Man...I ran across a post from Anthony Bradley asking if the church is ready to relate to the Iraq War vet. More than just a simple "Thanks for your service" but offering some support that the U.S. government cannot alone provide. Here's an excerpt:
Evangelicals totally dropped the ball with Vietnam veterans a generation ago but we don't have to make the same mistake. It's asinine that Americans expect the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA), alone, to meet the re-entry needs of Iraq veterans. The government is ill-equipped to address the core needs of veterans and the church needs to man-up and lead the nation in restoring the emotional, marital, familial health, and dignity of Iraq war veterans (Matt 5-7). Missional Christians fighting against the passivity of outsourcing help and restoration to government shout, "Abdication, no more!" Veterans need what the church has to offer.
Ninety-eight percent of the nearly 3,000 US troop casualties are men. When men die so that other men can sit at home and blog, play video games, watch Sports Center, argue about N.T. Wright, and obsess over what "emerging" means, the least we can do is commit ourselves to their families and to surviving veterans.
HT: Anthony Bradley
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