Warfighter Theology

By / 3 minutes of reading

What does the Bible have to say to the warrior? How should the warrior integrate their faith with their job? Is God interested in those who operate in the profession of arms for a living? This series of posts addresses these important questions.


Preface to the Book

Release Date: December 14, 2022

“Chaplain, is it okay to celebrate when we take out our enemies?” Questions about faith hit different in a military setting. My friend threw this one out on a four-month deployment in the Middle East. For the next couple days, we hammered through this question as we looked at different passages of Scripture, read articles, and listened carefully to differing views on the issue. For those few days, we labored at the intersection of faith and the military profession.

The complexity of the question became apparent as we read contrasting texts of Scripture: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles” (Prov 24:17) and “when it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness” (Prov 11:10). We recognized a similar tension in Christianity Today’s article on Osama Bin-Laden’s death, which surveyed diverse Christian responses to that historical moment. Categories began to form in our minds: rejoicing in justice is encouraged, gloating over enemies is condemned, anything that robs a human of God- given dignity is wrong, loving an enemy is complicated for a vocational warrior, and mental wellness is reflected in how warriors deal with enemies.

This was no philosophical exercise; my friend was assessing his current posture and calibrating his future response to the next mission when casualties were inflicted. The gravity of our discussion landed on me and reinforced the importance of grasping how faith informs the profession of arms. The following pages move in the same vein as that deployment conversation and work toward the same critical end; to develop warfighter theology for men and women like my friend that will assist them in navigating the grave ethical and spiritual complexities of wearing the uniform.

George C. Marshall, the famed military man and Nobel Peace Prize winner once said, “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul, are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains him, he cannot be relied on and will fail himself and his commander and his country in the end.”

This book shares that heartbeat; the spiritual health of the warfighter is the life-blood of the profession of arms. The biblical authors understood this as they looked Godward in their thinking on warfare: “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1). The goal of this book is to explore how God equips and trains the warrior to navigate the challenges of wearing the uniform by focusing on the life of David, the epitome of a warrior who lives and fights by faith.

Purchase Hard Copy
Purchase Ebook Copy
Download PDF Free
Scroll to Top