IT will be my great honour today to lead Hyndburn’s Armed Forces Day service at the open-air Pals’ Memorial, in Accrington.

It’s especially so this year with a much-missed, much-prayed-for member of our family presently serving in Afghanistan with the Duke of Lancaster’s.

As a Christian minister, my support for occasions like today and Remembrance Sunday is occasionally challenged, and in the run-up to the General Election several made it crystal clear that I could kiss their votes goodbye unless I immediately denounced warfare.

Yet, how can I be a pacifist when God commands me to love my neighbour as I love myself. I have to do it in a practical way, in a fallen and imperfect world, and that means, at times, standing forcefully against evil.

Example: I’m walking in the park and see a large man beating a little girl to death with a baseball bat.

I jump in front of him and plead with him to stop. He doesn’t. He knocks me out of the way and carries on killing the child.

Do I just pray? Cry out? Run for help? A few more blows and it’ll be too late, so I wade in more forcefully in a last-ditch bid to save the little girl’s life.

If I didn’t, I’d become as bad as the bad man, and I would be deserting the true meaning of Christian love – responsibility to my neighbour.

Afghanistan is our way of wading in to stop terrorists blowing up our innocent neighbours, and I’m truly, deeply grateful to the young men and women who are there on my behalf.