The Accidental Militancy of Sunday School Songs

"I may never march in the infantry

Ride in the cavalry

Shoot the artillery

I may never fly o'er the enemy

But I'm in the Lord's army

Yes sir!"

Yes, those are lyrics to an actual song; an actual song that we sang at my small community church in rural Virginia. It helped to instill a bit of militant devotion to a religion that myself, as a child, could not begin to understand. That is another conversation for another day.

I once heard it said that, "Bad theology doesn't come from pastors. It comes from songwriters."

I guess this was true in the 1970s when the aforementioned military ballad was penned.

Singing the song was powerful at first, like the chills of a wondrous air-conditioning unit on full blast. It stimulated our skin and caused the small wispy hairs on our forearms to stand at attention. God was there in the midst. As the months dragged on, the now peaceful congregation arduously pressed air from their lungs to form the words; the times were a'changing.

A decision was made. My father, who was the worship leader at the time, consulted with the elder board (himself and God) and decided to remove the song from regular Sunday rotation. After all, there was a catalogue of Maranatha songs to choose from that rivaled the size of the United States tax code. *1*

I don't think anybody noticed. It was like the old snack Dunkaroos. It went away and nobody cared until they brought them back. Somehow, narratives appeared of how terrible life was without crunchy cardboard cookies and dippable frosting.

But like Dunkaroos, "Lord's Army" made a come back. It could not be a subtle re-implementation... Never! This song had power! It told us that we may never experience anything cool, but we could fight for the Lord. Hoozah!! The emergence of the song was my worship leader father's piece de resistance.

Not only did he play it on his broken down Yamaha Omni-chord more furiously than ever.

Not only did the crowd shout and sing with such fervency, as if they were atoning before Jehovah Nissi for forgetting how deeply that "Lord's Army" had enriched their lives.

THE KIDS IN SUNDAY SCHOOL DRESSED UP IN CAMO, MARCHED IN A CIRCLE AND FIRED TOY GUNS WHILE SHOUTING THE LYRICS. I CANNOT MAKE THIS UP. IT WAS A SPECTACLE OF YOUTH, OF POWER MIXED WITH A HEAVY DOSE OF GUILT FOR TREATING THIS SONG LIKE A CHRISTIAN RADIO B-SIDE.

My dad was proud.

I was proud.

God was... thankful we were all entertained?

This is not a good or bad memory. It just is.

The thing about this that stands out the most to me may surprise you. We had several costumes to choose from. I was a chubby kid, so only one set of army fatigues fit me. It came with a classic helmet. Another scrawny kid named Delton, (or Devin or Dakota or whatever was popular in the country in 1991) took the Marine officer's uniform. It came with more of a beret type headpiece. He refused to wear it, said it was sissy, and instead took my army helmet which was way to big for his stupid little head. I wore the beret as concession. As I marched around in a circle, firing my cap gun, shouting to the Lord, the only thing on my mind was how D-name had single handedly destroyed the honor of the United States Military. I didn't recognize it then because it was a new feeling, but I had experienced rage for the first time.

I revealed this disdain to my parents over chicken nuggets after church.

It is still baffling to think of some of the things the adults let my peers and I do back in the day.

It was an odd time.

I will always remain a child of God, but to my knowledge, I never advanced through the rankings of His proverbial army.

Oh well.

Signed,

Private Witt

*1* The United States Tax Code is comprised of over 70,000 pages of text.