I saw it years ago, on the Minnesota State Fair grounds, in the area we call “Machinery Hill.” A bronze plaque on a low concrete base, if I recall correctly. It proudly proclaimed that the first group of Minnesota volunteers had mustered in this spot, on their way to fight in World War I.



“Our sons were here,” the message seemed to be. “They gathered solemnly in this place to put their young, hopeful lives on the line for a cause they believed in. We, their parents, dedicate this plaque so that their courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

But of course it was forgotten, I thought. Who stops to read the plaque today? Who remembers those young men? Especially the ones who died in France and never came home to beget children, who might remember their names for a few generations?

It’s one of the tragedies and mercies of human life that (with rare exceptions) we always say “We will never forget,” but we always do. One of my ancestors fought in the Great Northern War. How many people today—even in Europe—know anything at all about the Great Northern War?

It’s obvious that we’re beginning to forget the 9/11 attacks. We say we don’t. The broadcast networks are making time for commemorations, but we can all tell that, behind the pieties, a lot of people consider it old news. It’s done. It’s over. What’s the use in opening old wounds?

That’s the way it is. That’s the way, in fact, it has to be. Because we’re transient beings. Our lives are too short to spend in constant mourning (and if they are spent that way, it constitutes a compounded tragedy). Our wounds heal, or at least grow over. Eventually we die, and our children can’t understand, and have commemorations of their own to mark. Our species has long-term memory loss.

So when we say “We’ll never forget,” we’re making a vow we can’t keep. We’re writing a check beyond the balance in our account.

But that doesn’t make it wrong.

It’s a matter of faith, really. When we use words like “forever” and “never,” we’re implicitly appealing to God (like it or not). The words have no meaning unless they cry for the attention of some Mind that can know all things, some Mind which doesn’t lose track, which marks the fall of a sparrow.

Christian theology doesn’t answer all questions concerning injustice and suffering, the whole theodicy issue. There are many questions to which our Scriptures simply give no answers.

But Christianity does present “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” a declaration that Jesus is the full expression of God. It proclaims that if we trust Him (who Himself suffered pain and injustice), we can trust that all things will be made right, somehow in the fullness of time.

Blessed be the memory.

Update: On re-reading this piece, I think I’ve committed my besetting sin of letting my head rule my heart. Just to avoid confusion, let me say that I don’t mean to suggest that it’s time to forget, or that there’s nothing we can do to remember that’s worth the trouble. It’s far too soon to forget. That would be a crime both against the victims of 9/11 and against victims of future attacks which would certainly follow from our neglect. My point is merely that we should not despair because we know we can’t remember as well as our hearts say we ought to.

(Cross-posted at Mere Comments)

I was amused to find a little bundle of booklets in my mail today at work. It was about half a dozen copies of a 39-page “novel” called …And God Created Love, by “Aytekin Kurtaran.” (A 143-page version is available on request.)

I resisted the temptation to read it through but, flipping through the pages, I found it to be the story of a “handsome youth” named Aytekin Kurtaran, and how he (with his beautiful lover), inspired by the true God, overcome all the evil powers that are making war, and establish a worldwide government and a worldwide religion, based on love. The author’s native language seems to be German. I can’t testify to the quality of the German prose, but the English translation is pretty rusty.

Apparently Mr. Kurtaran is confident that if he sends out copies to people all over the world, the simple logic of his program will convince everyone to visit his website (not much going on there) and join his campaign for world government and religious reform.

I’m a little embarrassed to speak so slightingly of the fellow. I’m guessing he’s extremely sincere. Perhaps he thinks his idea (one world government, one world religion) has never occurred to anyone before. Perhaps he imagines that, once we read his story, we’ll all slap our foreheads, say “D’oh!” and sign on.

What Mr. Kurtaran doesn’t understand is that his idea is not new. Far from being fresh and novel, it’s been done to death—lots of people’s deaths. Again and again, highminded and noble efforts to unify mankind in love (or something like love) end up in acres of bloody corpses.

There are few things so fearsome as a lover of mankind who just can’t persuade everyone to get with the program.

What Mr. Kurtaran doesn’t understand is that there’s something wrong with people. People are not good (but deluded), merely awaiting someone to tell them, “Love your neighbor and unite!” People are bad (and deluded). They need radical change.

If Mr. Kurtaran could take all human evil upon himself, be put to death, and rise from the dead, he might have a shot.

But even then, it wouldn’t happen as quickly as he hopes.

I had an e-mail at work from Dr. John Eidsmoe yesterday. He was looking for the documentary source of a quotation from Luther that most of us have read more than once (I first saw it in Francis Schaeffer’s work):

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

John couldn’t find it, and he thought maybe I could help (not as hopeful a thought as he imagined). Still, I attacked our complete edition of Luther and its index, and found precisely nothing.

So I went online, and finally found this interesting discussion.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth in comments, but the upshot seems to be that the quotation doesn’t actually come from Luther (though he said something different on the same lines), but from a 19th Century novel called Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family, by Elizabeth Rundle Charles. Continue reading Friday blather →

An essay I wrote recently, called “Never an Unfree Man,” about Viking Norway and the (possible) roots of Free Lutheranism (the brand to which I adhere), has been posted online by my publisher, here.

In other news, Nordskog reports that they’ve ordered a second printing of West Oversea.

(I’ve made a running joke in this blog of referring to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) as The Very Large Lutheran Church Body That Shall Remain Nameless (TVLLCBTSRN). In view of recent events, I’m going to name names in this post. In the future, who knows?)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s decision, this past week, to bless same-sex sexual relationships, and to allow open homosexuals (if monogamous) to serve as clergy, will, I’m sure, lead to a perceptible (possibly dramatic) exodus of conservative churches and individuals from the denomination. I approve of this, and encourage it.

Still, I can already hear the accusations of the ELCA liberals and homosexual activists—“This isn’t about truth! It’s about hate! You people just can’t get past your homophobia!”

And in a sense, I understand the criticism. One might reasonably ask, “Why now? Has this problem come up all of a sudden (like the unpredicted tornado that knocked the cross off the steeple of Central Lutheran Church, a convention venue, during deliberations)? Why strain out this particular camel, when you’ve swallowed so many camels already?” Continue reading I left the ELCA before leaving the ELCA was cool →