Fighting the Right Battle: doubts, hopes and Graham Kendrick

The bilateral war that the USA and Israel launched against Iran on Saturday 28th February 2026 is most definitely a political war of choice being fought by nations, or even just individual leaders, without the legitimacy of “so-called international institutions” or the restraint of “stupid rules of engagement”.[1] However, there is in the background a sense of the war being yet another clash of ‘Christian’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Jewish’ peoples.

This blog is different to my normal blogs as it is based on a talk I gave at a chapel service in Oxford on Tuesday 4th March 2026 and reflects some of my own thinking on the war as well as reporting on the responses of other Christians in the light of passages in the Bible. It particularly reflects research that I am beginning, firstly, on the ways in which the Christian charismatic-prophetic community views Islam and Muslims and, secondly, on the impact of the rise of the far-right and Christian nationalism on Christian-Muslim relations.

My talk reflected on different scripture passages from Psalm 33, Revelation 1, Matthew 11 and Matthew 24 and asked Christians three questions:

·        What are our doubts?

·        What is the battle we are fighting?

·        Where is our hope?

Doubts, because as I look around the world, the war raises questions in my mind. I think of that passage in Matthew 11, where John the Baptist sends some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect somebody else?” (v2). Because this isn't quite what we were expecting. And as I look out at the world sometimes, I think, “Is this it? Is this what we should be expecting?” Psalm 33:10 says that “the Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples”, yet nations and leaders – whether Iranian, American or Israeli – seem to carry out despotic, frankly, evil plans with impunity. Revelation 1:5 describes Jesus as “the ruler of the kings of the earth” but that is not what it looks like. I've got to be honest; I sometimes have doubts. What do we mean when we say, “Jesus is king”?

1. Christian prophecy

Matt 24 is a passage ripe for prophetic interpreters. Jesus talks about signs in the heavens. “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light and stars will fall from the sky” (v29). On the weekend of 28th February, the day the attack was launched, seven planets apparently came into alignment, a very rare event. If you do some online searches, it does not take long to discover that many Christian prophetic websites are very excited about this. It is taken as a “sign of the times”. Maybe this this war will lead to “Armageddon” and the return of Christ.[2]

Added to that, Monday 2nd March 2026 was the start of the Jewish festival of Purim, when Jews remember how God raised up Esther to rescue the Jewish community in Persia from the attempts of Haman to destroy it.[3] Persia was the forerunner of modern-day Iran and once again, in the eyes of some Christians and Jews, Iran represents an existential threat to the Jewish nation. For them, the current war represents a chance to remove that threat once and for all. Added to that, some Christians – and even politicians – see this as a spiritual as well as a physical battle. In the Book of Daniel, when the Archangel Michael comes in answer to Daniel’s prayer, he says that the “Prince of Persia” resisted him for 21 days (Daniel 10:13). This prince is taken by some Christians to be a “territorial spirit” over Persia/Iran and as one Christan author pointed out “spirits don’t die”. In other words, there is still a demon over Iran opposing Israel. The implication is that the war is necessary to defeat this evil spirit so that other events can happen and the end of the world might come.

Prophetic prediction and speculation, like conspiracy theories, are appealing to many people. Even though Jesus explicitly says that no-one knows “that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven” (Matthew 24:36 – and repeats himself in Revelation 16:15), that has not stopped Christians trying to predict the end of the world. I remember my mum telling me a story about a man in her village during WWII who was so convinced that Jesus was coming back the following year that he didn’t plant any vegetables in his garden. Even as a young child, I remember the folly of not having vegetables to eat!

However, there is another type of Christian prophet. Not one obsessed with speculation and the end of the world but one prepared to speak up and criticise injustice and evil. Walter Brueggemann’s book The Prophetic Imagination traces how the Old Testament prophets in Israel were raised up as a counterbalance to the power of the royal monarchy. They publicly lamented evil in public life and courageously spoke out against injustice and greed. Brueggemann suggests that “the task of prophetic ministry is (still) to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”

I am thankful for the courageous prophetic Christian voices that still speak truth to power and bring Godly criticism to politicians today. Voices like Shane Claiborne of the Red Letter Christians who recently wrote in his Facebook account:

Let’s be very clear. 

Killing people is wrong.

Attacking Iran is terribly wrong.

We will never build a better world by killing other people’s children.

Violence only begets more violence.

When we live by the sword, we die by the sword.

Two wrongs never make a right.

It is impossible to love our enemies as Christ commands and simultaneously prepare to kill them.

War no more. 

No more.

No.

2. Christian nationalism and war

Psalm 33:12-19 makes it plain that God is not impressed with horses and the size of armies. He is probably equally unimpressed by massive armadas and huge bombs. Yet there are plenty of Christians who seem to be excited about the war in the Middle East and, like Franklin Graham, are lining up to congratulate President Trump “for giving the Iranian people a chance to be free.”[4] But is this the right battle?

Most western Christians have sung the wonderful worship songs written by the well-known song writer, Graham Kendrick. But not everybody knows that before Kendrick was a worship leader, he produced solo performance albums. ‘Breaking of the dawn’, ‘Triumph in the Air’, ‘Cresta Run’ and one I particularly remember called ‘Fighter’ (1978). And in a bizarre twist of human memory, I can pretty much remember all the lyrics of songs on that album, whereas I can’t remember the worship song that I learned yesterday! It was an album about warfare, spiritual warfare – I presume.

Oh my King, the Tyrants armies gather
Hosts unseen, march by without a sound
Through the city streets and suburban skies
Oh my Lord this is a battleground

And I feel the weight of a sword in my hand
And I burn with a fire in my soul …

Where all the Christian soldiers gone?
Where is the resistance, will no one be strong?
When will we stand up tall and straight, rise up and storm the gates?

How can we fail to get excited, the battle is ours, why don't we fight it?
Battalions of darkness rise above me
But God put a fighter in me, put a fighter in me![5]

And I know exactly what Kendrick means, and I want God to put a fighter in me, a spiritual fighter, to be strong, to be like Jacob who wrestled with God and became Israel (Genesis 32:22-32). I want to be somebody who takes action because of the faith that God's put in my heart. And yet, these words can be so easily misconstrued. In fact, they pretty much sum up some actual contemporary events.

Kendrick went on to lead a movement called March for Jesus. Around the country, and then the world, in the 1980s and 90s, Christians took their worship out on the streets declaring that “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). Songs talked about “taking this land in Jesus' name” and resisting demons and injustice. Someone called Cole Moreton was involved in March for Jesus back in those days but has since moved away from traditional Christian faith. In 2011, as a journalist, he wrote a book called Is God Still an Englishman? in which he briefly reflects on the March for Jesus, when hundreds of thousands of Christians were on the street, and he wonders how other communities felt when they heard those words. Did they understand that these were spiritual ambitions? Or did they feel physical fear? “The Christians are coming to get us”? How would I feel if Muslims were out on the streets saying similar things today? (It happens). I know what I and other Christians meant back then, but this too raises doubts. Were we communicating the right message? It's so easy for spiritual warfare language to slip over into something more physical, something more political

And since those days, many Christians have become more political, especially in the USA. Last year, I read a really disturbing book by American academic Matthew Taylor called The Violent Take It by Force. The title is taken from Matthew 11:12, where Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently and the violent take it by force”.[6] Taylor traces the rise in the USA of what is known as the New Apostolic Reformation movement from the 1980s under the leadership of Peter Wagner (d.2016).[7] It involves names well-known to many British Christians for their books about intercession, prophecy and spiritual warfare, such as Cindy Jacobs and Dutch Sheets. Taylor traces those leaders, their writing and their movements right up to January the 6th, 2021. As the Capitol Building was being stormed by a mob, including Christians, there was a stage around the corner on which Jacobs and other Christian leaders were praying and leading worship, prophesying that now was the time to “take back the nation”. That’s another step on from March for Jesus. It’s turning to violence to enforce the coming of what they believe to be “God’s kingdom”.

But now it’s gone further. After all, doesn’t Jesus talk about “wars and rumours of wars” (Matthew 24:6)? Isn’t that a sign of his second coming? Won’t there be a great battle at “Armageddon” (Revelation 16)?[8] Aren’t Christians to “hasten the day” (2 Peter 3:12) when Jesus will return?

On the morning that I was speaking in chapel, there were headlines in the newspapers saying, “US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’”.[9] Days earlier, Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, now renamed the Secretary of War, had spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast. He is a former TV presenter on Fox News, a self-declared evangelical Christian and member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. He explicitly linked physical warfare with spiritual warfare and the words of Christ in John 15:13:

Like Christ, in earthly ways our brave warriors are not called to appease the world, they must confront it. We know we fight a physical battle but ultimately grounded, as the president said, in a spiritual battlefield. Not only are we warriors armed with the arsenal of freedom, we ultimately are armed with the arsenal of faith … The warrior is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his creator. That warrior finds eternal life.[10]

This is disturbing language. This is straight from the crusade sermons of the C11th and C12th. And ironically it mirrors the language of “the ayatollah and his death cult” which Hegseth referenced in a press briefing following the launch of the war. In fact, a lot of the language of Christian nationalism today is directly parallel to extremist Islamist and jihadi language. The goal of a Christian nation; the desire for Christian laws upheld by Christian leaders; the need to keep foreigners and migrants out; the need for war and violence (in the name of Christ) to protect that nation and extend its empire which will bring true faith and goodness to the world; the dying warrior receiving the promise of the forgiveness of sin and paradise. Just substitute the words “Muslim”, “jihad” and “caliphate” in that sentence and they could be from a jihadi manifesto.

Any leader or politician promising these things immediately takes on messianic, saviour-like status for some Christians (or Muslims). Their character, lies and actions are overlooked in the nationalist cause.

In one of his more terrifying statements, Jesus warned that false messiahs would come “deceiving even the elect if that were possible” (Matthew 24:24). It is all too possible.

3. The cross

The Messiah, Jesus Christ, is not a populist leader. He is the crucified Christ. His is the way of the cross, not glorious death in battle, but the way of sacrifice and seeming failure. The Book of Revelation, much-beloved of “prophets” predicting “the signs of the times”, is actually a critique of war and  the ideology of might-is-right or “peace through strength” as Hegseth put it. In Revelation every picture of strength is turned on its head. The lion is a slain lamb (5:5-6); the heavenly warrior’s robe is dipped in blood long before the battle commences (19:13); his sword is in his mouth not in his hand (19:15); and those who triumph are those who lose their lives, not through death in war, but through “the word of their testimony” (Rev 12:11).

Reflecting on words from the prophet Zechariah (12:10), both Revelation (1:5-7) and Matthew (24:30) promise that “all peoples on earth will mourn” because “the ruler of the kings of the earth” was “pierced” and crucified. That is how God revealed His love and that is where our hope is. Christians are “those whose hope is in His unfailing love” (Psalm 33:18) exemplified in the cross not in weapons and war. Our battle is to live out the cross. With Paul we “resolve to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). We stand with those in the Middle East who are suffering and our brothers and sisters who very physically carry their cross in situations of persecution.

Our hope is in something utterly different, utterly unlike anything the warring armies of the world know. To quote two other Kendrick songs:

I have placed all my hope in a crucified man

In the wounds in his side, his feet and his hands

I have traded my pride for a share in his shame

And the glory that one-day will burst from his pain [11]

There'll be crowns for the conquerors and white robes to wear

There will be no more sorrow or pain

And the battles of earth shall be lost in the sight

Of the glorious Lamb that was slain [12]

[1] So said Pete Hegseth, US “Secretary of War” and self-declared Christian, in a press briefing following the launch of US and Israeli attacks on Iran.

[2] See for instance https://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=33796

[3] See for instance, https://www.issacharpeople.org/Articles/735438/When_Purim_and.aspx or https://www.hiskingdomprophecy.com/the-haman-spirit-is-being-toppled-push-in-this-purim-portal

[4] https://goodfaithmedia.org/franklin-grahams-crusade-extremist-theology-behind-strikes-on-iran/

[5] Taken from the tracks ‘On the front line’ and ‘God put a fighter in me’

[6] One possible translation in the New Revised Standard Version. It’s a difficult verse to translate.

[7] Read more about NAR in Carolyn Whitnall. 2025. The Seven Mountain Mandate: A Case Study in “New Apostolic” Approaches to Scripture Journal for the Study of Bible and Violence, 4 71-112.

[8] No there won’t. See Ian Paul. ‘Is the war in Iran the start of Armageddon?’ Psephizo. 6 March 2026. https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/is-the-war-in-iran-the-start-of-armageddon/ [Accessed 11 March 2026].

[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0R1fYKXVc

[11] Graham Kendrick, Crucified Man (I have placed all my hope), Make Way, 2006.

[12] Graham Kendrick, Battle Hymn (There’s a sound on the wind), Thankyou Music, 1978.