A Parade Of Death Along Constitution Avenue

Two of the sixty-ton M1 Abrams tanks and one of the M109A7 Paladin Self-propelled howitzers that were among the hundreds of killing machines displayed in the June 14 parade.

I found it heartening that on the day of the nation's $45 million military parade in D.C. that some 30,000 attended a ceremony in Chicago's White Sox stadium Friday to hear Pope Leo XIV speak via video. According to the Catholic Diocese of Chicago, the first 10,000 tickets for that event, at $5 each, were sold in the first 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, the highly publicized event celebrating the Army's 250th anniversary drew a crowd of an estimated 20,000, and the No Kings Day gatherings across the nation Saturday attracted some 5 million participants in over 2000 cities.

I don't want to read too much into those numbers, and I intend no disrespect for the well over a million men and women who are a part of the Army's active duty and reserve forces  They, along with members of the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard and other military units, are all fellow citizens I respect and love, but are under the command of a gigantic Defense Department with a budget equal to that of the combined spending of the next nine most heavily armed nations in the world, including Russia and China.

What saddened me Saturday was the realization that our massive Department of Defense is intended to protect us by threatening the use of every means possible to destroy as many of our enemies' lives and means of livelihood as efficiently as possible. Not one of the multimillion dollar death dealing machines in Saturday's parade was designed to feed the world's hungry, heal its sick, house its homeless, preserve its environment, or educate its young. 

Yet some will say that kind of investment is necessary to protect us and to make the world a more peaceful and habitable place. But how has the world benefited from our prolonged wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to cite some recent examples of how the world's greatest military might has been incapable of bringing peace and human wellbeing through military means.

As Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, "To go marching down Constitution Avenue looks like you've won something, Unfortunately, the way things have been going, it's been pretty tough for our military to achieve its objectives lately." 

But what about World War II, you ask, which resulted in the loss of some 50 million lives and at a cost of trillions of dollars worth of destruction?

A far better way to have prevented that holocaust would have been having the citizens of pre-war Germany, then one of the most Christianized countries in the world, simply refuse to support the rise of an authoritarian and hyper-nationalistic regime bent on promoting "Deutschland Uber Alles." And a far better way to defend against enemies is to win their friendship through cooperative efforts at improving the lives and fortunes of our neighboring nations around the world.

The direction we are going now, a hundred years later, will almost inevitably lead us to World War III, the effects of which could destroy us all.

Pentecost And The Rocktown High School Graduating Class Of 2025

Our grandson Ian was an honored part of Harrisonburg's
Rocktown High School's first graduating class.

Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs.

Acts 2:9-11 (NLT)

I was impressed by how many nationalities were represented in the Rocktown High School class of 2025 Saturday night. As graduates' names were called out for each receiving their diploma, I couldn't help but note that the event was on the eve of the Christian celebration of Pentecost.  

The Hebrew word for Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, is Shavuot, celebrated 50 days after Passover, a commemoration of God's gift of the Torah at Mount Sinai. And in the Genesis portion of Torah, we are told God's blessings are to extend to all the nations of the earth through a great multitude of descendants of Abraham and Sarah.

Here in our community people from multiple nations have become an integral part of our community, one that waa designated as a Welcoming City by the Harrisonburg City Council in 2016. Due to the availability of work in the poultry, agricultural and construction industries in the area, the proportion of foreign born persons in our area, according to one source, has grown to 16.7 percent of our population. This compares to 10 percent in the state of Virginia, and 13.7 percent nationwide. 

So there are now more than 50 languages spoken by students in the Harrisonburg City school system, which serves a total of over 6,400 students. Judging by the names of the 233 in the Rocktown senior class roster, well over half of the members of our grandson's class may be members of families with deep roots in, and strong ties to, other nations and cultures around the world. 

While followers of Jesus are called to "go into all the world," the world has literally come to us, and in impressive numbers. For all the challenges this can create, I see this representing a diversity that can truly bless us as we work, learn and grow together. What better way to become acquainted with other languages and cultures than to develop friendships with our neighbors from around the globe? 

I see the gift of tongues in the Acts account as not simply being a miraculous sign of the Spirit's presence, but a means by which people are able to communicate good news and a deep sense of shalom with God and each other. In the end, the Bible envisions a future in which Spirit-empowered communities everywhere faithfully live out God's will on earth as in heaven.

For these and other reasons we should resist by whatever means possible the current wholesale detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors without due process. We need to remember we are all either native Americans, children of imported slaves or the sons and daughters of immigrants. And that as God's children we all made of one blood, breathe the same air, and are dependent on the same life giving soil and water for our survival.

In the forever future we are all to become one.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. Revelation 7:9 (NRSV)

Note: I recently posted the following by a local immigrant: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2025/05/guest-post-ices-impact-on-local.html

Top Reasons The Parole Board Cites For Denials

The real reasons behind the Virginia Parole Board's repeated denials may include resistance from victims and their families or from local jurisdictions unwilling to have an offender return to their community, though such reasons are never stated. And it may be that wardens welcome having mature older role models remain in the population as a positive influence for younger and/or more incorrigible ones, but that is mere speculation.

Whatever the case, most of the reasons cited for not granting release to deserving individuals have nothing to do with the degree of rehabilitation they have demonstrated during their incarceration.

Margaret Breslau, co-founder and chair of the Blacksburg-based Coalition for Justice, published the following in her June 2025 issue of the Virginia Prison Justice Network newsletter:

In 2024, the total number of incarcerated people eligible for parole was 2,663. Only 19 were granted.

The top non-grant reasons cited were:

1. Release at this time would diminish seriousness of crime. The Board concludes that you should serve more of your sentence prior to release on parole.
2. Serious nature and circumstances of your offense(s).
3. Extensive criminal record.
4. Your prior failure(s) and/or convictions while under community supervision indicate that you are unlikely to comply with conditions of release.

5. History of substance abuse.
6. Considering your offense and your institutional records, the Board concludes that you should serve more of your sentence before being paroled.
7. You need further participation in institutional work and/or educational programs to indicate your positive progression towards re-entry into society.
8. History of violence.
9. No Interest in Parole

Note: Here's a link to a post about legislation that would bring about needed changes in how parole decisions are made: https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-virginia-parole-board-modest.html