Theology in the Raw - War Veteran Turned Peace Activist: Diana Oestreich

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Join the Theology in the Raw community for as little as $5/month to get access to premium content. Diana Oestreich is an author, activist and Soldier-turned- Peacemaker. Diana served as a combat medic on the battlefield of the Iraq war. She was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal. She’s a nationally recognized speaker at the intersection of justice, Peace, nonviolence, faith and how everyday peacemakers are changing our world. She’s the author of the book: Waging Peace: One Soldier’s Story of Putting Love First, which forms the backdrop of our conversation. Check out the Waging Peace Project.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, waging war is so simple, but waging peace is really how we follow the Prince of Peace and it's relational and it's connected and there's a place for every single person at the table right where they live. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rahm. My guest today is Diana O'Strike, who is an author, activist, and soldier-turned peacemaker. Diana served as a combat medic on the battlefield of the Iraq War, and she was awarded the Army Commendation Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal. She's a nationally recognized speaker at the intersection of justice, peace, nonviolence, faith, and how everyday peacemakers are changing our world. She's also the author of the book, Waging Peace, One Soldier's Story of Putting Love First, which forms the backdrop of our conversation. I met Diana just a few weeks ago. We spoke together back to back on stage at the Christ,

oh, sorry, church at the Crossroads conference back in September. And my talk came after hers, unfortunately, because she actually crushed it, basically said the main things that I wanted to say, but she was able to bring her testimony as a soldier into her talk, and it was absolutely incredible. And so was this really interesting. interesting conversation. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Diana Ostride.

Diana, welcome to Theology in the Raw. It's so good to see you again. We hung out, well, a couple weeks ago at the time of this recording. It was blown away by your talk at the conference that I had to follow, which I did. I was like, oh, man, how do I follow this? But right when I heard your talk, I was like, I need to have Diana on Theology and Ross. So give us a bit of a bit of background, specifically who you are. And tell us about your time in the military. So I live in Minnesota on the shores of Lake Superior, which is a great lake. It's a bit of a running Minnesota joke that we have the greatest lake. But I grew up in a really small town, rural Minnesota and everybody in my family and a lot often in my community, everybody joined

the military after high school. And I grew up in a cute little, country Baptist Church and I didn't even know until I went to basic training when my dog tag said Baptist Church other I was like what what is this and I went up to my drill start and he's like where are you from soldier I'm like Minnesota he's like oh you're not the southern baptist you're the others and that was like the very first time I learned that there was such a thing as the Southern Baptist and we were not them there was not one Baptist So I grew up in this little church that taught me to love God, love each other, and also to really love and see my country and my flag and service, kind of all one thing. So that was where I started, and I wanted to go to college, and my family had love, but no money.

And so I joined the military to go. I wanted to be a medical missionary, actually. clock that one, but I joined the Army instead. So I had joined, and I was pretty much done with my six-year enlistment, and I was a combat medic in the Army National Guard, had done my six years, was really planning. I had just graduated nursing school, and then 9-11 happened. And I remember sitting, we were actually in nursing school, and just having that shift where you don't know how, but I'm like, this is going to change the trajectory of my life.

And I didn't quite know how at that time. But I got called up to be part of the preemptive strike where America pushed over 100,000 soldiers into Iraq overnight. And so they called up National Guard, which they had not done since Vietnam, which was like 30 years ago at that point. So it was a big surprise to me and all of the other college students who were part of my unit. So we get thrown over to Iraq And we'd only been there like a week We're going to convoy

We're going to drive our trucks and our unit Into enemy territory the next day And the night before we always get briefed On how it's going to go And in the army, everything is the same Like we say the same where we train like we fight Like it's no one says it but wildly boring Like we stand the same

We say the same So we're all in this meeting Hearing all the same things nobody's batting an eye until the very end and then the sergeant says there is an enemy tactic where they push little children in front of army trucks in order to slow so the trucks will slow down and then they ambush the trucks at the rear because they can't move forward and they can't get and they can't get away it's like i hope you understand your duty to keep the convoy trucks rolling at all costs tomorrow and everything

really quiet because we had never heard this before. And then he says, if you aren't able to do your duty and you aren't able to keep these trucks rolling, even if a child gets pushed in front, stand up now and identify yourself. And the whole tent is dead quiet. And in that moment, I just felt my heartbeat. I felt like I was putting this together. And at the same time, like it was pushing against everything that I believed, but I felt was true. Holy Spirit's like going wild inside there. And before I know, like, what am I going to do right now when I have these competing allegiances? So the sergeant yells, dismissed. And then, like, I just get saved, saved a little bit by that. But I still have to go back to my tent, and it's only eight hours

till the convoy the next morning. Did you think, like, were you, was there something inside of you that wanted to stand up, but you felt scared to, or what was going on inside of you in that, in those few seconds? Well, one, there was a little bit of, like, am I hearing this right? Like, am I hearing this right? We're supposed to run over a little child that gets pushed in front of our truck. And then two, I knew this was a direct order. And I was one of the only females in my entire company.

of 500 soldiers, and it has never been safe to be one, be a minority in the military. Just not. And so I knew that even if I wanted to stand up, like, this would be very dangerous for me, especially in the middle of a war. Dangerous, like, you'd be physically under threat from other soldiers? Yes, which most people don't know. is very common. Friendly fire is not accidental. There's a, there's a long held practice and history that if anybody is seen as not loyal enough or disloyal, then people take that into their

own hands. And it's a culture that doesn't make the news and doesn't make the Blockbuster films. But the hazing and the physical violence and the sexual assault, is rampant. They say, like, the most amount of people who are sexually assaulted in the army are males. And it's never about lust. It's always about power. And that's where a lot of the PTSD comes from, is being part of, you know, if you imagine a high school locker room where the mentality is that everything has to go downhill. There's a top, and then everybody else has to like come underneath of that and picking on people like as a medic I saw it a lot and in the military it's not just someone's bullying you or teasing you like people are getting

physically harmed so I knew this is not a safe thing to stand up a middle of a war and look like someone who is not willing to put their battle buddies first dangerous if if men who are at the bottom of that pecking order are under threat of sexual assault. What's it like being a woman then? Is that compounded even more? Or is there a certain code of conduct or it's like, we're not going to do this to another woman? No, it's even worse because I think that you and I both know that there is something offensive to a certain set of men if a woman can do what they can do. And it's their army and they get to be the heroes and the protector. So just by women being, there. It, uh, and it's all like pass or fail. So if I could pass the test and they could

pass the test, somehow I, that made them feel bad about being a soldier. Like, it was really dangerous. And women were sexually assaulted all the time. And it's a little bit, there's an author, Father Gregory Boyle, who works with gangs out in L.A. He's a priest. And he writes all about gang stuff and rehabilitating things all through his faith. But there's so much that gangs in the military have in common as far as the group mentality and people get like beat in or raped in to prove their loyalty. So whatever happens to you by your own unit, there is the unwritten code that like to prove that you are worth it and you're loyal, you don't say anything. So it's a very, it's a really traumatic experience for most people and doubly for men they cannot say that

like how our society is like they are not going to say this because there's just a shame attached to having bad things happen to you by other soldiers and yet it's documented and the most amount of PTSD is from soldiers who have not deployed which means that's just them being in the military system. And I looked it up. I really thought violence was the problem. And so I was trying to find the data on it as a nurse. And the most amount of suicide attempts are during basic training or right after. And I really wanted it to be after deployment being like if you put human beings into these places with impossible choices and violence around, like that will harm their soul. It'll harm like their head. And I was proven wrong by that.

Wow. Golly. Okay. Well, I, yeah, I want to get back to you. I didn't expect that. Yeah. But let's go back to you. So after that debriefing, you go back to your tent. Tell us what happens from there. So I'm, I'm in my tent, land my cot. And I'm like silently like doing that really pitiful prayer where, you know, you have the little like tears that you got to keep it quiet. Because you don't want anybody to know that like you're wrestling with like there's this like battlefield. humor of like the scary it is, the more like we smoke and joke about it. You know, like, ha, ha, ha, we're going to do this tomorrow. But having like an ethical or a spiritual dilemma, like that is not the show of hubris that you can let your fellow soldiers see. So I'm laying there. I'm feeling the wrestling because everything that I've been taught by my faith and by my country says like this might be unfortunate but this is okay like if you um if you are serving in the military then really you're serving god and so if i take a life while i'm in the military then really i'm taking a life on behalf of god so like there's this exception or overruling the

rule of knowing that to kill a little child is wrong like anytime anywhere so i'm wrestling with I don't know what to do. And then, like, in the darkest moment of the night, all of a sudden, I just, like, say out loud into the darkness. I'm like, God, help me. Because I just felt like I was breaking apart on the inside. Like, I knew what I had to do. I had already given my allegiance. I actually believed in all of it. I'm like, this is unfortunate, but soldiers do hard things. Like, I believed in it, but something was pushing back and just wouldn't let me breathe even and so finally I just into the darkness whispered oh god help and like a lightning bolt all of a sudden I just heard this like blast come back at me of God's voice saying I love them Diana

I love them too in this like mama bear growl roar and in an instant like I all the tension in my chest melted, like everything melted away because I knew, I knew God loved an Iraqi child just as much as God loved me. I knew God cared about their future just as much as God loved my future. And I knew in that moment that I would never take the life of somebody that God created. And so there is this like instant peace where I knew, like I grew up here, God was loving. You hear it love your enemies, which kind of means don't kill them. I knew like do not get like all these things that I had grown up hearing, but somehow it never, like somehow I had to go to war to like actually take Jesus seriously with these verses I had memorized my

whole life. I don't know why I couldn't see it until I was seeing the other person at the end of these beliefs and i really believe that jesus stepped in front of all of that that wasn't god and like saved my life by saying like i love them and like i dare you to cross me and i was like you're right you're right like i i know what's what and i know god is love and i know this is god's voice and i know no matter what happens to me whether i go to prison or like i'm harmed or friendly fire like I had this piece that said, like, I know who I am, and I know what I'm for. And I'm part of the kingdom of heaven and life first and my country second. And I can die happy with that.

Like, I'm okay with that. That's awesome. So eight hours later, you're now in that convoy. Are you driving a truck or just in a truck? Well, I didn't know. So it's 4 a.m. We're lined up. It's pitch black in the desert.

And desert black is like someone could hit you in the face. there's no shadow. So we're sitting there and I'm just waiting to hear my name called where they call the name of like who is driving a truck and then who is the assistant driver in the truck. And I remember just like grabbing onto like my little seams of my my fatigues being like, God, like I don't know what's going to happen right now, but I trust that I'm going to hold on to you. I'm going to hold on to love. Like give me courage to like hold on to that choice that I knew was true. and I heard it my name called

and I was the assistant driver which meant that I was like cowardly relief right just cowardly chicken relief I'm like wow you know like I won't have to make that decision

but at the same time like you know if I was in a truck and that happened like would I be forever part of that and probably never okay yes But I was, like, relieved for that small grace there. But the next day, I remember we were rolling in to, like, enemy territory.

And these little girls, three, four, five were, like, running from their homes up to our trucks. And I remember hearing God be, like, see her. Like, see the people that I love. And I was like, yeah, like, I can see them. I can see that we're all part of the same thing that God loves. loves. And so I took a picture. This is back, like real film. And so I forever have this picture of these three little girls running towards our truck. And it's just a reminder for me of really the miracle of like God speaking to me that I like I could have very easily run over them.

So were any kids pushed in front of your? No. No, they were not. They were not that day. But it's still left me in this like, well, wait a second. What am I going to do now? She's like a really bad time for God to like challenge my allegiance and say like you can you can't. It's like marriage. There are no equal covenants here. You have to put one above the other. And I had decided I was going to be, you know, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven first and of life and not death. And yet I was still a soldier in middle of a war zone. And this is like an active, like, invasion like this was like not the six years down the road where things were kind of more occupying so i was still there for another um 397 days wow did you face any other moral

dilemmas like that while you're there i did so many preston because i kept telling the stories and then i was like well wait a second you know how people if you have to retell the story that you put it into a book so that you know for those listening she held up her book waging peace which i mentioned in the introduction and would highly encourage you to check out so yeah please please proceed so at that point like i knew what i wouldn't do i knew that jesus had like disarmed all christians i knew that jesus the narrow way was non-violence and that he actually confronted evil of the world and set the whole thing right while refusing to touch violence so i knew that like I had surrendered my right to violence to save my own life by taking one. And I knew that

was that was like the truest true because it felt different. And it felt like the first amount of freedom that I was like, what is this odd feeling? And I'm like, I think this is really the freedom to like follow Jesus and that I didn't have before. And so, but I still didn't know what to do. I knew that I was going to love the way Jesus loved me, and I was just going to pass that around. But I didn't, like, actually know what to do. I was like, well, great. I put down, like, my right to kill, but now what? And it wasn't until later that I was walking into a village.

And I, it was just really hot. I was a medic, and my soldiers were building, like, a road, which in 150,000, 15 degree heat is like really brutal and boring. So I would go in the village and I would just go house to house and use my tiny Arabic and just see if people needed any anything. So but this day I looked around and I was like all by myself, which it was never safe. We always had to be in pairs because this was like a really guerrilla war. Like it was a scary place to be. And definitely if you were by yourself and American, like it was not going to go well for you. So all of a sudden, I'm by myself, I'm in this little village, and I see this woman open up the door to her house, and she gives me the universal, like, come over here, wave.

And that's the first time I notice I'm by myself. I'm like, wait a second, where is everybody? Wait a second. No one knows where I am. And I look at her, and she looks at me, and I just have that moment where everything in me says, like, walk away and fast. My, like, military training says, like, ignore, ignore, ignore. but I feel like there was something else just like in my chest like that holy spirit thing saying like don't miss this and I didn't know if I should go back into her house with her I didn't know if I would like never be seen from again or like she was just a cute little grandmotherly bait you know she was in like the head to toe black chatter all I could see was her eyeballs modesty because I was like oh my gosh you can have a microwave underneath there I don't know and this was in the time of like IEDs and moms. But at what just when I was sitting there, there was something pushing. And I finally was

like, man, I can walk past this, keep myself safe. And then this other thing just like felt like a dare to believe that like there was something good on the other side. And so in a second, I just was like, going to do it. And I walked into her house behind her door. And I didn't know what would happen if I walked behind that door. But when I did, she laughed and she hugged me. And then she walked me back into like her living room where her grandkids and her daughters. And I kind of look like the whole village was sitting there. It turns out she was kind of the matriarch of the village. And her name was Om Hassan. And I feel like she's the one who showed me that I wanted to be somebody who would move towards somebody

before I knew if they were trustworthy, before I knew if they were a friendly or a foe. And I really, afterwards, because I was 23 at the time, I realized that she really showed me the Jesus way or Jesus while we were yet still his enemies, like gave himself up for us on the cross. Like, he was a giver and a jumper, against all odds. And even when there was, like, risks of violence.

So she was the one who invited me into her home and showed me what it was like to live sacrificial and to put love first. And she had something nobody else did. And she really, like, she was when who showed me what to do. Like, I decided what I wouldn't do, but I didn't know, like, what I was supposed to do now. But this woman who I had really grown up hearing was suspicious. You know, a woman from the Middle East, she was Muslim, she was brown, she was Iraqi. She was really the one who showed me how to live and love sacrificial.

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by the civilians and, you know, obviously not the enemies, but was it mixed or were they very, were you guys very welcomed and received? Was there a lot of gratitude or suspicion or is it kind of a whole mixed bag? I was there over a year. So there's a lot of time in there to see the different iterations of things. But I think there were, there were some things that were welcome. And then there was also just a different person. who is going to, you know, if people don't bring human dignity or equal rights or justice or any of those things, it's just kind of a different dictator. And so I think some people were really hopeful that the U.S. was going to bring something

that allowed all citizens in Iraq to have the same rights and the same resources. in voting and in living and I don't like that did not happen so I think in some ways like they were not asking anybody to come in and take out Saddam Hussein like that was not a worldwide request that they were asking so I think having a country come in that they didn't really ask or have much relationship with come and be like hey guess what guys we're going to get rid of this guy and then we'll fix things up for you it's kind of like a say what Like, they were a little confused by this. They were very confused why we were doing this.

So, and I also think soldiers were very confused while we were doing this, because when you get there, you're like, this isn't what we were told at all. There isn't, like, we're not rooting out terrorists. And this country was not one of the 17 perpetrators of 9-11. There were 19.17 of them were from our close. This is ally Saudi Arabia and then Lebanon. So the 9-11 connection was like kind of thin slash non-existent. And then we get there and there isn't really an army to fight much. And also the Iraqis were kind of confused.

And then they also had a system of where certain groups actually got their electricity or they got groceries or they got food. Well, if you come in and then you disrupt that, system and you don't have one in place because why would we know how to run a whole country, people were just hungry and they weren't getting the things that weren't great, but they at least got them under Saddam Hussein. So I think they were hopeful that America would come and bring some democracy, or they were actually going to bring like systems that made people be able to thrive or survive. And that was not what we ended up accomplishing, according to

the army. They would say they did not accomplish their goals in Iraq. And the people figured out we weren't. And then also because it was a little bit like the Olympics, but with guns, because so many other countries sent troops, but like a hundred. So there'd be like the Italian camp with like 15. And there'd be the Ukrainians with like five and then the Filipinos would have 20 like it was very and so like if you could imagine the coordination between this it was like ridiculous and so I had some friends in the village of because I kept going to that same village where Om Hassan lived and delivering um it's another story about a baby and delivering clean water and then um baby formula I had my family mail me in Iraq to give to this baby in this village and they would get really abused by different units or by different countries or like the Iraqi civilians would be abused by foreign military personnel there. Well, they'd tell me they'd be like, the Italians came in and like did this and did this. And I was like, oh my gosh.

Like so there's so much rogue. And it's not like most countries had a high like they weren't there because they had a lot of esteem for Iraqis. That really wasn't why they were there. And so they really got treated. They didn't get treated well. They got seen as like, and they got called all the words. So things didn't go well for Iraqis while I was there or after because I have a colleague who I ended up working with in a different nonprofit in Iraq. And I ended up getting to travel back to Iraq and he invited me into his home. And we were both the same age. He was 17 and I was 23 and we're in the same village during the invasion. And so we like had the same like, I was like, Assam, do you remember?

Did this happen? He's like, yes, it totally did. And I was like, okay, I'm not nuts. Like we lived in the same time. And things are really hard. So it sounds like, I mean, now after the fact We know that the U.S. lied us into yet another war. The whole thing was a complete humanitarian crisis. But at the time, you know, it seems like there was still confusion even early on before we found out all the lies. Like, what are we doing here again? Like, is this like? Yeah, because there wasn't anything to do.

So we were there and people like fiddling their thumbs. And it's like, what are we doing here? And so I was there when Saddam was captured. I was there when I think, was it bin Laden, they had already got him. So we kept being like, so we're going home, right? I was there when they found out there's no weapons of mass destruction. So we kept being like, well, if that was the reason for being here, then we should go home now. And like, that continued to not happen.

So we're like more and more being like, what is going on? and one of the you know because i don't know are we in our 40s preston i'm in i'm 49 i'm still my 40s yeah yeah i'm in my 40s you know a little more uh ability to see the big picture yeah but now i look back and i remember there were soldiers in my unit who we would stop for lunch in this little you like barbed wire little like camp it was a tent and the people who were out there had found a stray puppy. And so we, for a week, we would do our rounds and we'd stay going there for a safe place to eat lunch and we'd see this puppy.

And then on our last day there, the other unit was like, hey, we got orders to leave. We're packing up. So, you know, we got to, we got to shoot the puppy. And like, why do you got to shoot the puppy? I don't because, like, nobody's going to be the, I don't know. But they're, you know, like, we're all like battle rattle. we're in the middle of a sudden, they're like, you know, so we'll be shoot or shoot. I mean, it was like, you know, hairy or something. Yeah, shoot the puppy. And all of a sudden, like, the people in

my Humvee were all just like, oh. And like, we're like sad. And I saw this one guy who's like pretty like tough, this like rural Wisconsin hick dude. And I was like, I think he has a tear in his eye about this. So what was wild that I look at now when I'm talking to people across, the country about what we're doing and violence and all these things, like that soldier had this like oomph and this sadness about a puppy, a strape, and we're talking like, this is a raggle-daggle puppy, like, you know, but he called Iraqis, like all of the words and had no qualms about shooting on sight. A human being who he didn't. did not speak the same language, like, was just, like, standing around. They called them, like,

all the words that people use for somebody here. You know, like, the N-word, the this, the that, all these things where I was like, now I'm like, how is it that as, like, a person, he could have this like real empathy and compassion for killing a puppy that he only knew a week and yet like in the way that we were raised or the culture or our Christian nationalism or all these things like there there was none of that for an Iraqi child there was none of that for an Iraqi civilian there was just this like true blind um belief that someone someone like hadn't, you know, their life wasn't worth anything and I was right to kill him. And I was like, it was one of those mirror moments where you're, we're wearing the same

uniform. We've committed to the same things. We have the same faith. And yet seeing somebody who looks a lot like you say or do something allowed me to look at me and say like, how are we raised in a faith and in a country that this is so normal to come to a country and be like, hmm, not, you know, shoot on command. That's my orders. I don't, you know. And yet a puppy had a different value.

Like, it's just one of those, like, look at yourself moments and be like, something is deeply wrong. Like, deeply wrong in this. And I'm a little scared about it. Yeah. Did you see American soldiers

or I guess other soldiers deliberately kill or maybe accidentally or kill civilians or show you know kill civilians or showing a disregard for civilians like was that something that you saw while you're there or

I saw significant like disregard but the difference between a war zone and America is that in war zones, we have rules of engagements that severely limit when you can shoot. And so our rules of engagement were even if you were shot at from a crowd, you could not return fire if there was a civilian anywhere. And you couldn't return fire if you couldn't clearly see the person and you couldn't this. So like even though we were getting shot at, like our honor code and our ethic and our.

our rules meant that, like, we were not, um, I was there for over a year and my unit was 500 soldiers. And even with being in a war zone, even with not the same language, all the chaos, um, we didn't kill a single, a single person. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So when you have ethics and rules, um, they really work.

They really, really work because they put a life and other people ahead of just some of those like impulses or reactions or fear of I'm afraid someone shot on me. I just get to shoot back. It's like maybe in America, but not in a war zone. Like we had a higher ethic and a rule of engagement and I saw it prevent taking lives. That's good to know. So you heard a lot of like dehumanizing. rhetoric, but in terms of engagement, people weren't just like half-hazardly shooting civilians. Oh, because we have very strict bullet counts. We have strict regulations. We have strict,

there's accountability, hardcore. Like, if you shot a bullet, you had to be accountable for and had to go according to rules and engaged it. Or you would be written up and you would be, like, put in prison. Like, we just had a high level of, these are the rules. And if you break it, no one cares what you think about it and you can't hire a lawyer you're done and so i think that is what kept people um holding a restraint and an account of what you did no matter what because there is such a high level of responsibility and you just it would have like there was no wiggle room on any of that so no matter what thought about like i i think that's fair it's like no you do it, you'll pay.

And so people restrain themselves. How does that square with being commanded to run over children who are push in front of you? Is that just because that, well, that would put the whole unit at risk. And that's kind of almost like an act of war using children as human shields or something. I still kind of wonder about that to this day. And that's why I have a lot of compassion for people who are in the military right now. because we serve with this oath that says one thing. And then in moments, if we are given an order,

then the main thing is that we have to obey that order. But if it goes against our like army values here, we're supposed to say no. And I think that that is a, it's an interesting thing to swear allegiance that like you will obey any order that's given to you. But you also have these values of like integrity, honesty, selfless service, personal courage, that if it goes against it, we're supposed to say no, which we really wish that individuals and other armies during World War II in Germany would have said no. Like, so I think that personal accountability, even when your group is telling you to do something, I think that that's a really courageous and necessary accountability.

count to keep for ourselves. Okay. Tell us about your journey after you came home from Iraq. Did you stay in the military for a while? And how did, from what I can understand, you went from not just being disturbed by some of the ethical tension to really going on a journey toward being committed to Christian nonviolence. Tell us about that time period.

Yeah, I almost felt like being in the war and being a Christian who was following Jesus is nonviolence was simpler than coming home because when I came home, I came to a community and a church that I knew peace was like a dirty word. Like you did not want to be associated with that. They were a bad character like peacemakers or either hippies or there are people who just didn't understand sacrifice or how the world worked. Like, I knew that my belonging wouldn't, I would get kicked out if they knew that I didn't believe in putting America above Jesus' teachings or put other soldiers of Jesus' teaching or put my church's, like, my church's, like, view on things above Jesus. Like, I knew that would be a hard ejection seat, and I was pretty traumatized from being in war for a year. So I just needed to belong. And so I was quiet. I did not say anything when I came back.

I just was surviving. My church had when I came back, like not even a month after, they're like, we'd like you to come on Sunday night and give a praise report. A praise report. And I'm like, you know, I'm traumatized at PTSD. I just have been in Baghdad. And I'm just like not even knowing like I know what. they want from me, but I don't understand how to give it. Like, I don't, like, I'm young.

They were like Vietnam era people. I'm like, when did war not be bad? When was war not, you know, the definition of war is mass murder, including women and children. Like, that's just what happens. So I'm like, praise God. I don't know. I'm like, what are they what I'm going to say? But I was young and I wanted them to like, you know, they're the only.

thing I had. So I was quiet when I came back. I knew I couldn't say anything. And I ended up getting married to the guy who I met right before I left and wrote me letters for a year. And even when I broke up with him, over a letter, because that's all we had. You know, a three-week letter break up. And my biggest thing was, and don't write me. We didn't even have an internet or phones. Like, so anyways, I, we, we, got married and I had two little kids in two years. And I feel like that was like the healing time for me of getting to like see goodness and that smallness and kind of heal. And as they got a little older, that's when I started working with a group who was in Iraq and their mission

was kind of to unmake the violence that the U.S. was doing. And so that meant a lot to me. So I signed up with them and then they had me tell my story once and then afterwards it was at uh it was a southern college chapel some big uh birmingham what was it samford university down south yeah i'm from the north i'd never even like really been down south and so i was like oh so i tell my story up there to this huge chapel and like that's also in the book there are some incidences there but this person asked me after, they're like, so, what is your family think? And what is your military family think in your church? I'm like, I don't know. This is the first time I've ever said it out loud. So, what was the content of what you said? What was it basically

kind of? Same story of like, went to war, you know, Jesus told me to lay down my weapon and peacemaker, you know, I'm going to live like Christ, but I won't take a life like Christ because he never did, which is deeply offensive to this chapel service. So that was the first time I said it out loud. And this was before really podcast, but they did put it up on their little, like, streaming thing. And so I kind of like low key just like, I'm like, well, the cat's out of the bag. And now people in my family know. And if they want to talk to me about it, they can. But we're Midwest, so it's a lot of silence. If someone doesn't like your haircut, they're just going to like, you know, not say it, but say it to everybody else. So I still find it hard. It's a very hard

thing to follow Jesus's like command of nonviolence when other people in my family and my friends and my faith find that extremely threatening and like very angry about because I'm like I'm put in Jesus first and that means somehow that I'm disloyal to their theology. I'm disloyal to their worldview. I'm disloyal to their country. I'm like, I am the troop. I asked a lot. They're like, well, how can you say this and support the troops? I'm like, I am the troop. Like, what are you? What's happening? I'm like, peace. Peace is the most patriotic thing you can do because it puts values on soldiers' lives. It actually protects them. It stops using them as the knee-jerk reaction to solve any problem. I'm like, it respects their lives. It's good for their kids. Like, work for peace. That's how you support soldiers presently and also when they're older. These have such tremendous calls. to families and kids and their futures. So I'm like,

act like their lives matter. Don't let them get sent. We are in 82% of the countries on the planet today. Boots on the ground. I'm like, I don't, like, one, if that was China, people would be worried. They'd be like, what are they're going to dominate the world? And I'm like, but it's us. It's cool.

So I'm like, I don't think that's really honoring the oath that soldiers took by sending them all over the planet. I'm like, I don't think that's respectful. I don't think that is honoring what they signed up to do. I don't think it's actually good for them. I think it's not. The exiles in Babylon conference is happening again, April 30th to May 2nd in Minneapolis, and this one is going to be spicy. We're talking about mental health and the gospel.

How should the church respond to immigration? We're also having a dialogical debate about Christians, at war with Shane Claiborne and Paul Copan. And we're also having another dialogical debate between Peter Enz and Sandy Richter over the historical reliability of the Bible. We also added a pre-conference addressing how Christians should think about artificial intelligence. We have several experts coming to lead us in that conversation.

Other speakers include Dan Allender, Matthew Sorens, Liliana, Reza, Joshua Smith, Chinway, Williams, and several others. And of course, worth the price of admission, Street Hymbs is coming back as well, folks. Most of all, the in-person experience at exiles is just super unique. I mean, it's, I don't know. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to describe. You've just got to go and experience it for yourself.

Right now, we're running an early bird discount of 30 bucks off registration. So I encourage you to sign up soon and take advantage of this discount. Just head over to TheologyNorrah.com to register. We also have a heavily discounted Gen Z price. Don't lie about your age. You've got to be Gen Z. And also discounts on groups of five or more. Again, that's April 30th to May 2nd in Minneapolis.

Register at TheologyIntherrod.com. What do you think that is? Why is there such a visceral, almost angry, sometimes very angry reaction when a Christian, to another Christian, says, I want peace. I don't want to kill. I think war is not a good thing.

Even if you still, maybe there are, let's just say a just war theory. Maybe there is a place for war as a last result, self-defense, blah, blah, blah. But in general, we don't want to go and kill people. We would rather not do that. In Christian, because I've experienced this too, not from a, you had the testimony. I'm just the theologian, you know, interpreting verses and stuff. They listen to you. They listen to you.

I, for whatever reason, like to indulge in controversial topics. I have never experienced such visceral, frighteningly angry reactions when I, from Christians, not non-Christian, but Christians. When I say basic things like loving your enemies might mean we don't kill them. Or maybe Christians shouldn't support this war or that war. Or maybe, yeah, we should be more focused on peace than killing people to achieve justice. And that's just people sometimes lose their minds. Oh, why? I don't, and I don't know, like, it's confusing.

Well, I have a framework for that. Okay. And I can say this because I was once that person. I'm like, I was there. I completely believed all of these things that really had, like, the supremacy was the right to kill and the right to be on top. And Jesus was like, Jesus's words had to be basically overruled for that worldview to exist. And so, but I was raised in it. So I was like, God, guns and country.

Hurrah. Like, I mean, how does an 18 year old make a speech in high school for the death penalty? Who drives a VW bug? Like, what? I was like, where did this come from? You know, so I think I, that was my crisis in the middle of everything. But when I look back on it, it wasn't a crisis of faith. It was Jesus challenging my, the faith and the worldview that told me that, like, we were basically God. Like, God says do not kill, but American Exceptional says, we will and it'll be right if we do.

Like, it's this dominion thing. And I think I experienced it. So I have mega compassion for people. But I also know it is a spiritual dominion, a principality, and a sickness. Like that violence that says

that we can do whatever it takes to like, somebody else, I'm like, that has, like, that is a sticky thing. It connects to us. I think that that was kind of like Satan's original sin is it says that he wanted more dominion. Like, he wanted to be God. God said, you can, you can do this. He's like, I want more. Um, and I think that we, that whole thing is so, um, it sticks to us. It's, it makes us like, it makes us want to be that.

Like, there's a power of feeling like you were the right one. And if I can set things right by that war, this gun, that thing, that's a heady power. And I think that it brings out the worst in people. And I think that's why Jesus actually comes to, like, save us from that thinking, from that living. Like, all of human history, like, that's all people did. So change the uniform, change the reason behind it, but they wage wars and they killed people to be on top. And they did it because they were right, because something they were bringing was going to set the world right. But as Christians, Jesus is the only thing that sets the world

right. And if Jesus did it without violence, like, how then can, like, the student be above the teacher and say, I'll do what he even says, like, we're not going to do? So I think that deep down it's a real, like, spiritual bondage of power. And it's tough to surrender your power to Christ. And I do wonder, I'm like, so what exactly did you surrender when you went under the water for that baptism? Like, what did you do? Like, what's different? Like, either you're going to follow Jesus, the nonviolent Jesus and, like, live is Christ or dies Christ?

But Christ never, all those things. empire, the whole cool thing about him of why my Muslim friends look up to him, why Gandhi read the sermon on the Mount hour a day for 40 years, because he thinks that like the way of Jesus actually is how we change the whole world by changing ourselves. That's the real stuff. And people say that if Christians would just read Jesus's sermon on the Mount for 30 years, let Paul be Paul for a while, let everyone else, you know, we've already studied them, just listen to Jesus's words every single day for 30 years, then we would have the beginning chance of creating God's dream here on earth. But I think it's that power thing.

And I went through it. I see it, but I'm like, when people think that they are having somebody who is not loyal to them, it's that idolatry. It's that if someone won't bow down to your idol, there's a big reaction to that. Like, people get rid of that. The only, like, real, like, Christians about nonviolence and about guns. And I'm not talking to Second Amendment. I'm just saying, like, there are many legal things that out of my, like, submission to Christ and the world he wants to bring, I'm just not going to do it. Other people can, but I'm choosing to live without that because that's not the world that he's creating.

on earth or in heaven. Have you seen any breakthrough? I'm sure you have. In all your talks, I mean, you speak publicly a lot. You've written books and have many conversations with people. Have you seen somebody go from this clinging to the idolatry of the American Empire and its militarism that promotes it to, at the very least, like, wow, I need to kind of

really rethink these things. Do you have some of those stories you can tell? I mean, I think there are a lot of those stories, and a lot of them that I hear are from veterans. And veterans say, like, they're like, oh, yeah, Diana, I totally had the same experience as you. But, you know, I don't tell anybody, my family, my church, because I don't want to rock the boat for them. Like, they know that following Jesus' real, like, call to live without violence, like, rocks other people's boat so bad that they, they won't even. share their own. So, like, a lot of veterans have this same story. They're the ones who are like, yes, like you put into words this thing that I knew, but I didn't know how to like put into action

or how to say it. And then there's also people who, when they read my book or hear my story, they're like, oh, so I, they're looking for a better invitation to care for veterans or care for soldiers in their family or to actually practice their faith. And so oftentimes I feel like people say I just didn't get an invitation. Like I didn't know. I only thought there was one way to love my country or to serve Jesus. I didn't know there was this third way. So I see a lot of people who just need an invitation. Like, I had never heard anybody in a pulpit ever say Jesus. God calls Jesus the Prince of Peace, unless it was on December 25th was when we let that verse roll.

But I had never even, like, heard it. So I think there's also another lady in Orange County. And I was speaking, and she came out to me after. And the pastor was like, oh, there's this lady. She's big in our church. Oh, like, Diana, like, steer clear of her. You know, and I was like, because pastors oftentimes have me coming to speak when they know, like, they know their people need to hear it. They know the Holy Spirit is telling them to do this, but they need somebody else to say it, say the hard thing.

And if they haven't, and then they just have me come do it and then like they can, you know, still be like the, oh yeah, okay. They need someone else to say it who's outside the community to keep like their community. moving forward in it. But she came up to me after, and she was like, oh, honey, she's like, she's like, my son is, you know, special forces in the Marines. She's like, and everything you said, she had made me so mad, but the Holy Spirit's using you because it came across like melted butter. And I was like, huh.

So, like, even for me, I feel like I wasn't a bad person then. I'm not a good person now, but Jesus really did invite. me to love the way he loved. Like, I didn't have a lot of love for people like he did outside of people that looked like me, talked like me, voted like me, worshipped like me. And that expansiveness of love, I feel like it connects with people, even if they don't want it to. Like, God's love is infectious. Like, it makes us so hopeful. It makes us like each other. It makes us want better for each other. And I think I continue to see people see that there is a love that they had been missing and it actually been like preached against. But it still brings life and they feel it

and they feel permission to say, God loves Gaza. They have permission to say, guess what? When black lives are being taken, black lives matter. Like I think they need to see this courageous love. That isn't all about agreement, but it is about showing up for people and saying their life is valuable without prejudice. I think that that is really what God does, and I've seen people change, because all those old things, like, they're not super lifegiving, and they're not very strategic, and they're not successful, and the fruit is lame. Like, it's not good fruit from that stuff like if you look at what you want to build doesn't build much right and soldiers aren't doing awesome so i'm like if you want to do something you should probably do something different

yeah do you think i mean i feel like and maybe i'm naive or maybe i'm in in too much of an echo chamber but i i feel like things are changing a bit in the sense that more and more christian are not as sort of pro-war as they used to be. I mean, everybody knows that Iraq was a total lie and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, including American soldiers and all the PTSD and suicides a result from that and the last two years of watching

one of the most horrific massacres of women and children being live streamed before us. I feel like there's more of an... Talk about Israel and Gaza. It seems like there's more of an awareness, of the realities of war, partly the internet, you have even conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson being very anti-war these days. And it's giving conservative Christians, maybe a permission to say, maybe this isn't at the very least. I mean, it could also come for like an

America First perspective. Like, why are my tax dollars going to do this? You know? So it could be kind of, maybe the motivation isn't deeply rooted in like Jesus. But there does seem to be less enthusiasm for war as we have had previously? Have you, is that just by misperceiving things? Or have you seen the same thing? No, I, I love to hear that because I feel like I don't, I don't have really an echo chamber. So I love to hear what other people are echoing. Yeah.

And that's so hopeful to me. I really think that, I do think watching an atrocity be live streamed with our guns and with our weapons has people being like, huh. So, yeah. I don't know about that, you know. So I do think that there is an ability to, like, critique war. And I know, like, there's all the books for the just war theory, but we're in the present. And I feel like right now, like, we will get to, we either create courage and we create a way to say, like, Jesus didn't go for war.

And in fact, the world that Jesus is building doesn't have that in it. So we want to be part of that. I think there is a shift and I think there is a change. I think that Gaza is absolutely like extreme and maybe it takes something like that will go down in the history books on us to have people start to be able to say, I can, I can love my country and we can say that war, war is not working and war is not getting us where we want to go. and in fact, how we're doing it is harmful for all of us, including the planet and including our kids, because our kids will pay the price for the wars that we do today. So I think there is a shift, and I think there's a shift in church spaces. I think that I know a lot of Vietnam veterans, and they're just delightful.

And also, they all say Vietnam was the worst. and it was absolutely wrong. And I have asked, like, why doesn't anyone say anything about that? And they're like, we don't know. So I think if we start to talk about the way that war isn't working and war, like, you can't really send Bibles to a country that you're also sending bombs to. Like, you got to hold those two things because it's called integrity. Like, you can only be one person.

So I think that there is this shift to say, like, we we don't have to kiss the ring on this like we have a faith that has a voice and that is not disloyal that does not challenge and and if like war is our loyalty then that's just then that's your only loyalty but you can't blindly accept a war and not think that your faith is really being um erased in that or like superseded or you know like taken out of that i think there is a change and i think that the youth also yeah are wondering i work a lot with like israeli youth who are refusing to join the military as a public um protest to build a country that doesn't have apartheid They're like, we want a future and this is, and we need everybody to say that what we've been doing isn't working.

And so how they're creating that public conversation is by refusing, because they're all drafted at 18. And she's so hopeful. She's like, once we stop being a cog in something that is causing harm instead of building the future that creates a safe place for Israelis to live and Palestinians to live, we're actually creating a future. And I think that the U.S. is starting to do that, too, that says, wait a second. Yeah. Like, we want something that lines up with our faith. We have something that lines up with building a future for people, with our integrity, and we're going to question these endless wars. And we're going to question what that actually means for us.

There is a generational difference for sure. I mean, every poll I've read, massive generational difference between younger people. let's just say young our age and younger diana and people older than that's and i think part of it i think a big part of it is people's news source you know like older people typically still get their news from like mainstream media outlets and stuff and and talking points this that and they have more of a trust for maybe the government and the glorious days of like war war war two or whatever and now I think younger people are kind of like they have an internet connection they could see behind the scenes They can look past the popular narratives and say, no, there's, our government is lighted us into basically every war in the last century.

And like, we can see that nothing good has come about it. And I can't afford a house anymore. And why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? And all this money is going to fund these foreign wars. They have nothing to do with me. And, you know, so I do think there is a massive generational difference, which is growth, which, you know, as older people end up dying off and younger people, you know, are. coming on the scene. I think that the perspective is definitely shifting from that from that point of view. I would just love to see at the church that any kind of shifted perspective on war not

simply come from an America first perspective. Like, I don't make it as much money because my money is going to fund a war. It's like, yes, that's true. That's bad and immoral. But there's something deeper than that, you know, like it has to be rooted in the way of Jesus. And my hope is that, like, is the revolutionary would actually get to transform and touch our cultural Christianity, our American Christianity. I'm like, once that happens, like, Omar Sahn showed me how to live for something, not just belong to the group that's winning, or not just be told that I'm, I get a spot in the group that will accept me.

Like, we need meaning and we need purpose. but Omazan showed me just how to actually build something, how to live into something. And I think that's the Jesus way that I hope catches this generation, not just a suspicion that they're just getting used for something and it's not going to go well for them. But I also want them to be ignited to live for something and say, you have 8 billion people on this planet all created by God. And if you get in the room with them, you're going to be. going to feel it and you have something beautiful to be part of like we need you we need your voice like our communities are incomplete without you so please show up like i think they um i started the wage and peace project because i really believed that activating justice and instigating joy by

committing acts of courage right where we live was how we were going to role model and also invite the next generation to, like, have their story. Like, we need them. And unless we invite them and say, man, we are incomplete without you. Like, bring your talents. Bring your passion. Bring your world. Like, do it here. Then somebody else is always going to give them a lame story. And then they're going to be like, well, sure, I'll sign up. Or sure, I'll be in the, whatever the Lord's Army is like the new version is. I'm like, no, you're. you're so important. And I think that, you know, waging war is so simple, but waging peace is really how we follow the Prince of Peace and it's relational and it's connected. And there's a place

for every single person at the table right where they live. And so I think the next generation needs to hear that we want them more than corporate America does. We want them more than like the global U.S. Army, you know, wants them, that we care for them. I think that living for something is how we move past a lot of these death dealing divides and also like mental illness and like all of these things that our kids are carrying a lot right now. I'm like, man, invite someone to the team. Like it connects us to the truth that we are all part of the team. And it feels right. And it gives energy and persistence. And I think that's the stuff that we got to start inviting kids to. It's so easy to see what we don't want, but the best critique is just the practice of something better. Yeah, that's good.

Hey, before I let you go, tell us about the Waging Peace project that you just mentioned. Oh, man. I saw people that, you know, an eighth grade science class where you got to do a group project where somebody like was the writer, someone like made the, for me, it was like a six foot paper machet slug. I don't know why that was what we chose. But I'm like, this piece is the best group project you're ever going to be part of. And we help people take one action locally and then one action globally. But I think that being invited to just take an action right where you live to put your faith,

to put your body next to somebody in your community who needs something, I'm like, this is how we start to build the piece that we want. And also, people are kind of sick of Christians talking and not doing. So I'm like, if necessary, use words. You know, like the old mother Teresa is like preach the gospel. And I also think that the things that changed me were showing up with people that I was told not to see or if they're having a problem, it's their problem. And so I think like Jesus oftentimes just says like, just show up with me. And if he is first in line with the hungry, the homeless, the poor, the incarcerated, then, like, that's kind of where it's going to be.

So I tell people that we activate justice and we instigate joy by committing acts of courage right where we live. So whether you're a mom with kids at home, whether you're 85, I'm like, this is like the community that is going to be the bright spot in your city. And you don't have to do it alone. like nobody nobody can do it alone i can't do it alone um because it's always hard to push back on the easy narratives that say we know what we're against but we don't ever build or show up for people unless we figured everything out and have to have agreement i'm like you don't need to agree with anybody just show up when they say they need help like show up so we do that um through justice joy and storytelling and so one of the things that we're doing right now is the peace hero awards

So we've got many awards for like business people, athletics. We don't have any awards for someone who's putting the characteristic of Jesus and peace on display. So last year in the eve of the presidential election, the night before, we gathered 150 people from my Duluth community into a middle school auditorium. And we crowned and announced the very first Peace Hero Award. So hundreds of people wrote in their teacher, their teenager, their neighbor, and they nominated them for the Peace Hero Award. And a Peace Hero is just someone who is making a positive change right where we live. And so instead of looking at all these stories that tell us to demonize someone or that our neighbor sucks, it's going to ruin the country, we ask people to look for who is doing something positive right in their neighborhood. And the stories were incredible. We had coaches. We had kids. People were crying. And we ate like a cake buffet after. And everybody said like, one, I had no idea I could feel like our community is like thriving. And I can trust my community to show up for me and my kids, no matter what happens the next day. And then other people were like, I've lived here 30 years. And I had no idea, so-and-so lived here or was doing this. And so we were connecting people to the good thing.

that we're happening and showing our kids that we value peace, not just athletics, not just success, that they can be honored to. So we're doing that again every year on the eve of the national election. Oh, awesome. Yeah. So that's one thing we do, Peace Here Awards, where we put stories of peace in public. And then we also practice joy by, I do hospitality and a meal for our homeless neighbors every month. There's just a house. It's a Catholic worker house where you show up, make tacos, hang out, play with people's kids, play some Uno, which I'm really bad at. I didn't know until I go there. And then justice means if there's injustice happening, then we just speak up. Whoever says it's happening, we show up for them locally or globally.

So it's a pretty simple thing. What's the website? So people can check it out. It is waging peaceproject.org. But if you want to check out the Peace Hero Award, which seriously will give you a whole dunk of hope, that is peacehero.org. And people can, we created resources. You can do it in your community. You can do it in your family. But calling out the good is going to rewire, I think, our brains and our kids. And it's also going to, like, put roots in our community.

respect and of honor, which I think we got to plant them if we want them. I invite people to check out those two websites. Also check out Diana's book, Waging Peace. All the links are in the show notes. Diana, thank you so much for being a guest on the Al Jara. This has been an absolutely fascinating and eye-opening conversation and many blessings to you and the work that you're engaged in. Thank you so much for having me. It was an honor. Thank you.