Reading the website for Force Ministries is a forced lesson in the inclusive and exclusive power of context. I don?t live in the non-denom (and therefore evangelical) ?Christian? alternate America. So me no speaky lingo. Near as I can tell from their self-evident-style (and poorly written) text, Force Ministries is an evangelical organization dedicated to members of our armed forces. Near as I can tell, but this is as far as I get in that direction.
Perhaps the main problem I?ve been having is that the language of American evangelical Christianity has been melded here with the language of American militarism, and it?s not a happy marriage, either to my ear or to the part of my brain that wrests meaning from words. Here?s the ?Mission Strategy":
Mission: Christ-centered duty
Purpose:
- Impart faith in Christ.
- Instill patterns and principles for victorious Christian duty.
- Ignite individual calling and destiny.
Defining Passage: ?From the days of John the Baptist unitl now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.? (Matthew 11:12) NIV
Elsewhere, the ?Mission Strategy? is broken down into three major areas: Evangelism, Discipleship and Deployment. ?Discipleship? is obvious: it is their program for developing a congregation among members of the armed forces. It includes bible study, online teaching and interaction, providing chaplains, etc. ?Deployment? is their missionary branch. How missionaries on military bases differ from chaplains is probably one of those things you have to be in context to understand.
What?s really interesting here, though, is the first component: ?Evangelism?. The Evangelism branch of Force Ministries is ? you guessed it, a skydiving team! ?FORCE skydiving is a ministry to the military and through the military ? comprised of current and former Navy SEALs.? Why? you might ask. Well, ?in this era of Gen-X extremism, it?s proving harder and harder to capture the attention of the world?s youth. If it doesn?t go over 100 miles per hour, make a lot of noise, put a hole in your lip, or turn your hair a different color, it probably won?t get a second glace (sic). This, no doubt, makes evangelism challenging for many of today?s ministries.?
No doubt. Thank goodness some evangelists have the ability to take the following flights of fancy:
?Imagine a group of today?s youth standing around with their skateboards and piercing?s (sic), when all of a sudden, one of them looks up and sees an aircraft at 12,000 feet, with a smoke trail. What appear to be 5 human beings have (sic) exited the airplane, all of them trailing a stream of smoke. Nearly a minute later, brightly colored parachute (sic) with the single word, ?FORCE? boldly visible, begin to open. All witnessing these daring stunts are curious to see if these guys can pull off a landing and live to tell about it. They quickly make their way to the ?drop zone? where they notice a thousand other kids watching the beautiful parachute formations and spectacular landings.
?Immediately following the jump the jumpers quickly make their way to a stage were (sic) they began (sic) to speak a truth never before heard by many in the audience and soon a life changing realization comes over the newcomers ?? etc.
What?s disturbing me about the whole scenario isn?t that evangelicals are missionizing the military ? in fact, good for them for doing it, for concerning themselves with the spiritual welfare of soldiers deployed in horrifying war zones. What?s disturbing isn?t evangelicals trying to borrow the cred of xtreme sports to appeal to youth ? in fact, good for them for doing it, for bothering to take note of our Zeitgeist and attempting to fit their spiritual message to the needs and interests of today?s youth. As the language makes clear, this stuff is straight out of the imagination of someone standing on the wrong side of the generation gap, but maybe today?s pierced youth will respond to sky divers.
What?s disturbing to me is the implication that Force Ministries is using military personnel to missionize non-military-affiliated kids for the military. It?s an indirect (and completely unacknowledged) military recruitment tool: first you get them for Christ, then you sign them up for Uncle Sam. No, there?s nothing on the website that says this, but why would you use an organization called ?Force Ministries", dedicated to the military, to recruit kids for Christ, unless the point was to also prepare them for military life? Why, otherwise, the military-style language on the website, and the glorifying images of soldiers holding weapons for Christ?
Force Ministries isn?t awkward or stupid enough to glorify militarism in its text, but it is savvy enough to call itself ?Force Ministries", with all the possible concomitant meanings and implications of the word ?force", and the power of the idea of ?force? to those who feel powerless. Do you really think that they haven?t thought that word through? So what is it that they?re really trying to do here? Recruit kids for Christ and then recruit Christians for soldiers? Sounds complicated, doesn?t it? Or are they maybe going to skip the first step (or leave the first step to other organizations) and just move straight to the second by ?deploying? sky divers over existing Christian youth gatherings? That is actually what the fantasy scenario rather sounded like: militarize the already-Christian and rake in a few unbelievers, too. Kill three birds with one parachutes (sic).
What do you suppose? Is this a solution to the Bush admin?s impending recruitment crisis? Onward Christian soldiers?
