Question?

[Gregory Matthews]

What is the name of the SDA  leader, currently employed at the General Conference, who once said: “Well, if I was called by my country to the military and had to kill, I would—I just wouldn’t want to do it on Sabbath.” 

NOTE:  For the answer, read the article and comments at:  https://www.adventistreview.org/when-pacifism-is-wrong

 

[TrevorL]

Greetings Greg,

On 10/12/2020 at 5:00 AM, Gregory Matthews said:

What is the name of the SDA  leader, currently employed at the General Conference, who once said: “Well, if I was called by my country to the military and had to kill, I would—I just wouldn’t want to do it on Sabbath.” 

NOTE:  For the answer, read the article and comments at:  https://www.adventistreview.org/when-pacifism-is-wrong

Despite the difficulties of the Holocaust, I suggest that Jesus teaches that we should not participate in warfare in this present era. This is not pacifism, as God has ordained warfare to punish the nations, and also part of the process of preparing the nations for the advent of Jesus.

Kind regards Trevor

[Kevin H]

A war situation is a rough situation. In heaven I hope to listen to some conversations between Desmond Doss and Oswald Boelcke. It is also good to read about their lives to see how Christians have tried to deal with war. 

[pierrepaul]

The article raises interesting issues, but suggesting that WWII was a war against the holocaust is pure unadulterated make-believe historical revisionism.

In 1939 no one in Great Britain or France went to war to stop the holocaust (which hadn't started). The USA didn't get involved in WWII because of the holocaust. While the holocaust occurred during WWII, WWII was not about the holocaust.

And while the German Nazi regime was evil, so was that of the USSR. More than a few German soldiers thought they were liberating peoples of Eastern Europe from Communist evil.

Often it is not until well after the fact that one can identify one belligerent state or alliance as virtuous and the other as evil. And men have to decide to fight or not fight based on imperfect information, much of which occasionally turns out to be untrue.

Most allied soldiers in WWII (western allies) didn't know they were fighting against the holocaust until the war was over. Most German soldiers didn't know they were fighting to perpetrate a holocaust until the war was well underway and it was very difficult to get out.

[phkrause]

pierrepaul, you have to consider were Clifford Goldstein is coming from? I also realize that WW2 was not about the Holocaust, but for Jews it is!! My father spent 5 years in three different CCs! And lets not forget that the US didn't want to get into this war, but eventually did, and I would say that it had to do more with the holocaust than not!! Just my thoughts.

[Kevin H]

There was probably a hope that Hitler would destroy communism. As for the stories of human atrocities, there were similar stories during World War I, but after the war it was realized that, while there was some, not nearly as much as people thought and rumors said. There was no real right and wrong side of WWI.  So when stories about the Holocaust were being told, too many people thought and said "It is probably just like the stories we heard in WWI which turned out to be mostly wrong."  However, after the war we horribly came to the understanding that this time the stories were not wrong and that WWII was very different from WWI.