Hello everybody! Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives!
I'm here with Dean Taylor..
Dean and I, well, we've done a of couple video projects
I guess back a few years ago.
You wrote a book actually called "Change of Allegiance". You used to be in the military, then
became a Christian and started believing in nonresistance and
the teachings of Jesus.
You did a whole video series on this, so we'll try to cover it in one short episode.
Basically (for me especially) I'm really intrigued. How did you go from being
actively involved in the military, and then make that decision
to decide, "Jesus actually says not to be involved in war"?
What were some things that contributed to that? Were you just reading the Bible and said,
"Okay, let's live this out." or did somebody else influence you?
It's a great question.
I was raised very patriotically, and when I joined the Army, I did it very patriotically.
I enjoyed my time in the army. There was some certain things that I think
God used in my life: one of them interestingly enough was about a year before the Scripture reading started.
I've been to Berlin twice in my life. The first time
I went to Berlin, my wife was in basic training, and I went with my mother. When I went there it was
1988. It was a classic "Checkpoint Charlie," the Cold War thing,
the concertina wire, and the machine guns, and the Russians and the East Germans and all that. It's very intimidating.
So I came out of that, but then my wife came out of the army. We got a chance to go to Berlin again.
We were there, and it's 1989. If you know your history, from 1989
was when the Berlin Wall was coming down. We were right there, and it was incredible.
You know, we were there
watching the same place that I was there just a year before. Now we're there, and there's literally these guards
looking through a hole in the wall and trying to pass champagne and
trying to kiss you through there. There was just this feeling in the air of "there's been a change."
My friend even tried to drive his car into the wall. There was just this sense that this wall was coming down.
I guess as I took it all in,
the thing that hit me was just simply the concept: what changed?
Why could I have been called on last year to kill these guys? They are my enemies. This year
I'm shaking hands through a hole in the wall.
I think I started to think about
that a few political leaders somewhere made us some decisions, and now my enemy has become my friend.
So, now fast-forward it a little bit when my wife got out of basic training,
and got to the army, we got this double housing allowance. We went from this little house in
one town into this really big nice house in another town. It was a great place, but the one
so-called defect of the place: it was in this really pretty valley, but it couldn't get
TV reception.
So, for the first time in my life, I'm quiet and
I started to read. At the time, we were actually in a rock band.
That was our job in the army. To be honest, this lifestyle was
really dragging us down. It was our official job, but we were active in the evangelical church in town.
Nevertheless, you'd just go be playing for all these different troops, all these rock songs and all these types of things. Eventually then,
"Hey, it'd be fun to go play at this bar!" That lifestyle really began to drag us down.
We were just wrestling with this very superficial Christianity.
What does it mean? We've said a "sinner's prayer," we were genuine, we were sincere.
An idea of actually being a disciple of Jesus Christ was foreign to us.
We began to read. One of the first books I read was a book
by Keith Greene called "No Compromise". It was just about a radical life of living for Jesus.
It was about, honestly, one of the first books I'd ever read in my life.
Like I cheated through high school or something like that. So just reading that book about somebody, just no compromise.
If Christ says it, I'm going to do that. So we were actually up in North Germany at a place
called Monchengladbach. As we were there,
it was a terrible thing called Fasching (the Germans do it before Lent).
It's kind of a bunch of sinful place, and we were playing concerts for that.
It was just sin everywhere. Finally my wife and I came to our hotel room,
and we said, "We've got to either give up on this fake Christianity or take it. No compromise"
Praise be to God! By the grace of God,
we kneeled in our hotel room and completely surrendered our lives over to Jesus Christ. When we got up
we had this banner over our head: No Compromise. We're gonna live for Christ.
First thing we did was get out of the rock band. That was relatively easy
There's always people waiting for a job like that.
Then I was reading. We began to read different things at nighttime.
We'd read to each other. You know get excited about something to read. I'll never forget the night I was reading to my wife.
I looked over at Tania, and I said, "Tania, I want you to have a completely open mind,
and I want to read something to you."
I was reading from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Chapter 5.
And as I begin to read that I said, "Okay now,
I want you to stay open." She's looking at me kind of weird, but okay, alright. I said, "Okay,
here's what He says:
You have heard that it has been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth,
but I say unto you, that you resist not evil
but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if a man shall
sue thee at the law and take away your coat,
let him have your cloak also, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two.
Give to him that asketh, and for him that would borrow from thee, turn
not away. You have heard that it has been said, thou shalt
love thy neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say unto you, love your enemies.
Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you and persecute you." I looked over at her. I said, "So what do you do with that?"
And she goes, "It sounds pretty simple."
I said, "Yeah, that's the problem. We're in the army."
So, you asked the question, "What different sources?"
Well, you know I was raised with this concept. Everybody thought this way. I didn't know of anybody
that took these teachings literally. I went to the chaplain.
I said, "You've got to help me with this." So, he gave me a book written by the head of The Chaplain Corps
on the just war theory. This is so good. The theologians got this figured out.
I began to read that book and I said, "Okay, this is gonna explain
why this obviously says this, but for a long time (it looks like in all history)
we're not doing this. They'll explain it." I began to read that book and by the time
I got to the end of the book, I was scared. I was scared because before I read the book,
I just assumed everybody has good answers. When I heard the good answers, I went,
"Wow, we're in trouble because these are terrible answers." Because Augustine...
They mentioned this whole concept of the first 300 years of the church in the book.
They said, "Yes, they all talked that they were pacifists and they love their enemies, but they were very naive.
They're very childlike." It was further
theologians like Augustine and the different ones that really gave us this just war theory. I started thinking, "Well, so for
300 years people just believed Christ, and now it's different?
That began to shape us, and
I began to realize, "Well, I'm gonna have to take this more seriously."
Again, by the grace of God, there was a kind of radical bookstore in town.
He was a bad businessman.
He went out of business and sold all of his radical books to the local
evangelical bookstore in town. I went in there, and there was things by Mennonites.
I found the Martyrs Mirror. I found things on the early Christians.
I saw stuff from David Bercot on the early church, and as I began to read these things
I was like, "Wow, so I'm not crazy! There has been other people that have thought this way."
That worked out really well for you.
Yeah, it worked out really well.
So after a lot of time of searching, obviously you came under that conviction of, "Love our enemies. Military is not the correct path to take."
Well, then the question is did you really have to get out of the military? Couldn't you just take a non-combat
position or something?
Yeah, it's a great question. The whole thing was a journey.
We were studying these things.
At this time (when it was first starting) there was no Persian Gulf War even yet. We had gone through a relatively long time of peace.
So I began to talk to my different Christian friends. I remember one literally said,
"Dean, you're asking questions that should never be asked."
I said, "I'm not comfortable. What do you do with this?"
I began to ask these things. Even my first sergeant began to get nervous.
He took me out of being an armor. I was an armor also other than a musician.
For instance, one time as I was working my way through this, one of the books
I was reading was a book called "20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid to Touch" by Tony Campolo.
As I was reading that, he had this idea on "What would Jesus do?" I had this job as the armor to install
M203 grenade launchers onto machine guns. As I did that, I remember asking the question,
"What would Jesus do?"
I thought, "It's confusing." I was working my way through.
Eventually then, we started hearing about Saddam Hussein. We started hearing about things. Things started going really
crazy around there.
We came into a room, and the first sergeant called us all in there to have what he was gonna
call a "deadly force briefing." He said (he's given us all these military assignments),
"If somebody comes in here," and he pointed to me, looked right at me,
he said, "You must use deadly force to protect this particular area." I realized, "Okay, my
funny theology is now...I'm going to end up getting somebody else hurt.
As I thought through that, I
actually wrote to Herald Press, and I wrote him a letter. We said, "We're two soldiers
We don't know what to do. We're just gonna go. We're gonna go AWOL." I sent this letter to them.
It's the 1900s. This is before email.
We sent this letter to them. They forwarded it to
Mennonite Central Committee in Lancaster County.
They sent it to some counselors over in Germany, and they really helped to get us out.
Your question: "Did you have to get out?"
The thing with the military that I began to understand more and more,
was not just a matter of nonresistance, of not killing, but to be a part of the cure for
humanity. Jesus is teaching to love your enemies.
Nonresistance is a passive word. One theologian, John Howard Yoder,
once said, "Calling it nonresistance is like calling marriage "non-adultery."
We are to run to this, giving the cure of Jesus Christ to humanity.
I wanted to be part of that, and I wanted to be part of that Kingdom.
I still love my country, and I love to be
honorable and upright to my country. This concept of these two kingdoms made the difference.
Instead of the doctrine of nonresistance just being by itself ("don't kill"), the two kingdoms-
the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world- began to be something that really worked on me
(and how they interact). Matter of fact one of the funny stories: The most confrontational
person that I went to was a psychologist. When you become a conscientious objector, you have to do several things: you got to write a paper
you have to speak to your commander of course, you have to go see a chaplain, you have to see a psychologist, you have to do
a court trial. Then they send your paper to somewhere in the States or where I was in Germany.
Then they make the decision.
The psychologist was only supposed to see if I was mentally able to stand trial. I go in there, and
(to answer your question that you were just asking me) she says,
"You can come on in, but you don't even need to sit down."
I said, "Why?" She said, "Because I've got you."
I was like, "Wow! This is weird." I said, "What do you mean you got me?"
She said, "I've got all you conscientious objectors."
"Well, what do you mean?"
She said, "Okay. I'll ask you two questions.
There were some of you conscientous objectors in here the other day." She said, "I'll ask you two questions.
You say you went out of the army because you can't
support what the American forces are doing. Is that correct?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, that's correct." She said, "Okay, next question:
Do you believe in paying your taxes?" I said,
"Well, yes ma'am. I believe in paying my taxes." She said, "See, you're inconsistent.
Absolutely. You have no basis." I was a new Christian, but I thought, "Okay, Lord." I said, "Well, ma'am,
here's something I need to explain to you. You may not understand this,
but I live by the way of a book and a teaching of Jesus Christ. This teaching
teaches me to love my enemies and to pay my taxes.
I don't necessarily have to understand all the details of that, but I do need to obey it."
Suddenly, she got really upset with that, and she started saying, "Do you know who I am?"
She began to explain all the volunteer things she does and going through all this: "I volunteer. I'm a Sunday school teacher."
I kid you not, and then she said, "And besides all that, I am a card carrying Methodist."
And I shouldn't have done this. I was young and stupid. I said, "Ma'am, could you just repeat all that?"
She got really mad and kicked me out the room.
Her concept of this two kingdoms is very important.
While I believe the doctrine of nonresistance, I don't want to embrace it just as a negative view,
but be a part of the cure for humanity that
brings in righteousness, brings in peace, brings in the theology of martyrdom,
brings in the cross to a world that's hurting.
We need to link the episode we did with Cliff Schrock because he talks a lot about
how "nonresistance" is really not a very good word for it. It's more like radical love.
Amen.
He used a couple of different words.
I just have to link that up, but it was really powerful about, that's not the right concept.
It's something proactive. That's a whole other topic.
That's good.
Okay, so that makes a lot of sense. Well then, the question is (after you went through that whole process,
all those things you had to do to become a conscientious objector), what was the response of
your friends in the military, your commanders, and then more importantly than that, your family?
That was tough. In some ways it's still tough.
I really wanted people to talk me out of it. One of the first things I did
is I went to my Baptist teacher. I had a great job. I went to my pastor and
I said, "Can you help me with this?" My wife and I showed him the scriptures.
"Help me with this!" He said, "You're not changing my mind." I said, "No, no I want you to convince me why
Jesus says this?"
To the chaplain I went to (one of the things you have to do is see a chaplain, an official visit),
I went there, I said, "Honestly," I said, "You've been to seminary school.
You've been to all these things.
Can you look me in the eyes and
look at the scriptures and tell me that I'm wrong for taking Jesus' words like this?"
He said, "Honestly, I can't."
Wow
My pastor after I tried to talk to him,
eventually said, "You know, I think you'd be more comfortable worshiping elsewhere."
And it hurt. Yeah, it was good for me. I needed to hear that, but it hurt.
My father was really tough.
He's very patriotic. We were grown up in the South, and going to Confederate war sites
and this type of thing was my childhood.
I've seen my father cry twice in my life, only.
Once was when he told me that his father died in a car accident when I was very little.
The other was when I told him I was gonna be a conscientious objector.
It was very hard. I think every son desires to have the blessing of his father over him.
Yeah, that was tough. It was really tough. It still is tough. We have a great relationship, but it was tough.
My Christian friends interestingly at the end, one of them who was really against me, at the very end he came to me and said,
"You know, if you would have waited on me,
I would have went with you." Some of them longed to see this.
At the time, no one thought this way, but the war
causes a soldier to think about it. See for most people, it's a theological issue.
It's, well, whether you view this view of baptism or that it's.... but when you're a soldier,
it becomes either, you shoot somebody and you're a good guy,
or you shoot somebody, and you're not a good guy. It becomes very serious.
Perhaps the most interesting
change I saw in someone was the very man who gave us our court trial. He was a young
very articulate African-American lawyer, a JAG office. He's in charge
He just had a very good presence about him.
He was very articulate, and he drilled me with everything. We each had to go on our own.
My wife had to go in on her own.
I did. We helped these other two, and they did. You have to answer all these questions.
They asked about this war, about hunting, about all kinds of stuff, they asked you questions about.
It seemed like his questions begin to be almost
leading, you know. I remember one time he asked me, "So you know you believe in...
and you said you're getting persecuted a little bit with this and that. Do you like that?" I showed him the scriptures.
As we testified to him and gave him our heart of what we believe, we tried to just let everything be real, not scripted,
but real. Just tell our testimony to him.
It was actually eight months after that til it's all said and done. The first Persian Gulf War is over. Since then
we're left into some kind of
menial jobs and awaiting the decision. Until that time,
there's an agreement that they don't make you do anything until they make the decision.
We had all these menial type of jobs. Finally the Persian Gulf War's over, and now finally the time he's called
us back into the office. So we come up there (the four of us).
I'm a sergeant. We come up there. We come up there and say, "Okay, yes, sir. We're here to report."
He has those four manila envelopes on the table. He says, "Okay I have your results for conscientious objector on this."
And it was, "Oh, okay". He said, "But hey,
the war is over. I have the authority just to completely wash these away, and you can go back.
You've got a great job
and you can continue here. So of course we're all thinking, "He's trying to let us off easy."
But I looked at the others,
and I knew what they were thinking. No, sir, we feel very clear that we want to go forward."
He said, "Well, I thought you'd say that. Well
I just want to let you know you've all been approved to be conscientious objectors."
So, we kind of rejoice in sort of a military way.
Then he stopped us.
He said, "But wait!" he said, "There's
something else that I now need to tell you. There's something else that I need to tell you." He said,
"I too now am leaving the army for the very same reason."
It's one of the most stunning moments in my entire life.
So this is what I've come to find out is that people from my background, people in America have never
really taken Jesus seriously. That's why I like to say, "What if Jesus really meant every word He said?"
You know in Matthew Chapter 13, it talks about the Kingdom of Heaven being like a seed. Once it gets into us, it grows.
If anybody takes the words of Jesus seriously and believes that He meant what He said, and that it's meant to be
practiced today in just a seed form,
that will grow in you and grow in you until finally you just can't stop it.
It's the grace of God.
Wow
So, that was impressive. Since then we've been on a journey and God still is
working in us.
We've tried to have good relationships with different people from different perspectives, but
I have seen that God's promise is true: that when you give up lands and families and
things on this earth, that you'll receive a hundredfold in this earth (with persecution)(Matthew 19:29). I have found that coming into
the entire Anabaptist world (again many different denominations of that Anabaptist world):
lands and friends and family and in several different ways at a very deep level.
I'm very blessed. It was a good decision.
So, you don't regret your decision?
No, I really don't. It was the most life-changing thing ever happened to me.
The biggest thing was that (over the scriptures and particularly over the words of Jesus) it's as if
(I don't think I heard anything audibly), but it's as if Jesus was just saying,
"I mean that."
That's been something that I've tried to live out ever since.
Wow, okay I just have to ask: this other guy that decided to become a
conscientious objector through your testimony, have you ever followed up on him?
It's a great question. People ask me that often. Okay, so we were stunned.
So, now he was an officer, and we were enlisted. So afterwards, we got home, we asked the same question:
"Wait a minute. We got to go do something!"
So we got a few of our books, and we tried to go talk to him.
In those days (I don't know if it's still this way)
the officer quarters were fenced off, and enlisted men cannot get into the officer quarters.
So we couldn't get in there; they wouldn't let us into this place.
So we didn't. Then they gave us like ten days to get out of the country, and
next thing, our life was on a roll. We never got to. I have wondered frequently.
It's a little different for an officer.
There's ideas of renouncing your commission and different things like that. I've wondered that myself many times.
Like how did that story end? Maybe he'll see this video and send you an email.
And write me a letter!
That's amazing though!
It really was.
I don't know who all is gonna watch this,
but maybe there's someone out there who is also considering taking the same path you did
by following these teachings of Jesus and is making that decision to leave the military.
What would you say to them?
I would say, "Keep yourself completely
grounded in Jesus Christ." One of the biggest things that troubled me is when we were becoming conscientous objectors,
is that some people were doing this,
I don't know, in sort of a hippie peacenik kind of way.
You can actually hold on to a doctrine of nonresistance, but miss Jesus. Or just be some sort of a
theologian or this type of thing.
Jesus has these answers for us, and nonresistance is part of it. It's not the entirety.
There's the whole teachings of Jesus Christ. Allow yourself to be permeated by the teachings of Jesus,
Think of your life and bring yourself before Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus said, "Unless you're born again,
you won't see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:5) I honestly believe that when Tania and I kneeled in that hotel room up in
North Germany and completely surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ,
we were allowed then to see the Kingdom, to understand the Kingdom.
So, if there's sin in your life, if you're living a compromised life, first of all get right with God.
Get right with God and allow Him to save you from your sins.
Then from that become a true
follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple of Christ. Allow all the teachings to saturate you.
As far as the details of war, I've heard so many great testimonies of different brothers that have written me through the different things.
It's such a fun journey
because when your eyes open to this, it's like the whole Bible comes alive in a new way.
It begins to give you this excitement.
Share your faith! Share your faith there in the Army, in the Marine Corps, Air Force
where you are. Also, I will give you advice that there's help. I will say that when they forwarded our letter to
The Mennonite Central Committee (there's other organizations that have helped us),
there's people out there that know the regulations. I tell you, those two counselors Andre and Kathy Stoner,
knew the regulations, so when I came the first time, we saluted and said,
"Sir, we're here to present our application for conscientious objector," because of those counselors, I laid the regulation 600-43 right there on the desk.
I said these are the regulations that guide the whole process of becoming conscientious objector.
We had our act together because of those counselors. I will say there is help that can be
received through that. Claim the promises. One other quick thing.
Sure.
When we were about to go to the trial,
the Mennonite Central Committee sent us this little white book they have which is a great book on
how to answer the typical questions they ask you in this. The four of us were
looking through this, and all of a sudden, I said, "Hey, wait a minute.
Jesus said, "When you're brought before magistrates, do not prepare beforehand what you shall say,
but the Holy Spirit will give you utterance." (Matthew 10:19)
So let's chuck this book and just go and testify of what God has done in our life.
We did that, and I think that made a difference. We weren't just giving pat answers.
We were telling what Jesus had done in our life.
That's the important thing: if you go through all this, and you just become a conscientious objector, and
don't know Christ genuinely, you're wasting your time.
Wow, that's a really good note to end on.
You know this all circles back around to Jesus. That's what it's all about. Fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharing that, for sharing your story. For all of you watching,
make sure you get his book. It's a really, really good book. Honestly.
Thank you.
Yeah, a lot of really practical things in there as well.
A Change of Allegiance. You can get that on Scroll Publishing and different things.
Thank you, everyone, for watching. Thank you very much, Dean, for sharing your story.
If you have any thoughts or inputs or opinions on what was shared today,
make sure and email us or let us know. Maybe we'll do a follow-up episode on this at some point.
I would like to say, please, pray for me. The journey is not over.
I've made the decision to try to follow the teachings of Jesus in reality in my life, and that's been my journey.
Please, if you think of it pray for me, pray for my family that we'll stay on this journey to follow Christ.
Sounds like quite the journey. Wow. Thank you again, everyone, for your attention.
We'll see you guys in the next video.
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