Last evening, I attended a lecture at Xavier University entitled "Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?" by James J. Sheenan, Dickason Professor in the Humanities of Stanford University. This was a part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program, the oldest collegiate society in the United States. The lecturer proposed that the reason for the rise of the civilian state lies in the demilitarization of the societal mindset among the European States. Shortly after World War II, soldiers in uniform could be found on European street-corners and shopping centers. The average European man faced the inevitability of at least 3-12 years of military service prior to consideration of a career.

Today, the landscape has changed considerably. Opinion polls demonstrate the European populace as unconcerned in regards to possible invasion, national military reinforcement, and service obligations. The focal point lies on what the government can do for the people, rather than what the people can do for the government. Sheenan sets forth this change of mindset concerning the military as the cause for the rise of the European civilian state.

At one point of the lecture James J. Sheenan stated that as a consequence of this societal revolution, "death no longer plays a part of the societal contract between the state and the people." As the threat of death in military service has been removed from the younger generation, and as the possibility of death by foreign invasion has vanquished from the cultural scene, so the minds of the people are changed. The rise of man-centered philosophy in Europe has multiplied itself by leaps and bounds since the second world war. Why would this be so? Could it be that it is so because man rarely contemplates himself as mortal. As soon as man fails to grasp his frailty and his intrinsic finiteness, man fails to recognize his subservient position to the supreme God.

Though it was not the intention of the professor to demonstrate this understanding, as believers we must see this. The threat of death makes us small. The threat of death makes us think of life after death. The threat of death makes us dependent on the One who Himself has power over death and has the power to raise us from the dead and to bring us to life.

"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Romans 8:11 NASB)