Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.  Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

For centuries, The Christian Liturgical Year as practiced in The Latin [Western] Church has followed the phenomenology of battle:

1- Into the Confessional (Advent)
2- Battle Preparation (Christmas)
3- Appearance of Battle Commander (Epiphany)
4- Commander’s Battle Announcement (Transfiguration)
5- The Battle Itself (Ministry, Lent, Holy Week)
6- The Battle is Lost (Good Friday)
7- Battle Loss Reversed to Battle Victory (Easter, Resurrection)
8- Follow-Up to Expand Liberty (Trinity, Ordinary Time)
9- Consummation, Fruits of The Labors (All Saints Day)

Earlier, before the Great Schism, The Christian Liturgical Year as practiced often followed the phenomenology of war rather than merely that of battle:

1- Liberation of Assets (All Saints Day)
2- Assembly and Training of Assets (Advent)
3- Arrival of Supreme Commander (Christmas)
4- Announcement of War to Defeat Demonic Powers (Transfiguration)
5- Multi-Dimensional Warfare Commences (Ministry, Lent, Holy Week)
6- Victory of Demonic Powers, Execution of Supreme Commander (Good Friday)
7- Supreme Commander’s Execution is Reversed (Easter, Resurrection)
8- Victory of Demonic Powers is Reversed (Appearances)
9- War Order: Recapitulate This Success Among All Nations (Great Commission)

Current practice in The Latin Church has a Petrine fragrance whereas more ancient practice has a Pauline one.  Both rest on the phenomenology of military proceedings and not as metaphor only but also as downright move to contact and engage to destroy.

---

In theology, the enemy, whether engaged (piety) as battle or more thoroughly as warfare, is demonic powers, not flesh and blood.

Theology gives no comfort to anyone who identifies an ordinary creature, human or animal, as an enemy to be destroyed.  Avoided, such as a grizzly bear is, surely, but not labeled an enemy.  Taken theologically, military engagement is with an enemy not of this world even though it occurs in this world.

An ordinary creature, such as a human, becomes an enemy to be engaged militarily when they give expression to an urge to deny some one or some group freedom of communication.  An urge such as that signals the presence of a demonic power which, upon one’s choice, may be de-platformed by destroying its host, a fellow human, or by convincing its host, himself or herself, to exile the demonic power they harbor, namely, the urge to obstruct.

In any case, the true enemy occupies the opposition’s heart and mind.  It is not their body.  Punishment must proceed through their body.  However, a nasty foreign agent inside their heart and mind is the real enemy and therefore the decisive target for military engagement.  The will to aggress, the will to aggress, that, always and only, is a casus belli.  And that, always and only, is the justification for and target of war-making.

---

The phenomenology of the Army’s military proceedings is akin to — but not identical with, nor should it be — the more ancient rather than the more modern practice of The Christian Liturgical Year. The Pauline more than the Petrine fragrance, so to speak.  The phenomenology of the Army’s military proceedings begins with a liberation rather than with a confession.  The Soldier cannot train up for war and battle until they have been released from bonds which prevent their doing so.  Both the volunteer candidate Soldier and the receiving Army remove obstacles preventing the candidate Soldier from fulfilling their destiny in and with the Army.

itaque carissimi mei sicut semper oboedistis non ut in praesentia mei tantum sed multo magis nunc in absentia mea cum metu et tremore vestram salutem operamini

Deus est enim qui operatur in vobis et velle et perficere pro bona voluntate

sanctus Paulus / sanctus Hieronymus

A volunteer is forewarned as to the Army’s manners and mission and, upon passing each and every test, is welcomed into the Army to embark upon the hard work of becoming a Soldier.  They know from the beginning what to expect and are provided conditional opportunity and means to opt out of the organization.  In this and other ways, the Army liberates a volunteer from whatever it was they did not want to be doing or be beholden to and sets them on a course to do what they do want to be doing and are not beholden to other than what they chose, namely, Army orders.  That is liberating for the volunteer and also for the Army.

It is theologically sagacious.

In the case where the Army inducts draftees, involuntarily, a larger field of endeavor becomes operational.  A draft is authorized by Congress and signed into law by the President.  Congress and the President hold office more or less by leave of their countrymen.  So in principle, if Congress and the President authorize a compulsory military draft, their countrymen, who put Congress and the President in office with authority to do that, have yoked themselves with involuntary servitude for a specific purpose and, with luck, duration.  All citizens then, for the good of themselves and their countrymen in aggregate — without whom they would lack opportunity altogether — legally and morally must submit to the duly-enacted compulsion.

Ideally, however, the Army is a volunteer force entirely, and we will proceed in the following to treat of it as such.

---

Liberation is the root of the Army’s nature and mission.  Liberation is the essence of the Army.  It is what the Army is.  It is what the Army does.

Liberation

This is ironic in that the Army is neither a democratic nor a republican organization, nor should it be either.  The Army is an hierarchical organization with strict lines of command responsibility.  Its mission requires that of its being, its is-ness.

Everything the Army does is meant to produce liberation in some form or of some one.  A general freedom of communication is the end state of Army activity.  The Army may be compared to a caustic agent for the world’s pipelines, its communications, opening them up to ease of traverse by traffic of this kind and that.  Or, in the event, laying new pipelines and guarding against their getting blocked up.

The Army’s mission is to remove obstacles that thwart their countrymen’s natural life concourse and concurrence: obstacles to trade, obstacles to learning, obstacles to industry, obstacles, generically put, to freedom of communication, freedom of movement.

Individual Soldiers and groups of Soldiers engaged in the Army’s mission expand in skills, maturity, and steadiness.  That liberates them.  And their liberation enriches the Army’s command environment, operational lethality, and general wherewithal.

The liberation of individual Soldiers and groups of Soldiers increases as the Army accomplishes its mission of removing obstacles to freedom of communication.  Education is freedom.  Learning is liberation for Soldiers and power-building for the Army.

Liberation for freedom, both as a process and as a condition of existence, is what the Army does.  The Army’s liturgy — a Greek word meaning simply work, labor, productivity — starts with liberation for its members and ends with liberation from demonic powers for its charges (surrendered enemies), whoever those are said to be by the President and Congress.

Removing boots from necks, metaphorically and actually, is the Army’s mission.  This liberates both the boot-ee and the boot-er.  The Army’s mother’s milk is liberation, freedom, victory.

The Army’s mission is totally theological even though it requires no articulation in theological terms of art.

---

Wrap-Up

The plan is for five posts on the topic A Theology Of The Army:

Introduction
Liberation
Perfection
Absolution
Conclusion

This post is on Liberation.

Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA