War and God - Martial Images in Churches

In some churches, I have found myself uncomfortably surrounded by images of warfare. These have included military banners, icons or statutes of soldier-saints and obtrusive memorials to military leaders. Their presence in churches disturbs me because they seem so much at odds with the message of the one who did not retaliate and commanded his followers to behave likewise. The presence of these images speaks of a church that has, at times in its history, been allied with secular power and secular power often exerts its influence militarily. As one example, large stone memorials on the walls of some 'civic' Anglican churches give honour to military leaders who executed Britain's colonial ambitions, with varying degrees of success, against subject peoples across a vast empire. That these same churches are often at the more iconophobic end of the ecclesiastical spectrum is a particular irony.

The truth is that churches have endorsed and even promoted the violent ambitions of the powerful at some points of their history. So is it more honest to allow these images to remain and use them as an opportunity to confess a bloody past or to remove them as having no place in a church that works for peace?

I have heard it argued that churches ought to be able to take the whole of human life into their worship and this includes the cruel realities of war. I agree with this principle, but I do not think that permanent memorials to military elites are the way to do this, whatever the ethical record of the individuals commemorated. I would rather see Picasso's Guernica in church as an icon of the cruelty of war than a plaque praising the perpetrator of such violence.

There is, of course, the further question of what one does with existing memorials. Should they be retained as a way of telling our history, however unpalatable? I can see the strength of this argument, but the iconographic arrangements of a church should be directed towards the worship of the God of peace, not the provision of didactic tools.

Churches should, of course, commemorate all the faithful departed, including all those caught up in violent conflict. But I think I would rather not see any martial images in church. I am strongly drawn to the simplicity of Cistercian architecture, which is sparing in its use of any imagery. Among the few images that should, in my view, adorn our churches, is, indeed, one of brutal violence. But it is the brutal violence of the apparatus of state shown for all its evil in the execution of an itinerant preacher who subverted that same violence by refusing to participate in its cycle of revenge, even to the point of refusing self-defence. God is caught up in violence. He is the victim of the powerful, not their ally. He is every bereaved mother, every expendable foot soldier, every piece of collateral damage, and every brave soul who silently resists violence by confronting it with forgiving love.

Justluckie

A curious reader

07/08/2013

War and God - Martial Images in Churches

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