A SENIOR army officer, Brigadier Jaish Mahan, told the General Synod about his experiences serving in the forces as a Christian. Speaking on the opening afternoon in York, he urged members to continue to support the military, as international threats to the UK loomed.
The Brigadier is Deputy Commander of the 1st UK Division, which has 30,000 soldiers across the country. Over the past year, the division had been NATO’s “high readiness” unit, prepared to intervene in any global crisis as required. This had energised and focused his soldiers, he said, given the current state of world affairs.
Brigadier Mahan sketched out common ground between the military and the Church, referring to close historical ties between the army and Christian faith. The motto of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, was “serve to lead”, he said, which drew on the example of Christ.
He acknowledged that some Christians were uncomfortable with a commingling of the military and the Church, but said that he and others had felt “called” to join the military to uphold peace and order in a “broken world”. He also hailed the work of army chaplains in supporting believers at every rank, and welcomed plans to be debated later at the Synod to expand this vocation.
Brigadier Mahan recalled leading a unit in Afghanistan, where many British soldiers died within a few weeks. “I was not expecting to stand on the ramp of an RAF aircraft as part of an honour guard as Union Jack-draped coffins were flown home,” he said. The chaplains in Afghanistan had been invaluable in this moment, he said. Shortly before deployment, York Minster had held a service for his soldiers, which had strengthened and encouraged him.
Though the world was “more connected than ever”, conflicts erupted often, Brigadier Mahan said, referring to wars in Europe and the Middle East. “The risk of a potential attack on a NATO country has been highlighted again and again, and this could trigger an Article 5 response requiring us as a country to go to war.”
Information suggested that Russia had produced more munitions in the past year than the rest of NATO combined. Brigadier Mahan had visited NATO allies closer to Russia, who were deploying strategies of “total defence, with a complete national commitment to defending the homeland”, he said.
While the UK usually considered itself to be geographically secure, critical national infrastructure could still be targeted, he suggested. If UK troops were committed to a war, “this would not be like Afghanistan,” Brigadier Mahan warned. The fast-changing nature of warfare demonstrated in Ukraine would require the military to update its approach.
The Church’s historical leadership in times of crisis had been “pivotal”, he said. During wars, the Church had been a “fundamental bulwark for our society”, supporting those deployed and families at home, as well as wider societal preparedness for national defence.
Concluding his address, Brigadier Mahan urged the Synod to continue to pray for the men and women who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the nation, and to consider how the Church could prepare itself to spring into action, should a war occur. Both the military and the Church were core pillars of society, “sometimes overlooked, but always there in times of need”.
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