They’re Doing the Devil’s Work
Joel Poindexter on prowar Christians.

http://lewrockwell.com/orig12/poindexter11.1.html

It wasn’t until I came across Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” that the detestable practice of praying only for the safety of soldiers became so clear. In it, a man beseeches God to protect the soldiers, and pour misery down upon those who lie in their path. Twain’s use of the language is so powerful that reproducing a whole section of his essay is worth the space:

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

Not to be thought irreverent, the old man then humbly asks that “in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.” Sadly, it would seem that Christians pray only for what is seen, as Frederic Bastiat might put this; that is they offer prayers for their soldiers. The unseen, the suffering and misery wrought on the victims of war, is never considered. At best it is repressed deep inside the souls of those who give well-wishes to the troops. Dwelling on the consequences of carpet bombing, cruise missile bombardment, and signature drone strikes just isn’t done.