Stories from National Anthem Conscientious Objectors

Sisters and Brothers, Not Sinister “Others”

I came to Goshen College to grow in a community with different ideals from that of the mainstream United States. I am deeply uncomfortable with the rampant consumption that is prevalent in our society and the destruction our lifestyles reap on people and ecosystems around the world.
            I first started questioning my part in American culture in discussions of war and pacifism with friends in early high school. As a Mennonite in a largely secular city, objection to any form of violence was often the greatest philosophical difference encountered when speaking with other people. While I could not articulate my position as precisely at that time, I knew that violence was inherently wrong. Others were generally opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but their opinions seemed to stem from the fact that they saw these wars as unjustified. I saw all wars as unjustified because I was taught that every person is a child of God. I began to recognize how easy it was to create an “other,” someone we intellectually understand to be a human being, but who is emotionally separated from us in such a way as to become subhuman. This detachment enables us to intellectually discuss the destruction we cause without drastically changing our behavior. It is precisely through such rituals as the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, saluting the flag and other manifestations of American civil religion that such “othering” takes root.
             When I was a sophomore in high school, I lived in France with my family and attended a French high school. This had a profound effect on me; I experienced a society that was as developed as my own, but with different cultural emphases, expectations and biases. I learned to appreciate many things about the United States but often could appreciate the different, French way of doing things as well. During my time there, all aspects of life were set in an international context. While in the United States I attended a diverse school with people whose ancestry varied from Russia to Germany or Columbia, etc.  In France my classmates actually came from those countries, leading to fascinating discussions of policy and philosophy. I realized that these people all came from different contexts and had different perspectives to offer. With so much interaction between different cultures and forms of government, the egoistic view that one country is better than another yielded to the much more astute comparison of specific policies and possibilities for improvement. Being in France taught me that there is always another way of doing things and working to improve society means actively engaging and entertaining those alternatives. This requires the most basic recognition of other people's humanity, of their ability to be better than ourselves. Championing one abstract and ambiguous conglomeration of policies and ideals (such as a specific country) separates us from other perspectives and possibilities for improvement.  
              Every country has great accomplishments and terrible crimes – the United States perhaps most extremely. For this reason it is important that we differentiate between those aspects of the United States that we treasure most dearly, and those that we find most abhorrent. A ritualistic display of nationalist symbolism fails to do this; it unifies us as a people by elevating us above all others, instead of supporting specific ideals and behaviors over alternatives. My guess is that those who wave the flag and those who burn it are likely largely in moral and ideological agreement – the difference lies in their interpretations of the flag as a symbol, with one choosing to celebrate the good and the other to mourn the bad. Such displays reduce enormously complex issues to such a level that differences in interpretation are inevitable. The National Anthem controversy exemplifies this. In this case, not performing the National Anthem is not equivalent to disparaging the National Anthem. That these have become synonymous in the minds of some is a testament to the divisive othering these rituals help to create.
            My objection to playing the National Anthem is born from a view gradually formed during my time in France and through books read and discussions held during my years at Goshen College. I have learned that there is always another perspective and there is always middle ground. An “us vs. them,” “with us or against us” attitude is unhelpful since it labels those who seek another way as unpatriotic. Voices of reason are ever more important in such a context. The world needs those who stand firm as a bastion for a middle way.

Noah Weaverdyck
Goshen College Class of 2011

A Letter to Goshen College From a Military Veteran

          I was shocked to learn recently that Goshen College plays the National Anthem. It seems incongruent that a Mennonite College, one that claims to be “passionate about making peace” and affiliated with an Historic Peace Church, would choose to worship a key symbol of the most violent nation on earth.
          I grew up in a conservative Baptist family in a small farming community in upstate New York. I graduated from a small Baptist college in Pennsylvania where we proudly sang the National Anthem and saluted the flag. While in graduate school I was drafted into the military at which time I chose to enlist as a USAF officer. Five years after graduating from college I found myself in Viet Nam.  Below is a photo of me sitting at the Binh Thuy Air Base, Viet Nam flightline, March 1969, looking pensively at a pallet of body bags with a walkie-talkie in hand.  I commanded a special Combat Security Police unit at Binh Thuy. 

           In Viet Nam, I witnessed the murder by low-flying fighter-bombers of hundreds of unarmed villagers. Ironically, about the same time I observed pilots being rewarded for having burned alive villagers with napalm, I read a news account about an arrest of a young man in the US for having burned a flag protesting the war. I was in shock at the incredible, demonic nature of these upside down values. Burning human beings brings rewards; burning a flag symbolizing those policies of murder brings jail.
          These experiences began a deep questioning of my values and political beliefs. They provoked a suspicion about the meaning and power of patriotic and nationalistic symbols. I started delving into a people’s history of the US (and the West in general) to get a better grasp of historical contexts and patterns with which to understand contemporary events. Wow, I was shocked again. Since 1798, the US has militarily invaded over 100 countries on more than 560 occasions brutalizing Indigenous and local communities, murdering millions. In addition, since World War II, the US has bombed 28 countries while covertly intervening thousands of times in dozens of countries, impoverishing billions.
          What explains this egregious, imperial record? The people of the USA comprise but 4.6 percent of the world’s population while we (you and me) consume anywhere from 25 to 35 percent of the globe’s resources in order to maintain our incredible, insatiable consumption addictions. In essence, our modern way of life requires theft by force depriving others of land, life and resources, and destruction of Mother Earth’s ecosystem, justified by ideologies of racism and “exceptionalism.” It is narcissism on steroids.  We remain oblivious to its consequences as we worship nationalism.
         By playing the National Anthem, your faculty and students are, unwittingly perhaps, worshiping the most violent and arrogant force on the Planet. Do you really want to participate in this activity at a learning institution claiming to be “passionate about making peace?” Do you understand the symbols you are holding on high? Peace?
          Since leaving the military I’ve engaged in many nonviolent demonstrations for peace, and I’ve paid a price for doing so.  On September 1, 1987, three US war veterans informed officials at the Concord, California Naval Weapons Station of our intent to physically block munitions on trains moving from the Station destined to murder and maim campesinos in Central America. The protocol required arrest of those committing civil disobedience on the tracks which had been occurring since the 1960s. The train operated in a legal speed limit zone of 5 mph, but on this day the train accelerated to 17 mph and did not wait for arresting police and US Marines. I was not able to get out of the way in time and was crushed by the 200,000 pound locomotive hauling two boxcars. The picture below shows my severely wounded body as friends earnestly seek to stop multiple bleeding around my head and legs. Steve Brooks, in green hat with hands on Duncan’s back, joins Gerry, Holley, Duncan, and David. Steve, a door gunner in Viet Nam, was commander of the VFW Post 5888 in Santa Cruz. Notice the yellow line running diagonally across tracks on left which demarcates the public right away from Navy property (left of line). The Navy ambulance refused help, telling Holley my body wasn’t lying on Navy property. I lost both legs below the knee and suffered a fractured skull requiring insertion of a plate to protect my brain. [Photo: Randy Becker]

S. Brian Willson,
former Captain in the USAF, J.D. LL.D; Ph.D; web essays: www.brianwillson.com

Post Script: The other day I was at my front door talking with a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW). Though I did not accept the issue of “Watchtower” magazine being pedaled to me, I did engage the gentleman in a civil conversation. He saw my Veterans For Peace shirt and brought up the topic of war and US military policies. The JW stressed that they refuse to Pledge Allegiance to the US; refuse to salute the US flag; refuse to sing the National Anthem; and refuse to serve in the military even during times of forced conscription. Their young men serve prison time instead. I was ecstatic to be reminded of this about the JWs. Though I belong to no formal religious institution, I told him that those practices represented my sentiments as well, ever since my separation from the military. We shook hands and I know each of us was surprised that we had shared this solidarity together.

My Life, GC Core Values, and the Anthem

Just to be clear. I am here because of the core values of Goshen College and peacemaking. I am not here because this is a Mennonite college. I am here because GC’s deep roots in the Mennonite faith and Anabaptist values guide the GC mission and how we interpret our relatively broad set of core values.  You might find a variation of our core values on dozens of college web sites.  You will not find a web site that heralds Peace by Peace (not even Peace College).  I oppose playing the National Anthem.  But if we just stop playing it and do not go the extra step to highlight the positive values embodied in our mission, then we might as well play it at all events and throw in an occasional Pledge of Allegiance in meetings and convocation.
           We have a unique message that translates into every aspect of life: family, church, work, and play.  Peacemaking means loving your neighbor. What better way to love your neighbor than by being a servant leader, passionate learner, and global citizen? We should lead where others fear to tread and that means we point out where we, as a society, can do better.  By many estimates we are the most violent nation on earth. Our $680,000,000,000 dollar defense budget is more than the next 16 nations added together (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). We have 10,000 firearm homicides per year, unlawful prisoners in Guantanamo, three wars, and countless drug wars. We export poverty in the form of our farm bill, trade bills, and energy policies.  The GC message is that we, as a people, can do better.  We can do to our neighbors as we would have them do to us.
           What can the US offer? We could offer innovation, our models for education, and support for countries to skip our errors in pollution. We do have a model for freedom of the press, full emancipation, and a process for participation in policy making (although we are struggling to be democratic because big money dominates politics).  These values the US can export.  What if we exported environmental and humane regulations that forbid countries to sell their wares here if they are dumping toxins into the water, or employing child labor in work camps?
           My roots are in the Congregational Church (now affiliated with the United Church of Christ --- UCC).  You know, one of the first to oppose slavery, ordain the first woman pastor, first black pastor, and first LGBT clergy.  The UCC recognizes Christian values of justice are political and thus lobbies in many areas of social life.  I married a Mennonite and moved to Goshen.  The social message of my current Mennonite church and Goshen College is peacemaking and nearly all of my Congregational values fit nicely into that rubric.  Goshen College’s forte and extra strength is an anti-war, anti-violence stance.
           Not singing the National Anthem and not saying the pledge of allegiance are two symbols that I have embraced as an affirmation of my dedication to peacemaking, to the peace of Jesus Christ-- that life on earth should be as it is in heaven.  Only incidentally is my stance a critique of my government’s oppressive policies. But it makes sense to me that global citizens do not put their nation’s economic interests ahead of other citizens’ right to clean water and air.
           When someone outside of GC and Anabaptism finds out I do not support singing the National Anthem, they wonder why.  “What’s the big deal?”  I tell them that not singing it forces me to ask what are we singing, why, and to whom?  If we raised the flag in every classroom and began class with the Pledge of Allegiance, we would ask to whom are we pledging our allegiance?  (Answer; to one nation under God --- not God).  People I talk to start to wonder, ”Is an unthinking, relatively harmless ritual really harmless?”  Passionate learners ask, “Why am I doing what I am doing?”
           Sometimes I hear “I thought we were honoring our veterans.” No veteran that I know or with whom I have worked -- who saw combat--would wish being a veteran on anyone. Zero. The guys who love combat are strangers. To support my observation, 1 in 5 of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans risk PTSD. The highest ranking generals recognize that war and violence is a last resort when all other political means have failed.  War is failure. A true honor to our veterans would be a PEACE to end all WARS.  Remember, WW II did not bring peace to the world.  The Marshall Plan did. The Marshall Plan built up countries, empowered nations, supported people, and secured peace for millions.
          Our message is for all people, all Christians, all faiths, and nationalities.  I support GC and I am proud to be part of a community, one small corner of the USA that is willing to ask hard questions, prompt tough responses, and ask the US to be a better country.  I only want us to end playing the National Anthem if we receive the criticism and opposition with open arms, use that time for a teachable moment, and communicate our message by welcoming a wide range of people from many faiths who will likewise heal the world Peace by Peace.

David Ostergren, PhD
Director, Master of Arts In Environmental Education, Goshen College

In the Words of a Child

            My understanding of allegience changed because of Goshen College. Pre-college, I knew about Martyr’s Mirror and shivered through the stories. I also found it momentarily hard to breathe when a high school teacher ridiculed conscientious objectors in a WWII lesson. But that was about the extent of my discomfort.
            As an elementary school child, I loyally, robotically, said the Pledge of Allegience each day, my hand over my heart. In high school swing choir, I sang the National Anthem. a cappella. More times than I could count. I wrote an essay on patriotism and won the Daughters of the American Revolution award. Ironically, I even discovered that a long-ago relative was in the Revolutionary War, which would have given me membership in the DAR.
            I felt the discomfort later. It started with Study Service Term when I lived in the Dominican Republic and felt the absolute love of people from another country. I called them mother, sister, father, and brother, becoming a member of a family that reached beyond borders. Beyond race. Beyond language, economic status, or religion.
            With my teaching degree from Goshen College, I taught middle schoolers and listened to an African American woman—a guest  speaker—someone who had walked the road of predjudice throughout her life in the United States. She spoke about the Pledge of Allegiance, saying, “I will say the pledge on the day that our country truly offers liberty and justice for all.”
            With all my heart, I embraced the gift that Goshen gave me, crossing human-designated borders to bring God’s children—now MY children—home from countries on the other side of the globe. In my travels I felt the arms of people who welcomed me into their homes, again as sister, daughter, family. Time and again I found myself loving people whom the world tells me are not “my people” in places that the world says are not “my country.”

            Several years ago, I learned a valuable lesson from my young children. Each week, sessions in our homeschooling co-op opened with the Pledge of Allegience. On the car ride home one day, my children, ages 6 & 7, began talking about the ritual. My daughter expressed her discomfort, emphatically saying, “God loves EVERYBODY.” In the weeks that followed, as their peers participated in the Pledge, I watched my children stand silently…their idea, born from a conviction much bigger than their little bodies.
            To me, it’s as simple, and as complicated, as the words of a child. God loves us all. No exceptions. Yet in our imperfect human world, we continually strive to create walls, borders that separate us from God’s children, our sisters and brothers. I think of the international students at Goshen and am embarassed that the Anthem, a nationalistic ritual, is now a part of a setting they call home.

            Goshen College made a deep imprint on my life, helping me to define myself in the light of God’s family, a place without nationalism, militarism, or borders. The Goshen College I thought I knew was one that modeled the example of a world in which there truly is no east or west. I hope another generation is able to bear the fruit of that peaceful witness, one free of bombs bursting in air. 

Cynthia Hockman-Chupp
GC grad, 1990

Moral Companionship for a Broken World. Colossians 1:28-2:5

            Several years ago, my experiences as an owner of a medium-sized for-profit business led me to explore the concept of “moral companionship” as a model for how we Anabaptists can relate to the world around us. My four years at Goshen College provided much of the foundation for this model of how my Anabaptist values could influence my interaction with my community. The idea of being a moral companion has become an organizing thought for me. It helps me understand the role I can play given the reality that my values are often at odds with society’s prevailing view.
            A companion is somebody who accompanies another person. Moral companionship, however, suggests the dimension of a mentoring companion who assists others. The Greeks were the first to suggest that a companion might enhance another’s self-knowledge, encouraging that other to use the acquired virtues for the betterment of their community. A moral companion’s interaction is to help bring about in the participant metanoia, or a “transformation of mind,” that regenerates the person and ultimately his or her community.
            Paul played this companion role as he interacted with early Christian communities. Consider the church at Colassae. They knew that their actions, embodied in their faith together in community, challenged all that Roman society held dear. Proclaiming Jesus as the true image of God (Col. 1:15), Paul later calls on the Colossian to bear the image of Jesus in shaping an alternative to the empire. He urges them to teach “everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).  And later: “I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:22). This is strikingly similar to the Greek idea of metanoia.
            So how might we go about being moral companions in our daily lives? How might we work at creating this shift of mind in our communities? Here are two stories from my experience.
            Several days after the 9/11 tragedy my business-partner brother and I discovered flags flying at several of our properties and our marquees proclaimed “God bless America.” We respect the flag as a symbol of democracy, freedom, common identity, and a constitution and government under the rule of law. But, in keeping with our Anabaptist convictions of peace and reconciliation, we have never flown the flag. For us, the flag also symbolizes preparation for military action and the resulting death and destruction.
            My immediate thought was that the flags must come down. Without consulting our management team, we drafted a memo to our employees outlining our reason for removing the flags. The response to this note was swift. Copies made their way around the community. The memo was posted on websites and emailed to people in multiple states. Regular customers announced they would boycott our businesses. Long-time employees did not want to talk to me and suggested that they might not be able to work for us anymore. Phone calls arrived from around the state and region that included threats to me personally and our company. A stroke of our pen had managed to offend many, seemingly to the core of their being. Overnight we became a lightning rod for a community racked with fear.
            We were stunned. Fortunately, we realized that we needed to listen, to understand how lifelong friends could suddenly not want to talk with us. I arranged to meet with various groups of employees. For twelve hours I listened. Nothing could have prepared me for the depth, intensity, and passion that we had invoked.
            At the end of the day, John and I got together with our PR firm to draft a response to our employees. Our question was “How can we maintain the integrity of our convictions without destroying the company and culture that we have worked so hard to build?” With me just having completed my Ph.D. dissertation on self-direction in the workplace, our PR consultant responded by calling me a hypocrite: “You talk of empowerment and participation, but you just made a decision without input from anyone. Why don’t you empower your employees to come up with an appropriate response that takes into account your convictions but also their interest?”
            It was an epiphany. We would remain unapologetic about our convictions, but since this workplace community is emotionally owned by all, we would invite our property managers to pull together representative groups of employees to decide on an appropriate workplace response to this tragedy. Our personal convictions could be subservient to the intense desires of 450 other people with whom we share our daily workplace. Our employees appreciated and respected this response, viewing it with the authenticity that it was meant.
            A second story is about my leadership in the local community. Several years ago I was asked to serve as chair of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, a 3,000 member business organization. My first inclination was to say no, continuing to invest my time in working directly for the church. But from two different mentors I heard the same questions:  “What difference might an Anabaptist make in this role? How might someone with this different set of values be able to influence this important community organization?”  Intrigued, I went back to the nominating committee, expressed my interest but making clear that I might function somewhat differently.  I told them that as a pacifist, I could not lead, as do most chairs, in the pledge of allegiance or perform other patriotic rituals.  They still wanted me to do the job.
            We began an interesting year by reworking the Chamber’s mission and vision. Our new mission broadened from the traditional narrow focus on business success to talk about prosperity for all. Recognizing that the business community can only be as strong as the “least of these” among us, our vision became to work at prosperity for all. I chose Muhammed Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace prize winner as speaker for the annual dinner and its audience of nearly 3,000 business leaders. Founder of the Gramean Bank in Bangladesh, Yunus initiated micro-credit loans that to date have brought nearly 8 million women and their families out of poverty. His speech spurred many conversations about how we can apply his concepts to bringing prosperity to those less fortunate in the Lancaster community.
            Following such experiences, Goshen College’s decision to play the anthem seems to me to be a real disconnect of values and practice.  Although I graduated during what President Jim Brenneman has described as the era of “the school of dissent,” I believe I and many other alumni are already succeeding in the active civic engagement that he is promoting as his vision for future graduates.  The college has been foundational for me in developing a philosophy of active civic engagement within the context of our Anabaptist values. These values have not precluded me from engaging in the civic discussion. On the contrary, they set me apart in ways that bring new perspective and added value to the public debate.
            What are some of the lessons I have learned from the intersection of these values of dissent and civic engagement?
            First, I do not have to have all of the answers. As a companion, I am walking alongside others in an ongoing conversation. Even when I falter there are opportunities. How I respond to those mistakes such as I made following 9/11 offers an opportunity for others to see how someone committed to being a Christ-like presence acts under pressure.
            Second, I understand that while we live in and are full members of our culture, we are different. As Paul says in Romans, “we are set apart.” If I do not occasionally feel like I am on the outside of our culture looking in I am probably not being true to my Anabaptist values. Rather than being perplexed at the response of my community to my values, I welcome this as a moral companion’s teaching moment.
            Third, our communities need the divergent thoughts and values of Anabaptists. Part of our role is to perturb, to ask different questions and introduce new thinking into the lives of our communities. Paul might say something like this to past and future graduates of Goshen College: “Friends, because we are not subservient to the empire but subjects of the kingdom of God, we have the audacity to say to the darkness, ‘We beg to differ!’ We will not be a pawn to the Prince of Darkness any longer. And by God’s grace, through our redemption and forgiveness, our imaginations have been set free.” (1) And what a gift minds set free can be to our communities.
            Fourth, I am not bothered by what some call the post-Christian era in our society. Our role has not changed. Anabaptists were never at home in the Christendom era. It is precisely this knowledge and understanding of being on the outside looking in that allows us to assist in bringing about metanoia, in transforming the minds of those in our communities. Systemic change rarely comes from inside the system. Most often it comes from the margins. The world desperately needs moral companions who bring an Anabaptist perspective.
            Finally, in the words of Paul in Colossians:  “It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.” Not flying the flag or playing the anthem is one way I can witness to a different set of values, providing moral companionship for a broken world.

Jim Smucker
Bird-in-Hand, PA. GC grad, 1984

(1) Adapted from Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed.

In Our Name

            I have had the unfortunate privilege of bearing witness to horrible acts carried out in the name of U.S. national interest; carried out in my name as a U.S. citizen and with my tax dollars. I have spent my entire professional life documenting the impacts of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. That work has led me to the killing fields of Guatemala, the free-trade wastelands of Mexico, an embargoed Cuba, a broken Haiti and a bloodied Colombia.
            At times during my nine years living in Latin America, my citizenship was a blessing. My white skin and blue passport allowed me to provide protective accompaniment for human rights activists and community leaders on hit lists.  But most often, it was a burden.
            Hardworking, yet impoverished communities were never given the opportunity to voice their opinions to politicians in Washington designing policies that led to war and hunger. No policymakers visited their towns to consult them on their plans or evaluate impact.  But I did. And they told me how they felt about the United States as if I were the ambassador.
            A group of 300 family farmers whose crops had been poisoned and killed by toxic chemicals dumped from planes ostensibly targeting drug crops demanded reparations.
            In our name and with our tax dollars, the U.S. government has spent nearly $1 billion dollars on chemical fumigation in a failed effort to curb drug production in Colombia. Three million acres of land in the second-most biodiverse country in the world have been destroyed.
            A group of 30 people whose family members were murdered by the Colombian military showed me pictures of their loved ones and cried for justice.  Below is a photo I took of a woman holding a picture of her son who was pulled off of the street by the Colombian military and murdered.

            In our name and with our tax dollars, the United States provided the worst human rights violator in the Western Hemisphere with nearly $6 billion dollars worth of aid, training and weaponry between 2000 and 2010. At least 3,000 innocent civilians, including human rights activists, community leaders and church members, were murdered at the hands of the Colombian military during that time.
            A group of Mexican corn farmers—people who had a stable income before the NAFTA free trade agreement—told of free trade experts who insisted that if they switched from corn farming to cantaloupe farming, they would be winners in the globalized marketplace. They switched, first to cantaloupes and then to watermelons, only to see their crops rot on shipping docks as they waited for buyers that never appeared.
            In our name and with our tax dollars, the U.S. sold Mexicans on a free trade agreement that has been a godsend for corporate profitability,  It has bankrupted an estimated two million Mexican corn farmers. Many of them were left with only one choice: to risk their lives and their freedom by migrating to the United States.
            In each of these encounters—repeated a hundred times—I struggled to explain that I was there to stand with those harmed by U.S. foreign policy and was working with an organization dedicated to changing my government’s policies. I did not support my government’s policies of war making and maximizing corporate profits, I sheepishly said.
            In Colombia, a human rights activist described to me her dismay over U.S. funding for a Colombian military brigade implicated in the killing of dozens of innocent civilians. It was a familiar refrain.  But then she said something different. “We know the difference between the people of the United States and the government of the United States,” she explained. “I am horrified by what the United States is doing in my country, but I know that people like you stand with us and are working to end military aid to Colombia.”
            My vision for our world differs greatly from that of my government. Until my government changes the way it treats issues of human rights, poverty and justice at home and abroad, I am not comfortable putting my hand over my heart to pledge allegiance to a flag. After standing in a farming community where 18 innocent civilians were massacred by a U.S. cluster bomb, I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable singing about “the bombs bursting in air”.

Jess Hunter-Bowman
Husband of GC alumnus (‘00) and adjunct PJCS instructor Janna Hunter-Bowman
Associate Director of Witness for Peace

Venerating God Through Symbolic Absence

            I was in high school in Illinois during the dark days of the Vietnam War.  That this war would still be going on when I graduated from college seemed unimaginable. I did not know anybody who opposed the war.  I had read the Bible enough to know that Jesus said “Love your enemies” but I had never heard anybody take it seriously.  When the time came for me to make a decision, I applied to be a conscientious objector.  I did not know much about God but I did think that God would not approve of people killing each other.
            I had heard that Mennonites were against war so I began attending the Lombard (Illinois) Mennonite Church (LMC).  I found it to be a warm and welcoming congregation.  The emphasis on peace and opposition to war and violence was evident in the congregation.  This resonated with what I understood  the gospel to teach and what Jesus demonstrated.  I discovered that Mennonite churches symbolized this effort to be faithful to God by not having the American flag in church settings.  In my youthful confusion and uncertainty, this told me that the Mennonite Church strived to be faithful in word, deed, and symbol to the call of Christ.  The absence of the flag suggested that the kingdom of God was international in nature and all persons from any nationality were welcome.  The flag’s absence was a wonderfully positive symbol and message as opposed to the narrow patriotism that most other churches seemed to symbolize and proclaim.
            As I learned more about the Mennonite Church and participated in various leadership roles, I increasingly appreciated the absence of the flag, the pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem not just in congregations but in other institutions of the church.  This absence of patriotic symbols suggested that the kingdom of God took priority over the kingdoms of this world, a visible sign that we as Christians were “in the world, but not of it.”  And when attending a sporting event at a Mennonite institution, I could usually enjoy the event without having to worry about the various expressions of American civil religion that would be present elsewhere.   
            I had forgotten the power of American civil religion until I recently helped staff a concession stand at a University of Iowa basketball game.  A long line of customers ordered hot dogs, soft drinks and popcorn before the game, when suddenly the customers stopped talking.   I was busily making change until someone told me we were supposed to stop selling hot dogs while the national anthem was being sung.  Sure enough, all 12,000 people in the auditorium became completely silent for several minutes as the soloist sang. I have never heard that many people become so suddenly quiet for such a long time.
            That experience reminded me why I consider joining in this expression of American civil religion such a serious spiritual error.  Those several minutes of silence venerated a false god named America that most Americans are willing to both die and kill for.  The national anthem was a hymn to this false god.  The silence was a sign of how seriously everyone there felt about it.  Let us instead emphasize Christian faith and symbols on the GC campus and elsewhere.  Rather than participate in the rituals of American civil religion, let us practice and proclaim the principles of our Anabaptist Christian faith. 

Roger Farmer
Former pastor
MDiv AMBS, 1993 

A Call for a World Without Borders (or National Anthems)

I recently attended the sixth of nine scheduled “Listen and Learn” conversations between Goshen College administrators and local alumni — this one convened in Coralville, IA.  Among the four questions posed by the Goshen College administration were, “On a personal level, what is the meaning of the National Anthem to you?” and  “To what degree does the practice of playing the anthem impact your faith tradition?”
           My reply to these questions was that “Our national anthem celebrates military victory and recognizes national borders; the Creator I worship neither celebrates the former nor recognizes the latter.”
           I first expressed my gratitude for the quality of my educational experience while a student at Goshen College in the mid-1970s; my mother, sister, and brother also attended this excellent institution of higher learning.  I have always held Goshen College in high regard and encouraged prospective students enroll there.  I hope to be able to continue doing so. The question at hand — in light of enrollment trends that, for the first time in Goshen College’s 117 year history, render non-Mennonite students in the majority — appears to be how to move forward with a continuing, uniquely Christ-centered peace stance. 
           Goshen College President Jim Brenneman averred (quite accurately, from my perspective ) that “Goshen College is at a hinge-point in its history.”  I shared that I experienced a “hinge-point” in the evolution of my world view via Goshen College’s SST experience in Honduras.  Naïve US citizen that I was at that age, I embarked on that journey with the expectation that the learning would be one-way.  I expected to learn solely about the country of Honduras — the culture, more of the language, the banana plantations, and gain exposure to a degree of poverty exceeded at that time by only one other country in our hemisphere. 
             To both my surprise and chagrin, I learned at least as much about my own country while in Honduras.  It was as if this long-impoverished country was essentially a mirror — reflecting the devastating consequences of longstanding US foreign policies which exploited their natural resources (e.g., United Fruit Company) and supported corrupt, repressive, military regime after corrupt, repressive, military regime. 
             Upon my return from SST, I felt compelled to examine and closely monitor my country’s foreign policy initiatives in Central America.  Within a couple of years,  El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by death squad gunmen trained at the School of the Americas in our country,  because of his passionate stand against social injustice and oppression in his own country. That direct link with my own country’s foreign policy proved to be a “hinge-point” in my evolving social justice activism. I opted to remain seated during the playing of our country’s national anthem, as a symbolic gesture of the remorse (vs. pride) I felt as an American citizen and taxpayer.  I linked arms with other faith-based social justice activists, participating in non-violent civil disobedience and subsequently being arrested, as we sought to substantially alter US foreign policy in Central America.  Arrested at the White House during the Reagan administration, as well as at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA, I also traveled with Witness for Peace to Nicaragua during the US-sponsored Contra War.
                In sum, this, SST, is at the core of what Goshen College gave to me, what Goshen College means to me.  Thanks to Goshen College, I evolved into a World Citizen, while also striving to hold my country-of-origin to morally-responsible conduct at home and abroad. 
              This post-9/11 era — replete with its fear-mongering, anti-immigrant sentiment; military aggression; call to civil religion; and unquestioned patriotism — yearns for and invites the strengthening of Goshen College’s resolve to bear witness to another Way, the Way of the Prince of Peace, not the way of a national anthem which pays tribute to violence through military aggression, nationalistic pride, and restrictive borders. 
            To water-down or retreat from our historic Anabaptist call to bear witness in the face of this “hinge-point in history” would be to dishonor the many heroic witnesses who have gone before us.

A.  Joseph  Wyse   (Kalona, IA)
Goshen College student, 1972-1976

Of Gadflies and Hoes

While a student at Goshen College I went from thinking Mennonites were backward out-of-step people to thinking Mennonites were astute out-of-step people.  As a young adult, Mennonites seemed to me to be backwards, lacking in real world understanding, laden with cultural peculiarities. Goshen helped me see that being out-of-step with a violent and self-centered world is central to a Jesus-centered faith.  A Jesus-centered faith was more than empty piety and over-used words.  Goshen showed me you could actually be a thinking person and be a Christian.
            For the last number of years I have watched my children attend Goshen College.  I have heard them struggle with faith and what it all means.  And now my youngest daughter is graduating from high school.  She is trying to decide where to go.  She related a conversation she had with one of her older sister’s friends who is now a junior at Goshen.  “Goshen isn’t what it used to be.”  Through conversations like this one and ones with her older siblings, she has gotten the impression that in order to attract more students Goshen has moved to be more in-step with popular Christianity.
            My son explained to his youngest sister that there is always complaining from older students and not to take it too seriously.  At the same time those with whom he graduated are concerned about what playing the anthem says about their alma mater.
            Maybe young adults are always looking for something more, something with integrity and depth.  They want faith to have integrity and count for something in our fast-moving trifling world.
            As a young adult I heard Phil Frey, my preacher from Archbold, Ohio, tell the story of someone in WW1 who was asked to do guard duty.  He refused to carry a gun.  He was given a hoe to carry.  The image of guard duty with a hoe has stuck with me.
            Is the anthem as big a deal as people are making it?  It’s not like carrying a gun but it is a song about rockets and bombs.  Is it a compromise with civil religion or is it just a way of being welcoming?  Being faithful requires us to move into the world of social, political, and cultural muddiness but with an understanding of who we are.  Sometimes it is hard to see clearly what is happening and so we listen to the voices around us. Sometimes we choose to carry a hoe.
            At Goshen I was introduced to the writings of John Howard Yoder.  I remember his use of the word gadfly.   One of the roles of Jesus’ followers was to be a gadfly, pricking the consciences of those who compromised too much in their daily political work.  We all want to be effective and successful.   Gadflies buzzing around can help remind us to think about the direction we are headed.  The people I met, the lectures I heard, and the authors I read while a Goshen student long ago still buzz as gadflies.             As I listen to the high school seniors who congregate at our house, they have strong opinions and they want the Mennonite church to listen to their concerns.  They have welcomed international students into their circle and have come to realize that faith in Jesus is much bigger than our national interest.   They are doing some buzzing of their own.
            As my youngest visits colleges, looking for a place that reflects her growing interest in radical Anabaptism, peacemaking, and global awareness, and open to her concerns, I’m hopeful Goshen will remain on her list of options.  I’m hopeful Goshen will continue to be a place to learn about being a gadfly, a place where those who buzz to a different tune, a radical Jesus tune, are nurtured.

Teaching Peace While Playing the Anthem

As Human Resource Director at Goshen College for 12 years, I have had numerous opportunities to talk about the college’s practice not to play the national anthem before certain athletic events. These conversations have primarily been with prospective employees who are not from Mennonite/Anabaptist traditions. Generally these have been positive interactions—after all, the applicants were interested in working for GC!
            As a parent of a child who participated in athletics here and a regular attendee at Goshen College games, I have also had conversations, some more positive than others, with fans from other schools and also with several parents of our own players seeking to understand our practice. At one Goshen home game against a rival school, the visiting students sang the anthem for us, and then did a “USA, USA” chant. After some moments of silence, one of our young alums replied: “You are for the USA, but you only have one player from the US on your whole team.”  This drew laughter, even if it was not the best expression of our global citizenship core value!
            I respect those who are strongly against the decision to start playing the anthem, and have been moved by the stories on the objector website.  But I think that playing the anthem is the right thing to do. For me, choosing to not play the anthem puts the athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators on the “front lines” of dealing with the backlash of this policy. (I also note the absence from athletic contests of many on our campus who are calling to overturn the decision to play the anthem).  Many athletes at Goshen College are not from Anabaptist backgrounds, and they and their family members find the absence of the anthem an uncomfortable moment at the start of games. Visiting teams and fans have expressed their frustration about the former practice to not play the anthem (it’s true that we didn’t do a good job of explaining the reasons behind our action). Perhaps we could still be good hosts for athletic events if we do not play the anthem.  I think the quiet, reflective version of the anthem that is played followed by the peace prayer of St. Francis is a positive witness to our faith while welcoming those who have accustomed to common American practice.
            To those who see this as the beginning of a de-emphasis of Anabaptist peace teachings on campus:  I was an undergrad at Bethel College in Kansas in the turbulent Vietnam War years.  The anthem was and continues to be played at athletic contests there. Nonetheless, students, faculty, and administrators alike faced much criticism for our failure to be “patriotic” enough in that difficult era. Young men from the Newton area still looked for opportunities to “beat up” some COs either downtown or on campus.  Bethel’s teaching of the way of peace seems to stand out and continues to influence its students, even though it plays the anthem.  I am confident that Goshen College will also maintain its core values of Christ-centered compassionate peacemaking regardless of whether the anthem decision is affirmed or changed.

David Janzen
Goshen College,
Director of Human Resources