I do not know if it is an abomination or blasphemy. I lean toward blasphemy first because it uses the Lord’s name in vain, which it to say it takes lightly the name of the Lord by using it for worldly ends. But it is rightly also an abomination in that it the primary sin is one of idolatry.

What is Greenbean on about now?

Well, I made a mistake yesterday (Sunday). I was about to start the process of buckling down to internalize the flow and memorize key parts of my sermon about Isaiah 35. In an unguarded moment I made the mistake of looking at my phone and taking one last scroll through Facebook before I put it aside until after the worship service was over. That was the mistake, because what I saw almost immediately was this.

The United States Government, through the Department of War, quotes Isaiah 6:8 in a recruitment add. The blasphemy of it, the abomination of it, irked me and really made it hard for me to focus on the Way of Holiness in Isaiah 35.

The first mistake this war commercial makes is by swapping the Lord’s call to Isaiah with a call from the country to serve, it puts the United States at a place where only the Lord should be. In other words, Caesar, Darius, Nebuchadnezzar, and Pharaoh would all agree with how the Department of War is using this passage — to serve the state, the empire, is the same as to serve the gods. That is idolatry.

The second mistake, and there are many here, is to use Isaiah, of all prophets, for warmongering. A mere four chapters earlier Isaiah writes of his beautiful vision of a future where people no longer train for war, swords are reshaped as ploughs, and spears are repurposed as pruning hooks. Isaiah is not necessarily anti-war, but he is definitely not into battles and killing as a solution for problems. In fact, Isaiah could rightly be understood as someone who argues for a ‘sit back and let God take care of your enemies’ policy.

A third mistake, and this shall be the last I touch on, is the twisting of calling inherent in this kind of heretical prooftexting. Isaiah was called by the Lord in Isaiah 6 through an amazing theophany to preach to a nation a message of coming judgment and woe if it did not repent of its immoral and unethical ways. That calling is almost the opposite of asking young men and women to swear an oath of willingness to die in battle in service of the nation.

I am not a pacifist.

I am not against the military. Indeed, some of the finest people I’ve ever know have worn the uniform and stood watch.

I am not even against recruiting young people to serve. Many lives have been made better through the discipline and opportunity which military training brings.

I am, though, very much against using the Holy Bible in a way that it should never be used. What the War Department has done is foolish, thoughtless, sloppy, arrogant, and evil. It is evil because it is an abomination of desolation. It is blasphemy of the holy.

I implore Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump to repent of this sin publicly and vow to do better.