Somebody close the door, it's getting cold in here

In doing research for tonight’s sermon, “The Jewishness of Janus,” I learned that we are not the first “superpower” to find ourselves in a state that feels like – if not truly is – perpetual war.

According to a Wikipedia article on Janus: Numa Pompilius, the second ruler of Rome (after Romulus), introduced the Ianus geminus (also called Janus Bifrons, Janus Quirinus or Portae Belli), a passage ritually opened at times of war and shut again when Roman arms rested. It formed a walled enclosure with gates at each end situated in the Roman Forum. In the course of wars, the gates of the Janus were opened, and in its interior sacrifices were held to forecast the outcome of military events. The doors were closed only during peacetime, an extremely rare event. The Roman historian Livy (who lived at the turn of the common era) wrote in his definitive history of the empire, Ab urbe condita, that the doors of the temple had only been closed twice since the reign of Numa: first in 235 B.C.E. after the first Punic war and second after the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.E.

While one could argue that America has not been “at war” throughout our history, it must also be acknowledged that the past 100 years (or more) have not been so peaceful as some would like to imagine. The “Cold War” and the current state – whether one calls it “the War on Terror” or as Melanie Phillips recently called it, a “global religious war against the free world” – remind us that “war” is not just “hot” engagement with the enemy on a traditional (Yorktown, Waterloo, Bulge) battlefield. Maybe that chill you feel won't be solved by green technology and Energy Star. Maybe we should start with somebody trying to close that door that's been left open.