism and actions of love are the most powerful weapons this planet have ever seen. He even youthfully felt it appropriate to bring these weapons up as the weapons of choice for the Christian even in the face of real war. It was an amazing challenge. It unmasked the fact that I have my world divided up into sectors: Politics, War, Romance, Literature, Entertainment, Theology, Philosophy, Travel . . . etc. But Ben was reminding me that the Christian does not do well to assunder his life that way. He was bold enough to believe that proving Jesus through the sacraments of prayer, self-sacrifice, gentle living, surrendered fear, etc . . . were much stronger attacks and deeds to bear upon a Satan-filled world where chaos is reigning and those who have once felt and seemed half-omnipotent are being shown bearing the same vulnerabilities that Rome and Greece once faced.

But more than all that I guess I was reminded that it is truly hard to separate my senses of identity: American, Male, Single, Christian, Western, Democratic, Republican. I think the Christian must always rise above the Western and the American and the Republican. But it is easy to believe that each thing is a category unto itself that must be tackled separately. Ben reminded me that our knowledge of Christ's submissiveness to the core mission and to the Father's will never allows for this robe to be set down for any of the others. What a hard to challenge. Still trying to figure out how I'll proceed.