Ted Grimsrud—September 23, 2025
In these posts, I wrestle with why so many Americans, including so many Christians, have such an uncritical attitude about the violent behavior of our country. Uncritical acceptance of a deep-seated warism flies in the face of the peaceable values most Americans and just about all Christians understand themselves to have. How can this be? To address this question, I reflect on my own life, especially my transition from an American patriot to an antiwar pacifist. I have focused on what I call the “embedded theology” of uncritical acceptance that I grew up. As I grew, though, I also absorbed a different kind of embedded theology that made my transition to a pacifist possible. This different embedded theology played an even more decisive role in the evolution of my convictions than the patriotic embedded theology. However, while I find the patriotic embedded theology difficult to name in clear ways, I find this different kind of embedded theology even more difficult to bring to the surface. I attempt to do that in this post.
Looking for a sense of coherence
When I first became a Christian, I sought to make sense of life. The Christianity I initially embraced offered a coherent worldview but ended up being at odds with what I actually sought. I took several years to figure that out. Even as I realized I needed a different kind of Christianity; I still needed more time to put the pieces together. The catalyst for the shift had to do with war and peace. However, that I could make the shift and that I make it quickly and free from trauma had mostly to do with the general orientation toward life provided by what I will call my familial embedded theology (distinct from the societal embedded theology I discussed in previous posts).
My new orientation became quite distinct from and, in time, antagonistic toward my old one. The way the transition happened—and its continued viability for me—makes me believe that all along I did not actually care that much about the certainty offered by fundamentalist Christianity. Rather, I sought the coherence that only an embrace of our essential human connectedness and love-centeredness offers. It just took some time for me to figure this out.
Growing up in the US during the 1950s and 1960s, I experienced the embedded theology of uncritical nationalism as pervasive. However, when it hit turbulence during the Vietnam War era, I readily replaced it. Something more basic to the way of being in the world that I got from my family took its place. As revised and applied through my new learnings and experiences, this different embedded theology actually provided the kind of coherence I sought.
Thinking Pacifism 