The Silence of God and the Witness of the Christian Soldier through Kenosis.

The moral status of soldiers as agent-instruments of polities has been long debated among Christians. Recognizing soldiers' moral vulnerability, Stanley Hauerwas has argued for a pastoral rather than a missiological shape of what Oliver O'Donovan has called evangelical counter-praxis through a Christian's participation in war. To reframe the complications of this dilemma, this essay argues that the Christian soldier has the potential to actively witness the love of Jesus Christ through a kenotic repudiation of one's unwillingness to kill. Through an interpretation of Shusaku Endo's novel Silence, a correspondence between the Christian soldier and the apostate-cum-martyr Fr. Rodrigues is arguable through an act of paradoxical faith in Jesus, where killing the enemy becomes an imitation of his self-emptying on the cross for the sake of others. Christian soldiers may find self-understanding, healing, and forgiveness by naming their acts truthfully with the intention to move through confession to gratitude and a deeper love for God and neighbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]