A Letter to Draft Resisters

One of our readers from Minnesota sent us an article a few months ago telling the story of a 20-year-old draft resister named Scott Aaseng. Scott is a student at St. Olaf College and the son of a Lutheran minister. His picture was in the article, and I spotted something familiar. Under his arm, along with notebooks and papers, was a copy of Sojourners.

Perhaps, I thought, Scott had found some encouragement and support from Sojourners for his decision to refuse draft registration. I surely hope so. I've been thinking about Scott and the other young men I've talked to who now face legal prosecution for their decision not register. These are a few thoughts for them.

The government is really putting the pressure on you now. Eight hundred thousand young men haven't registered for the draft. Believe me when I tell you the government is very worried.

Of course, the reasons for such mass refusal to register are many and mixed. But it does show that a lot of young men don't want to join the military. The government can't prosecute 800,000 people, so it will try make an example of a few and hope scare the rest into compliance.

Ironically, those most likely to be singled out are those of you who have been most honest and outspoken about your decision, who have written letters to the Selective Service System, you who have made your choice public. In other words, those who are resisting for reasons of conscience are more likely to be the targets of government prosecution than those who hope to slip between the cracks.

But conscience has always been the great threat to illegitimate power. The political authorities cannot bear it when you say that what they are wanting you to do is wrong. Inconvenient, disruptive of personal career plans, too dangerous--these are all reasons they can better understand and deal with.

But you say you cannot and will not take part in the government's wars and its willingness to risk nuclear war. You say you believe draft registration is the first step toward war. The reasons you cite have to do with things like faith in God, obedience to Jesus Christ, and fidelity to the gospel. The idea that anything could have a higher authority in your life than the government's authority infuriates and threatens political rulers. They never understand it.

All this puts quite a burden on you and, frankly, a hard one to carry at age 18, 19, or 20. I remember what it was like during Vietnam. At the same ages you are now, some of us found ourselves as "leaders" of the anti-war movement. There was a lot of pressure on us, too. Sometimes it felt like too much. Our phones were tapped, we were under surveillance, threatened with dismissal from school, loss of career, and even physical violence. We were security-listed, tear-gassed, beat up, and some of us were shot.

Heavier, though, was the weight of responsibility we felt at a young age for the Vietnamese, for our own country, for building a movement, for figuring things out, for making decisions that affected so many people. You, too, are faced with choices at a very young age that most adults have yet to make. You must feel like you need more time for reflection, learning, and experience.

You have accepted the burden of conscience our government puts on its youngest citizens and in so doing you will grow up fast. My university years were not carefree; they were serious years of costly commitments, hard choices, painful experience, and growing up in a hurry. When you act in conscience against the authority of your own government, adolescence comes to an abrupt end.

The choices you are making put the challenge back on those of us who are older. We, who are no longer vulnerable to the draft, must be even more outspoken and sacrificial in our own resistance. You deserve our unequivocal support, both personally and publicly. You must not remain in jeopardy alone. In encouraging you as you confront the war system and break the law, we must be willing to do the same. Whether it be sacrificing career goals, suffering financial loss, refusing to pay our war taxes, committing civil disobedience, or spending time in jail, the protests of us all must increase. As the government makes you an easy target, the rest of us must make sure the government has more and other targets for persecution.

I'm sure you are afraid, and that is all right. Don't hide it. We can share our fears with each other and take courage from the Spirit of God among us. You are part of a larger family, and we are not going to let go of you.

Don't worry now about how effective your protest will be. Who can say what the results of our actions will ultimately be? The traditional calculus of cause and effect is always inadequate in such circumstances. A divine calculus is at work in the way that faith changes history. If we believe the Bible, we will know that our obedience to God is always what makes the most difference.

The effect of faithfulness is often hidden, especially at first. Change does come, often slowly and imperceptibly, but in ways that endure. In the end, things done for reasons of faith will survive.

So, take courage as you follow your heart. Taking risks for reasons of faith is not only the right thing to do with one's life, it is also the most exciting. God's faithfulness and grace will always be more known to us in the fire of struggle. We are with you, and God is with us all.

Jim Wallis was editor-in-chief of Sojourners when this article appeared.