The Village ILWIDIot

Walt Wiltschek

“So let’s strive for the things that bring peace and the things that build each other up.” — Romans 14:19, CEB

Two conversations recently have lingered in my mind.

Last weekend I had a chance to visit with long-time peace activists Bob and Rachel Gross at Chicago First’s 101st anniversary celebration (see more on the celebration below). In the course of our chat, Bob mentioned his experience as a conscientious objector. He was arrested as a non-registrant during the Vietnam War while visiting here in Illinois and spent some time in the Kankakee prison before some kind, local Brethren put up the deed to their home for his bail. He’s gone on to create a long legacy of peacemaking and reconciliation ministries in the church.

Just after that, I did an interview with Brethren folksinger Andy Murray, looking back at his song “Brave Man from Ohio” for a forthcoming Messenger article. The song is about Ted Studebaker, a Church of the Brethren member and conscientious objector from the Dayton area who refused to fight in Vietnam because of his beliefs. Studebaker volunteered instead to go as an agricultural worker and teacher with Vietnamese Christian Service. He was killed in Vietnam in 1971, 55 years ago this spring. Andy’s song memorably lifts up Ted’s witness: “Give me a shovel instead of a gun … And if I die, I’ll die making something instead of tearing something down.”

As we find ourselves again in a time of war—as has happened too often in our history—what does it look like now to honor our denomination’s historic peace church position? Brethren have never been completely of one mind (at least not for a couple of centuries) on exactly what our peace stance means in times of war, but the strength of that countercultural message seems to have waned much further in recent decades. Perhaps because we don’t have an active draft or perhaps simply because our core beliefs have become more diluted, I feel like I hear less and less of that call to be active peacemakers and show a different way of living.

While the sledgehammer of war and violence pounds incessantly around us, sacrificing too many lives on its anvil of destruction, our heritage raises a different vision—a different possibility. What will you create today?