If we are honest, you and me, we will acknowledge that our silence during the war in Iraq was a spiritual failure, and it's not too soon to ask what will happen the next time the United States dances off to war on a whim and a cloud of patriotic posturing.

We can commit to being peacemakers and creating the kingdom that God envisions. We can commit to supporting our military families in every way we can. We can commit to holding our government and military leaders accountable for the decisions that they make about war and conflict. On this 10-year anniversary, isn't this is the least we can pray for and work for in the world?

If we are being honest with ourselves, we must admit that our national histories, our ethnic histories, our religious histories, our family histories, our personal histories, all take precedence over the Bible.

The voice of the Christian pacifist is a quiet one, a patient one. Rather than make grand pronouncements, it sets itself to the work at hand. It speaks love, mercy and hope, and, when all else fails, it makes the ultimate sacrifice.

At a time when the fraught situation of our combat troops is so often ignored, let us remember with gratitude that on this particular Thanksgiving weekend at least two men made us face the hard, human questions posed by military combat.

I'm remembering the descent into the surreal. Radio reports told of crashing planes and dropping towers, of Pentagon flames and building evacuations, of stranded passengers in isolated airports.

It's obvious that killing folks in a movie theater is sick and deranged, but the question arises: Is violence ever OK?

It's an axiom that presidents lead us into wars, while Christians provide the flags and the crosses. So it may seem the deck is stacked against American evangelicals organizing into a comprehensive peace movement.

Our forefather Jacob taught us that only by challenging evil and standing up for what is good, can peace be brought to the world. If we can learn from these achievements of the past, then we are likely to repeat them.

If we believe that one life - perhaps even our own - is worth giving up for a change that brings hope to thousands or millions of others, then this third way begins to look like a path worth exploring.

And while Sam Childers doesn't condone violence, he asked me what I would want him to do if the child he was trying to save were mine?

Wise teachers throughout the ages have echoed Buddha's wisdom. These leaders have never taught weakness, but they have always taught love. And they have overcome greater foes than al Qaeda.

Today, the leaders of the "New Evangelicals" and millions of others in the wider evangelical family, remember and laud Hatfield's bi-partisan style, generosity of spirit, and the public-policy values he endorsed.

We are pushing forward into a troubled country, supplying weapons and bombing, all without a serious public conversation about the strategy, reason and not to mention the morality of this course of action.

Imagine what would happen if a massive popular movement of ordinary Americans decided to voice their concern about military spending -- by withholding $10.40 from their 1040 tax forms this year?

Christianity is not a religion of pacifism, but neither is it a religion of "valor and gallantry in waging aggressive war in a just cause against the enemies of freedom while inflicting massive casualties in the process."

I can support equal rights for gays in the military, but there's the bigger question: As a Christian should I be supporting military participation at all?