Dear friends,
For Australians, Anzac Day is the great national day. But what is it we’re remembering? And should we celebrate Anzac Day? In particular, should Christians be remembering or celebrating a military battle of the First World War? Does Anzac Day glorify war? Is it an alternative religion for Australians? I hope you will enjoy our discussion as Peter and I try and grapple with the history and purpose of Anzac Day observances.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip: Anzac Day is our subject today and something we should discuss between ourselves as Christians and as Australians. For those of you overseas, Anzac Day has been celebrated since the First World War.
Peter: Yes, Anzac Day celebrates the moment when the Australian troops went into battle in the First World War for the first time, invading Turkey at Gallipoli. It is called Anzac because it celebrates the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps; that is to say, our cousins across the sea are also involved in this, and we're very proud of the fact that we have stood together. Anzac Bridge in Sydney has the flag of New Zealand at one end and the flag of Australia at the other end.
Phillip: That battle wasn't a great victory for us.
Peter: It wasn't. We were not the only ones there. The British Army was there in force, too. The loss of life was significant, not least on the Turkish side, which I think was 86,000. But notwithstanding that, their defence was very powerful, and in the end, after the initial invasion, we withdrew a few months later. So it was not a success, and as a strategic move, it failed.
Phillip: Again, for our overseas friends we celebrate Anzac Day each year.
Peter: I think it first began in 1916, the year after, or somewhere around there, and it has become a public holiday and a major day in Australia, where in each country town and the great cities, there are large processions of veterans. The first Anzac parade I ever saw included Boer War veterans; yes, I'm that old. They went by in cars, but everyone else marched. There were a lot of First World War veterans and then a huge number of Second World War veterans. These days, none from the First War, only a few from the Second War, but then people from Vietnam, Korea, and other wars that have been fought since then. Also, I think I'm right that the children and grandchildren of the veterans can march. So the marches are still held, and there's a dawn service at the Cenotaph in Sydney where anyone can attend. Christine and I went once, to the dawn service there. It is held in memory of those who died, lest we forget.
Phillip: Not only there, but also in all kinds of suburbs and many little country towns, dawn services are held where people gather to remember. It may be hard to grasp for outsiders, but it's the closest thing we have to a national day.
Peter: It is a bit like Remembrance Day, November the 11th, particularly in England, for example, but it is an Australian and presumably New Zealand national day; in a sense, it unites us that day.
Phillip: Although there have been some divisions about it in recent years.
Peter: Not even in recent years. It was also in the 1960s, when we were involved in a pretty unpopular war in Vietnam, and the baby boomers had arrived on the scene. Their parents were children in the First World War, they'd gone through the Great Depression, and they'd fought in the Second War. I think there was a sort of rebellion against the parents at this point and the kind of piety of the parents in the way they thought about war and the losses of war. I think the youngsters from the 1960s thought it was all a bit much. There's a famous play called The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour, in which that division between the father and the son is very evident. The son is tremendously critical of the father, who on Anzac Day each year got together with all his mates and drank and drank and drank. You’d go down the street, and there were drunks everywhere and people playing two-up. The son was very critical; however, in the end, I think he could see that his father was celebrating something that he had never seen, never been through, and the mateship of the day was born in the horrors of war.
Phillip: If I remember correctly, that play was banned the first couple of times they tried to put it on.
Peter: That's true. There was a ban, but eventually, it came on, and it was fairly successful. It raised important issues for Australians at that time. What people were angry about was what they saw as being the celebration of a horrible thing, namely the celebration of war.
Phillip: Then during the Vietnam War, there were some very ugly scenes at Anzac memorials with people attacking the veterans and throwing red paint to symbolize the horrors of war. But that has been reversed. There’s been a real turnaround in terms of the population now celebrating the soldiers, and the veterans are honoured even more than they were before the outbreak of that kind of opposition in the late 60s.
Peter: So, the question is, was Anzac a celebration of war?
Phillip: It was hardly a celebration of victory.
Peter: No, it wasn't. But if not celebrating war, what now is it?
Phillip: It's celebrating the coming of age of a nation. There were a few people who fought in the Sudan in the 1880s, and a handful fought in the Boer War. But remember, we didn't become a nation until 1901. We were just separate states up until that stage. So it was the first time Australia, as Australia, functioned. There was no real unity across the land until the blood was shed of people from every part of the land for a common cause.
Peter: You've mentioned the coming of age of the nation rather than Anzac celebrating victory, but it's also remembering loss. And that loss was profound. It's well known that the men who came back wouldn't talk about it. How could they? How could they talk about the experiences they'd had? So they bottled them up, and suicide rates were high. If it affected you, and it affected so many, almost all families, then it was unforgettable, it was deeply regrettable, and so on. In Anzac, they were not celebrating; they were remembering.
Phillip: Yes, that's right, and nearly every 20th century church building, or earlier, every kind of municipality square, and every country town has memorials with huge, long lists of those who served in the First World War. It had a much bigger impact on the community than the Second World War, which was a bigger war in the sense that it involved more of the world than the First World War, but the impact of the first one and the percentages of the population who were killed were greater. It was just the first time we'd gone to war.
Peter: But ironically, the second war came to our shores with the bombing of Darwin and the sinking of the ship in the Sydney Harbour. And while it had a huge impact, it hasn't had the same impact.
Phillip: Is Anzac Day itself, as it's celebrated, a quasi-religious celebration in Australia today?
Peter: Ah. Now, a little while ago you said that it was a coming of age of our nation. Yes, in the 1960s people were a bit opposed to celebrating Anzac, but this is past now, partly because Anzac has become, to use a technical term if you like, mythological. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, no. Something that's a myth may well have happened; it just takes on a significance, a meaning, and it gives it a power greater than the original, perhaps. Did we become a nation then? But people are not so much remembering the dead as thinking of the nation we became, and I think that has a mythical sense to it. Does it have a mystical sense to it? That's the question you raised, and I think you ought to try to answer it.
Phillip: I watch how people remember and memorialize, not just that First World War and those troops, but all our troops who have gone and served and especially have lost lives.
There are often religious symbols, clergy conducting services, and occasionally singing an ancient hymn during the service. But as a secularized nation that doesn't pray, a minute's silence is a very long time. And the sense of awe, the sense of purpose, and the sense that there is something bigger in life than just my next meal are brought home through the Anzac Day gatherings. Though that purpose and significance is never actually spelt out. It just is, “There's got to be more to life than the life we've got at the moment because these men and women died so that we could have this better life.”
Peter: So, should we as Christians value Anzac Day?
Phillip: Yes, because we as Christians are members of a nation. So we pray, and one of our first prayers, one of the things that we must always pray, for in 1 Timothy 2, as of first importance, is praying for those in authority that we might live a peaceful and godly life. Also, as Christians in a nation, we must be concerned for the welfare of our nation and its peacefulness and its government and authorities, who are the ones who declare war and the ones who can call for peace. But in another sense, no, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is never advanced by war. Nationalism is a basis of war. You can go to war to advance your nation, but you can't go to war to advance Christ.
Peter: Or to defend your nation appropriately. Well, you make it sound as though war is okay. I seem to remember you were once a pacifist.
Phillip: I was for several years, and I got bashed up a couple of times. I got bashed up once defending a youth group that I'd taken out on an excursion, and the police came and rescued us. At that point, I had a real difficulty. It may be alright to be a pacifist for yourself, but can you be a pacifist for others, and can you rely upon the police to take violence when you're not willing to? But I also had a problem when I was called up for the Vietnam War because verses that I relied on for my pacifism, like turn the other cheek and you shall not kill, were inadequate to defend the concept. The Lord is called the Lord of Hosts, and the word ‘Hosts’ is a nice word for armies. Throughout the history of the Old Testament, God sends armies into war, and John the Baptist was asked by soldiers what they should do, and he didn’t say, "Lay down your arms," but rather, Don't abuse your position. So in the scriptures, which is what I held to, I found that the pacifism that I was committed to actually came from a couple of Hollywood movies, frankly, and so I renounced my pacifism and went to enlist with the conscription that I was under, until I failed the medical.
Peter: So war is possible, and Christians can fight in wars. What if they are persuaded that the war is wrong?
Phillip: I had friends who were opposed to the war in Vietnam, and that is a different thing from being opposed to war in principle. Either way, as a citizen, if I'm opposed to what the government is doing, I need to express my opposition. In a Western society of democracy, I have the opportunity to do so; in other societies, of course, you don't, but I must be willing. If I'm unwilling to do what the government says, I must face the consequences that the government gives, which may be imprisonment, community service, or something else, but you can’t take the benefits of the nation that you live in and be unwilling to pay the responsibilities for the maintenance of that nation.
Peter: I agree with that. Thinking of the Christian faith and Anzac, I have had no hesitation in being involved in Anzac Day celebrations, because I didn't think it was celebrating war, but rather remembering those who had died and the immense cost to them and to those who remained.
Phillip: And to be thankful to them or their families and to God, because we do live in a peaceful country as a result of their sacrifices.
Peter: In order to balance this, two hymns have come to mind. One that was immensely popular was a poem written after the First World War in 1919 and set to music in 19261. It is a hymn that likened those who fought to the Lord Jesus, saying that everyone who fought and laid down their life for their country was now with the Lord in heaven and that they suffered at their lesser Calvaries. I just don't think that's something we should be singing.
Phillip: I agree we shouldn't be singing it, because that's a truth, a lie, and an inadequacy. There is a truth in that greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends, says Jesus in John 15, and he's laying down his life for us. So there is a sense in which laying down your life for another is like the death of the Lord Jesus in Calvary. But it is untrue in that they're not laying down their life for the forgiveness of our sins. But it's also a contrast in Romans 5, where Paul is writing, saying someone may lay down their life for somebody who is good, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still enemies, Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
So I may lay down my life for my friends, for my family, or for my nation, but the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for his enemies, of whom I was one. That is a quantum leap. That is something significantly different. It's not just a lesser Calvary; it's a different Calvary.
Peter: The other hymn was used in the ritual of Anzac Day after the great procession through the city at the Hyde Park memorial here in Sydney. I was invited, as Archbishop, to give a five-minute sermon to the gathered crowd, and I was able to use this hymn, originally a poem by Rudyard Kipling2, which we had sung. Although it sounds like a celebration of war, it says something deeply Christian to our hearts if and when we are tempted to glory. It has some words that have gone down in history. Phillip, you know the one I mean?
Phillip: I had to work on it because I kept hearing people say, lest we forget, lest we forget. It's an expression of our commitment to remember and be thankful for what we've got. Except that's not what the words mean, lest we forget, what?
What is he talking about when he said, lest we forget? That comes at the end of Kipling's poem, doesn't it?
Peter: Each verse finishes with those words, lest we forget.
Phillip: Well, we're not to forget that the great empires of the past have been destroyed in good times and so not glory in our great empire. I think it was at the celebration of the 50th Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, which would put it around 1898 or something like that, and Kipling saw the British Navy down in the channel, and it was 'Britain ruled the waves' in those times—the greatest navy that had ever been seen. He has the wit and the wisdom and Christian understanding to see that that exercise in power can be quite deceptive.
Peter: I'll read the key verses.
God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Phillip: That is a much more profound perception that we need to remember as a victorious nation.
Peter: Yes, he's quoting the Bible, of course—a humble and a contrite heart.
Phillip: Pride in our victory and pride in our military can deceive us from the fact that our victory comes from God, as do our losses. And we have this strange celebration on the day of a great loss, but you know it was the same time when the Turkish government, who have treated us so well and become such friends, conducted one of the great genocides of the 20th century in killing and scattering abroad the Armenians. While we can rejoice and puff out our chests at the victories that we finally did win, the Armenian people across the world still remember Easter 1915 as the worst of times, because they're still suffering from the effects of war, their war.
It's important then, as Kipling points out, that we stand back from our victories and our losses and remember God, who is actually the sovereign Lord over all armies and all empires. What he has raised up in one generation—Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome—they've all gone, because human arrogance does not win.
But the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is the great victory. So, we should pray thankfully to God for our nation, praying for our leaders, but asking God to keep us aware in the time of heightened nationalism, of the importance of the kingdom that is so much greater.
O Valiant Hearts, John Stanhope Arkwright, 1919
Recessional, Rudyard Kipling, 1897
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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