Recent reading "Peace to War"

    In the past month or so I finished reading "Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God" by Paul Alexander published 2009 by Cascadia Publishing House. A fascinated review from within the Assemblies of God of the slide from being a peace church to alignment with the war machine of the USA. The author shows how the original Assemblies of God was really quite radical in its profession of peace. Especially the profession of rejection of violence. The Assemblies of God formed out of the foment of the initial Pentecostal experience originating in 1906/1907.
    By the time of WWI the Assemblies were quite firmly on the side conscientious objection and non-combatant participation in the war. The author shows how this slowly shifted between the wars. And by the time of WWII the Assemblies were much more ambivalent in their proclamation of non-combantant status of their young men. After WWII and leading into Korean and certainly by the time of Vietnam the Assemblies of God were rapidly converted into fire breathing warmongers. Patriotism and allegiance to the State became the watchword instead of proclamation of peace.
   There are strong parallels between the Assemblies of God and their proclamation of peace and rejection of violence and the history of the Community of Christ. One of the key (my opinion) proclamations of the predecessor of the CofChrist (the early LDS movement) was that of Peace. This following the divine intervention with Joseph Smith Jr's attempt to invade Missouri in the early history of the LDS movement to "liberate" members. The Community of Christ, like the Assemblies of God, has elements of rejection of violence, especially war in its genetic make up. Yet it has shown itself unable to buck the pressure of "patriotism" and support of government even when it obviously violates Jesus' commandments concerning rejecting violence and proclaiming love of enemy.
   The author paid the price for stating the obvious that the early Pentecostal movement rejected violence. His career within the organization ended. But he didn't give up. And a little later he was instrumental in forming the Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace and Justice.  See www.pcpj.org