Exploring the Connections

Coalition begins campaign to end Iraq war

By DENNIS CODAY
National Cathlic Reporter, September, 22. 2006

A coalition of 350 peace groups -- half of them religious -- have given the Bush administration and congressional leaders until Sept. 21 to develop a comprehensive plan for troop withdrawal from Iraq and support for an Iraqi-led peace process. If the deadline is not met, the coalition members have pledged to stage a week of nonviolent civil disobedience actions in the nation’s capital and 200 locales across the nation.

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood, a Church of God in Christ minister and president of the Washington-based Hip Hop Caucus, said during a media conference Sept. 14 that he is committed to civil disobedience actions on Sept. 21 and Sept. 26.

“We are in a time of peril,” he said, in which people of faith “have to stand up as moral witnesses.” Yearwood said, “There is an unjust and immoral war going on. ... We are willing to do whatever it takes to urge Congress and the administration to take a new course on Iraq.”

The Rev. Rick Ufford-Chase, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has also made the pledge for civil disobedience. He has seen a shift in this country, he told the media Sept. 14. “More and more people are saying we can’t continue on this path.”

Members of the coalition -- which include American Friends Service Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, the Hip Hop Caucus, School of the Americas Watch, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, a number of Franciscan Sisters communities, Erie Benedictines for Peace, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship -- began meeting in January and drafted a Declaration of Peace pledge for people to sign.

The coalition’s Web site, www.declarationofpeace.org, states these goals for the Declaration of Peace:

• Withdrawal of U.S. troops and all coalition forces from Iraq
• Closure of U.S. military bases in Iraq
• Support for an Iraqi-led peace process, including a peace conference to shape a post-occupation transition and an international peacekeeping presence if mandated by this peace process
• Return of Iraqi control over its oil resources and the political and economic life of the nation
• Reparations and reconstruction to address the destruction caused by the U.S. war and 13 years of sanctions
• Establish a “peace dividend” for job creation, health care, education, housing, and other vital social needs
• Increased support for U.S. veterans of the Iraq war
• No so-called “preventive” war against Iran or any other nation

“We have to make clear that we are not going to abandon the Iraqi people,” said Ufford-Chase. “We will be there and be involved in reconstruction, and the churches must lead the way on all of this.”

Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale, also committed to the civil disobedience pledge, said the country has reached “a tipping point” where attitudes are changing. People are telling him that it is time to get a timetable and get out of Iraq, he said. He’s seen this attitude change even in Washington and the halls of Congress, he said.

Vitale said he and others know their actions won’t bring peace immediately, “but it is a first step in a very different direction.”

He said civil disobedience for peace “is a very moral statement. ... It’s a way of saying with our lives, our faith, that we believe something very different has to happen in our country and our world.”

Dennis Coday is an NCR staff writer. His e-mail address is dcoday@ncronline.org

From where I stand - Vol 4, No. 21

Franz, where are you when we need you?

Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, National Catholic Reporter, Sept 22, 2006

Let's put it this way: The world in which we're living with its scramble for big oil, its rising sense of nationalism in a globalized world, its tendencies to economic imperialism, its capacity for global terrorism as well as Neanderthal militarism and its rising sense of anti-Americanism is at a very sensitive period in human history.

In fact, in a setting like that, we may well be precariously poised on the brink of a new Franz Ferdinand moment.

In that case, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist seeking independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire unleashed a catastrophic series of events. As a result, the world found itself plunged into a period of wars that lasted for more than 40 years and killed more than 70 million people. It wasn't so much what the assassination of an obscure Austrian Duke did to the world as it was what it catapulted so many others into doing in response.

It might be important for us to remember in our own time how it is that seemingly benign situations, given the right environment, can become potentially lethal.

In our own times, for instance, fundamentalism everywhere, including here, is more than enough to kindle a global fire.

And now an unexpected spark has come from the strangest place of all: the Vatican.

This week the pastoral, the political and the professorial dimensions of the present papacy of Benedict XVI found themselves on a fast-track to collision with forces far beyond the arena in which he spoke.

The world has been debating for over a week now whether Pope Benedict XVI simply forgot that he was a universal pastor and international politician as well as past professor or simply didn't care to attend to all three roles at one time. Whatever the case, in one university speech all three facets of this current papacy came into play.

In this speech, universal pastoral sensitivity, as well as the political responsibilities that come with the papacy, seem to many to have been abandoned. In their place, his long-time identity as professor -- meaning someone who has the luxury, indeed, the responsibility to pursue abstract ideas free of the social consequences of their implications -- had free rein.

But it wasn't the subject matter of the lecture that was the problem. The question of the nature of God is, in fact, an ancient one.

Christians, Benedict XVI reminded us - using the words of John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, the Logos" -- hold that God, by nature, cannot do the unreasonable. On the other hand, those in Islam (as well as some Christian theologians like Duns Scotus and Benedict) argue that God transcends all human categories. God, that is, can do a thing whether it looks reasonable to human beings or not.

Benedict, of course, argued for the traditional Christian view. Otherwise, he pointed out, violence in behalf of faith -- "jihad" -- could be practiced in the name of God. That, he went on, is simply a rational impossibility for the God of peace and love.

But then, for no clear reason, Benedict quoted from a 14th century conversation between the Christian Emperor Paleologus and a Persian scholar . In the conversation, Paleologus contends that the Prophet Mohammed brought forth "only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Then and there, the academic subject becomes a pastoral one, a political one, a social one, a current one.

Then and there the speech raises two major problems for the Islamic world -- and so for us.

The first problem is that Muslim scholars maintain that the word "jihad" most commonly means that the Muslim must make an "effort" -- must struggle -- to live life in accordance with the teachings of Mohammed. It is incumbent on all Muslims at all times -- just as "avoiding the occasions of sin" is part of Christian discipline, as well. "Holy war," as jihad, is at most a secondary meaning of the word that has become common to radical Islamic fundamentalist groups, but not to the Islamic community in general.

The second problem is that Muslims see the words of Paleologus, and so of Benedict XVI, as a direct insult to the Prophet Mohammed. It is, purely and simply, blasphemy to accuse the prophet of being either inhumane or evil.

The outcry against the pope and the speech was swift in coming. Some called the references to a 600-year-old theological debate in an otherwise benign speech "tragic;" some called it "unfortunate;" a few called it brave -- and, if not politically smart, definitely necessary. But by the time the news cycles had made their way around the globe for a day or two, no one was calling it insignificant.

Whether or not it was right or wrong for the pope to say what he did, one thing is now clear, certainly to the world, hopefully to the pope: what popes say, however much they mean it to be an academic conversation starter, transcend the academic.

But it must be clear to the rest of us, as well, how easy it is to light a tinder box when we fail to acknowledge what we ourselves have committed against others in the name of religion.

It is Christians who call God "rational" who, in that God's name, have done a history-full of irrational things to other religions and to Christians themselves. In times past, Christians drove Jews and Muslims out of Europe. We slaughtered Jews in pogroms and Muslims in the Crusades.

In the New World, Christians converted Indians at the end of a sword and persecuted gays and kept slaves and suppressed women. We watched white Christians burn crosses in the front yards of black Christians -- and then burned those black Christians themselves.

We have all sinned in the name of religion.

If we want as Christians to begin a dialogue on the role of violence in religion, we need to cite some of our own sins as well as theirs.

And frankly, I'd leave both Mohammed and Jesus out of it as we do.

We had all better learn to talk so Christian a language that there is no doubt about its meaning.
From where I stand, a teacher friend of mine has it right. She taught her public communication students the basics of communication when she told them, "I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

And that goes for all of us, pope and people alike. Otherwise, Franz Ferdiand may rise from his grave only to find us no wiser now than we were in his time. And maybe on the brink of 40 more years of war, as well.

Relevance of Amos' Message III

One of Amos' major charge against Israel is that basically good people ("the upright," "the poor") are being sold into debt-slavery for piddling sums ("for silver," "for a pair of sandals").

How little the world has changed. Debt-slavery is pandemic in this wonderful, modern, up-to-date world of ours. All across Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Gulf States, children are sold, or otherwise coerced, into child-labor, prostitution, etc.

There are so many reports on these issues that it is difficult to single out any for special attention. What I will do here is to cite articles representative of the issues in different parts of the world, None of these make for easy reading, but then reading Amos is not exactly a walk in the park either.

The first is by a remarkable woman, the Rev. Dr. Sirirat Pusurinkham - a United Church of Christ minister in Chiang Rai, Thailand, a northern city near the border with Myanmar (Burma) and Laos. In addition to pastoring a 350-member congregation, she teaches in two seminaries, oversees a drug rehab treatment facility, directs a micro-enterprise development project, and runs an AIDS ministry. Here, she reports on "Child Prostitution in Thailand" to an international gathering in Durban, South Africa. If you have doubts that this sort of stuff has anything to to with us here, notice  her points about the role of the Vietnam War, and the role of "sex tourism" (mostly from Europe and the U.S.) in the origin and maintenance of much of this shocking trade, and the role of the Church in fighting it.

The next article takes us to Indonesia and a similar theme. My eye was caught here by a passage that could almost have come out of Amos:

"Like the children ‘employed’ as street beggars in Jakarta, or the underage workers in Bandung clothing factories, the journey of exploitation usually begins in their home village with a highly structured practice known as ‘ijon’.

"A broker will approach a poor family and offer a ‘loan’ of up to two million rupiah ($200). The family then repays the debt by bonding one of their children (usually a school age daughter) for a period of two years or more. Most families believe their child will be taken to the city for training as a domestic aide, handicraft worker, or even as a movie star. The reality couldn’t be further from the dream.

"Families rarely hear from their child again, and if they do, it is usually only after the two-year bonded period is served. The brokers colloquially refer to children acquired through ijon as ‘ayam potong’. While literally meaning ‘chopped chicken’, conceptually this term translates as a new prostitute (ayam), carved off (potong) from her family.

The complete text may be read here.

The third example is somewhat similar to the foregoing two, but is set in Latin America. It is a piece called "The Hill of the Goats: Solidarity with the Poor in Latin America," and is written by a Roman Catholic priest who is executive director of the NCCB Secretariat for Latin America, a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston who has served in the St. James Society as a missionary in Guayaquial, Ecuador from 1988-1994. What grabbed me here was Fr. Ronan's strong sense that the Church's call is into solidarity with the poor, and that the greatest sin against life might just be indifference. Click here for the full article.

Finally, here is the link to a site that has a variety of helpful books, films and videos that bear on the topic.

 

A Messsage from the Rt Rev'd Riah H. Abu El-Assal, Bishop of Jerusalem

September 22, 2006
My Dear Friends,

Salaam.

I count it my duty to keep you informed of events as they unfold. In the past two weeks I have visited Lebanon, met with Prime Minister Tony Blair, visited Nablus, and I am preparing to leave on Monday, September 25th where I will spend two weeks in Australia meeting with Churches, Members of Parliament and other Church and government officials.

Last week in Lebanon, I spoke with religious leaders and had the opportunity to spend time with the injured, the grieved, the homeless, and the frightened. I could not count the number of bridges destroyed by the thirty-five day war on Lebanon. I came back renewed in my commitment to build bridges of peace, healing, and reconciliation among our Middle East Communities.

I returned to Jerusalem to find many letters on my desk from friends throughout the world responding to my appeal. They offer support including initial financial assistance for which I am very grateful. I must admit that I am greatly encouraged, and my promise and mandate is to go back and assist some of those families who have been directly or indirectly affected by the war, among them a few families in Galilee and Haifa. In the midst of such deep sorrow, and in our despair, God brings hope to us through you.

On Sunday, September 10th I was one of six invited to meet with Prime Minister Tony Blair at the British Consulate in Jerusalem. I reminded the Prime Minister of our conversation at a meeting on February 18th, 2003 just before the invasion on Iraq. He had said, "Going to war on Iraq will pave the way for peace in the Middle East". I had then responded: "Mr. Prime Minister, the shortest way to Baghdad goes through Jerusalem. Once peace comes to Jerusalem; peace will come to the whole world".

On the following Sunday (September 17th), the day that extremists attempted to burn the Churches in Nablus, (including Good Shepherd Anglican Church), I, with Patriarch Michael Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Bishop Munib Younan, the Evangelical Lutheran Bishop of Palestine and Jordan, met with Muslim leaders who unanimously denounced these acts of violence. They shared with us their commitment to build bridges through dialogue and understanding.

In the world at large we need to build a global community with the same foundation. There is a need for leaders of the world, religious and political, to be careful with their words. I am reminded of a saying that: "words are like eggs, for once words are spoken, and once eggs are broken, they are not the easiest things to repair". All of us belong to one world, and we all need to join hands and make this world a piece of heaven. There is hard work to be done and there are difficult challenges before us. Through the efforts of all believers who trust in God, we can find and do His will. We can bring the peace that He so deeply desires for us.

Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. Corinthians I, 12:12

In, With, and Through Christ,

The Rt. Revd. Riah H. Abu El-Assal
Bishop
The Diocese of Jerusalem (Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria)

Relevance of Amos' Message II

Genocide - How "Never again!" became "Again and again"

If any single event had the potential to change forever the human condition, the Holocaust was surely the most likely candidate. Alas, as we have seen, but need ever to be reminded, that potential has still to be fulfilled. Much has been written and said on the topic, but perhaps the most pointed exploration of what happened, most notably, in Rwanda was provided by the PBS broadcast - THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL: How the west ignored warnings of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and turned its back on the victims.

The website contains many horrific, but useful resources. One that impressed me was the piece, "Never Again," by Samantha Powers (Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) in The Atlantic magazine in 2001.

Against the background of fity years of undeniable progress in the area of human rights around the world, Powers tries to account for the persistence of "one ugly, deadly and recurrent reality":

'Genocide has occurred so often and so uncontested in the last fifty years that an epithet more apt in describing recent events than the oft-chanted "Never Again" is in fact "Again and Again."'

She mounts an equal-opportunity, bipartisan critique of American presidents over the previous 20 years - leaders who did next to nothing in the face of genocide:

"Irrespective of the political affiliation of the President at the time, the major genocides of the post-war era -- Cambodia (Carter), northern Iraq (Reagan, Bush), Bosnia (Bush, Clinton) and Rwanda (Clinton) -- have yielded virtually no American action and few stern words. American leaders have not merely refrained from sending GIs to combat genocide; when it came to atrocities in Cambodia, Iraq and Rwanda, the United States also refrained from condemning the crimes or imposing economic sanctions; and, again in Rwanda, the United States refused to authorize the deployment of a multinational U.N. force, and also squabbled over who would foot the bill for American transport vehicles."

Many of the excuses made by U.S.leaders for not acting to prevent, limit or otherwise deal with the wholesale slaughter of innocents, involve US, that's right, YOU and ME. In other words, these presidents imply, time and time again, that their hands were tied by OUR unwillingness to pay the price of intervention! The same readiness to pay attention to citizenry who were against other interventions (like the Iraq War, for example) were not nearly so apparent! In any case, Powers makes a good case that ordinary Americans were NOT nearly so isolationist as these guys made out. But for that, and other insights, you'll have to read the whole article here.

'Christendom ideology' hampers Christian-Muslim relations, says think tank

The continuing confusion of Christianity with the dominant assumptions and institutions of Western society is the chief barrier to the renewal of the churches and better relations with Muslims and others, says the UK think tank Ekklesia.

Its call for a conscious reversal of ‘the Christendom settlement’, which links the interests of the church with the preservation of the status quo, includes a rejection of arguments against Turkey’s accession to the EU and a call to respond to the Muslim ‘Day of Anger’ against the Pope with a “dialogue of love”.

In an article published yesterday, Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow says that senior Christian leaders have become “accustomed to operating from a position of power, prestige and protection”, and that this makes the Pope’s recent miscalculation over quoting a Christian Emperor in his recent German university speech “natural, if unintentional”.

The think tank says churches are “urgently challenged to deconstruct the colonial and military symbols which have become part of their faith”, pointing out that the central Christian image for God is a wounded healer, not a crusading warrior.

A post-Christendom church should reject violence and coercion, make the distinction between church and state clear, and argue against any attempts by politicians to have ‘God on our side’, says Ekklesia.

The think tank’s call comes at the same time as the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, has told the BBC that Europe’s “Christian identity” should be preserved and that Turkey’s admission to the European Union might risk “mixing cultures”.

Ekklesia says that such an approach is “profoundly mistaken”. The church should seek “difficult exchange not convenient isolation” with people of other convictions, it argues. It should also stop treating Christianity and Western culture as if they were the same thing, and should commend the Gospel through the peaceful witness of “communities of example”, not by attempts to impose Christian labels or rules on plural societies.

Today aggrieved Muslim leaders from Qatar to Qom and Gaza have called a ‘Day of Anger’ against the Pope. They say his apology for the impact of quoting an ancient attack on Muhammad is insufficient and that he should be “humbled”.

Ekklesia says that the best response to bitterness is “a dialogue of love”. It commends a Muslim initiative to help rebuild churches recently attacked in the West Bank and Gaza, and points to the recent exchange between US Mennonite theologian David Shank and Iranian President Ahmadinejad as “small signs of hope in a climate of bitterness and fear”.

Barrow argues that “Christendom is in retreat. But it is also in denial.” He cites the Catholic maintenance of a powerful City State, the Church of England’s “jealous guarding of Establishment”, and attempts by the US religious right to impose its views through money and power.

Continues the Ekklesia co-director: “It is these realities, together with the flag-waving and military chaplaincy that sometimes accompanies them, which makes it difficult for many Muslims (not just ‘radicals’) to understand the true difference between Christianity and Western interests. This remains the case even though the majority of Christians are poor, black and located in the global South; and even though a clear majority of the world’s churches have been highly critical of US-led military adventurism and the ‘war on terror’.”

Ekklesia commends the Pope’s view that linking violence to God is both wrong and incoherent, but says that if constructive conversations are to be had about distortions in Islam, they must proceed from practical repentance about the way Christendom was spread by the sword.

Adds Barrow: “We’re not being soft-headed about the very serious problem of religious violence. What we’re saying is that the calling of the church is to wage peace, and to refuse identification with policies based on the idea that might begets right – in whoever’s name they come.”

[See also: Redeeming Religion in the Public Square, by Simon Barrow; and Faith and Politics After Christendom: The church as a movement for anarchy, by Jonathan Bartley]

Pasadena Church Won't Yield to IRS

LA Times, September 21, 2006

The leaders of a Pasadena church battling the IRS over a sermon critical of the Bush administration delivered before the 2004 presidential election voted unanimously today to resist an order to turn over documents related to the case, the congregation's senior warden told The Associated Press.
 
"We're going to put it in their court and in a court of law so that we can get anadjudication to some very fundamental issues here that we see as an intolerable infringement of rights," said Bob Long, senior warden of All Saints Church.

The 3,500-member Episcopal congregation, which could lose its tax exempt status over the dispute, scheduled a news conference for 2:30 p.m. to formally announce the unanimous vote of its vestry.

The action sets up a high-profile confrontation between the church and the IRS, which now must decide whether to ask for a hearing before a judge. The judge would then rule on the validity of the agency's demands.

Terry Lemons, a spokesman for the IRS, did not immediately return a call for comment. IRS officials have said they cannot comment on specific cases.

According to the IRS, the only church ever to be stripped of its tax-exempt status for partisan politicking was the Church at Pierce Creek near Binghamton, N.Y., which was penalized in 1995 after running full-page ads against President Clinton in USA Today and The Washington Times in 1992 during election season.

Under federal tax law, church officials can legally discuss politics, but to retain tax-exempt status they cannot endorse candidates or parties. Most who do so receive a warning.

The IRS, however, has promised tougher enforcement of the law during this year's mid-term elections and in the 2008 election cycle.

The agency completed investigations of 90 tax-exempt churches and charities in 2004 and found wrongdoing in 70 percent of the cases. Four -- none of them churches -- lost their tax-exempt status. In 2005, the agency began audits of 70 churches and charities and has 40 cases pending so far this year.

The dispute with All Saints centers on a sermon titled "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush" that was delivered by guest pastor Rev. George Regas just two days before the 2004 election. Though he did not endorse either President Bush or Sen. John Kerry, he said Jesus would condemn the Iraq war and Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war.

"I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: 'War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq,"' Regas said, according to a transcript.

The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.

Last week, the IRS demanded documents and an interview with the rector by the end of the month.

Today, the church's 26-member vestry voted unanimously to resist those demands, Long said.

Relevance of Amos' Message I

You'll recall that Amos' indictment of the kingdoms adjacent to israel cited four areas in which "war crimes" took place:

• Slaughter of civilians
• Genocide
• Flagrant treaty violations
• Desecration of the dead

Slaughter of Civilians

According to Eric Hobsbawm, an eminent British historian, the 20th century was the most murderous in recorded history:

"The total number of deaths caused by or associated with its wars has been estimated at 187m, the equivalent of more than 10% of the world's population in 1913."

Among the more gruesome aspects of the 20th century warfare, Hobsbawm singles out the erosion of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants:

"The two world wars of the first half of the century involved the entire populations of belligerent countries; both combatants and non-combatants suffered. In the course of the century, however, the burden of war shifted increasingly from armed forces to civilians, who were not only its victims, but increasingly the object of military or military-political operations. The contrast between the first world war and the second is dramatic: only 5% of those who died in the first were civilians; in the second, the figure increased to 66%. It is generally supposed that 80 to 90% of those affected by war today are civilians. The proportion has increased since the end of the cold war because most military operations since then have been conducted not by conscript armies, but by small bodies of regular or irregular troops, in many cases operating high-technology weapons and protected against the risk of incurring casualties. There is no reason to doubt that the main victims of war will continue to be civilians."

Hobsbawm's article can be read in full here.

It must be remembered too that, in large measure, "civilians" = women and children. It is these who suffer most, even when there is no overt war on the ground in a region. Remember that conversation back in 1996 when Leslie Stahl, with reference to the sanctions against the Saddam regime in Iraq, asked Madeleine  Albright: “We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” The then U.S. Secretary of State did not argue with the figures, but replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”

Half a million CHILDREN? It was worth that?

"Well, sure it is," replies the U.S. government, whether the administration happens to be Republican or Democratic, "It's … (wait for it) … unfortunate (ah yes, there it is) … that these terrible things happen (notice the passive voice) … but collateral damage (I'm feeling better already) is unavoidable in these situations (another passive voice … now were getting somewhere). (Time now to shift the blame …) If only Sadam (the Taliban, Hamas, the Sudanese government, etc., etc.) would only see it our way (God's way?), then things might be different (note the use of the third person, as if it had nothing to do with us … US … US! or, even worse - me … ME … ME).

We Americans had every justification in the world to have been devastated by the violent deaths of 2,873 non-combatants in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.  What we're NOT entitled to is to value these civilians astronomically higher than, say, those civilians who have died as a result of the "war to bring democracy to Iraq." Speaking of whom, have you noticed the wide variation in the estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq in the last 3+ years - anywhere from 40,000 to 150,000 or higher? As we all know (i.e., if we listen to Fox News) that simply means that there are those in our midst who will go to any lengths to criticize this Administration's handling of the war. But the deeper meaning of any argument about how many civilians have died in Iraq since 2003 is that THEY'RE NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO COUNT.

(More tomorrow … MT)

On the Road to Peace, by John Dear, S.J., Vol 1, no. 6

Jesus' last words to the church
National Catholic Reporter, Sept 19, 2006

This past spring, I received an invitation to meet the organizer of the National Prayer Breakfast, an evangelical Christian organization that brings together the president, members of Congress and the Supreme Court, and virtually every putative Christian in the government.

Mother Theresa famously addressed the gathering in the early '90s and fiercely denounced abortion. This year, Bono gave an equally forceful address, calling upon the government to end AIDS, HIV and extreme poverty in Africa.

There was some discussion that they might invite me to speak. Unlikely. An ex-con and long-time anti-war activist, they'll never tolerate my addressing the evangelicals in the government about the Gospel of Jesus.

Nonetheless, I was glad to meet the coordinator -- for decades Billy Graham's assistant and organizer -- because I heard such good things about him.

He feels passionately about the Gospel of Jesus. Turns out, he had spent a great deal of time with Mother Theresa and made retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani -- two things we shared in common. I liked him immensely.

But what does one say to such a prestigious Christian? I heard he had a few things to discuss, but I wanted to get right to the point. We shook hands and I asked him, "As the soldiers approached Jesus in the Garden of Gesthemani, what last words did he say to the church?"

My new friend looked at me. He didn't know.

" 'Put down the sword.' Jesus spent his life teaching and practicing creative nonviolence," I explained. "He commanded us to love our enemies and become blessed peacemakers."

As the soldiers laid hold of Jesus, a disciple drew his sword and struck a follower of Jesus employing the soldiers tactics. A disciple unnamed, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, but John's Gospel names the man. The sword-wielding disciple was none other than Peter himself. Hardly a hero. We learn later that, as Jesus' trial got underway, Peter denied he knewsJesus at all. Perhaps Peter resorted to violence not to protect Jesus but his own sweet skin.

When I speak of Gospel nonviolence around the nation, many respond to this effect: Well, John, this is all well and good, but sometimes you just have to kill someone! Sometimes war is justified. We really do have to kill Hitler, or Noriega, or Saddam, or Osama. (Or whomever are told from time to time we're supposed to kill.)

If indeed the just-war theory finds endorsement in the Gospels, then the garden scene stands as the ultimate moment in history in which it could have been applied. In that case Peter, in drawing his sword, would have fulfilled a divine mission to protect his guy, the holy innocent one. But at the precise moment Jesus commands the opposite. "Put down the sword."

I think this was the moment when the disciples finally understood Jesus and his teachings. They suddenly realized: He's deadly serious about peace, love and nonviolence. I imagine them agape as the matter unfolded before them. Jesus would not defend himself with violence, a burden they could not share. And so off they ran, every man for himself. And Jesus endures his passion without anger, without fighting back. As Gandhi said, he practiced the most perfect nonviolence in history. I regard Jesus as the incarnation of nonviolence, the embodiment of the God of love and peace.

We have spent the last 1,700 years, denying Jesus' final command. We have justified warfare, led our crusades, and stamped every bombing raid and nuclear weapon with our blessing.

But the commandment remains: "Put down the sword." I think one day the church will realize that the just war theory has no place in the gospel. They'll realize it was by no means exemplified by the life of Jesus. And the theory will fall into disrepute. One day the church will teach only gospel nonviolence. And Christians everywhere will quit the military and refuse to join. They'll obstruct warfare and beat all swords into plowshares.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. The U.S. Catholic bishops' peace pastoral letter of 1984 said nonviolence was perfectly legitimate for Catholics. And on May 2, 2003, a few years before becoming pope, Benedict wrote: "There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a just war."

My new friend sat silent for a time. A look of thoughtfulness settled over his face and he said, "That is a very important observation." I pressed him further. I asked, "How seriously do we want to take the commandments of Jesus? We can pray, go to church, read about him, and organize influential gatherings to lead others to him. But I think Jesus wants foremost for us to obey him by putting down our swords, renouncing violent self-defense, tearing up the just war theory, abolishing our weapons, putting an end to our wars, and becoming people of universal, nonviolent love. If we are serious about Jesus in these perilous times, we have to non-cooperate with every aspect of war."

The unarmed Christ wants his community, the church, to be a community of creative, loving nonviolence, I submit. Its God's holy gift to the world. The challenge, then, is to take him at his word.
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John Dear is a Jesuit priest and peace activist, and the author most recently of You Will Be My Witnesses, available from Orbis Books. For more information, see: www.fatherjohndear.org

The IRS Goes To church … Again

Many of you will have read or heard reports this past week that the Internal Revenue Service has served summonses on the Rev'd Ed Bacon - rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena - to answer questions, and provide documents, that bear on whether or not the parish has broken laws forbidding churches to intervene in elections by calling on its members to vote for or against particular candidates in 2004.

For background on the summonses, press releases from the parish, etc., you can go to the parish website. I must warn you that doing so may be a slow process - my surmise being that the site is seeing a lot of traffic.

Interestingly, today was Homecoming Sunday at All Saints, and the kickoff to a 'new year' of activities at the church. Those of you who know anything of Ed Bacon can be sure that this new round of dealings with the IRS figured in his sermon today.  Here is a brief excerpt of what the rector had to say:

"… I want now to address what I see at stake in our religious and political lives as a result of this latest IRS action. The current administration of the IRS apparently thinks that religious organizations should stay neutral when political issues are concerned. What that thinking totally misses is that we do not have a choice about whether or not to be neutral in the face of dehumanization, injustice, and violence. Our faith mandates that always stopping short of endorsing or opposing political candidates, the church can neither be silent nor indifferent when there are public policies causing detriment to the least of these."

The full text may be accessed here