A Lenten Call to Repentance
March 19 will be the fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq. In this season of Lent, we are called to lament and repent for an ongoing war that is being waged by our country, financed by our taxes, and fought by our brothers and sisters. After five years, we all lament the suffering and violence in Iraq. We mourn the nearly 4,000 Americans who have lost their lives, the tens of thousands wounded in body and mind, and the unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said about the war in Vietnam: "How can I pray when I have on my conscience the awareness that I am co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam? In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible."
Repentance means more than just being sorry. It means both admitting that the course we have been on is wrong and committing to begin walking in a new direction. Repentance has to do with transformation, and that's exactly what the U.S. church needs to break out of its conformity to the U.S. government's foreign policy of fear and war. We must pursue our future foreign policy in ways that are consistent with moral principles, wise political judgments, and international law - rejecting unilateral preemptive wars for multilateral cooperation. We need a new definition of our national security. There is a better way. The global church feels it, and the world is hungry for it.
It's finally time for the U.S. churches to find their voice for Jesus' way of peacemaking and to demonstrate—in matters of war, peace, and the critical area of conflict resolution—just who we belong to.
Jim Wallis, "A Lenten Call to Repentence" [sojo.net]
Yes, let's. As for the end (demonstrating that we belong to Jesus and thus our family and loyalty is international), how do we do this? And what will it look like to care and love for the nation (nations, depending on Iran) after this is all over? I hear people speculate often about what evacuating Iraq would look like. Is that just leaving a huge mess? (Though, in thinking we are providing aid [often by force], aren't we really just perpetuating a hierarchy of dependence and hostility?)
I certainly can't answer such questions, but I beseech the Lord to reveal His answers. I confess I know very little, but Jesus taught that "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God," and though I know oftentimes those in the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex are referred to as "peacemakers," I cannot label them as such. The peacemaking Jesus requires is paired with mercy, meekness, a pure heart, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a mourning, all things that cannot be equated with murder, bombing, fear, and dehumanization of our own kind, regardless of the noble and pure intentions behind such actions.
There will always be photos of U.S. soldiers caring for Iraqi children, branding them as righteous heros. I do not doubt that many people who support the war (and fight in it) are kind-hearted and believe that this will liberate Iraqis, while protecting families in the United States from violence. As for the latter, what does that say about the equality of value of human life? Are children and families of the United States persuasion more valuable, or valued more by God than those in Iraq? And for the former, is the end goal of "liberating Iraqis" from injustice, justified by our own injustices?
Perhaps now I am too far in. I have much more to learn, and I've never been particularly politically savvy, but if it's true that God doesn't withhold love to teach someone a lesson (and if we are presuming that the United States is seeking to teach Iraq a few lessons) then how can we withhold love, following the example of the Beloved? Those of us who claim to have been saved by the ultimate peacemaking effort, the death of Christ on the cross-- the nonviolent and loving response of perfect Jesus who reconciled us with the Father--imagine the consequences if Jesus responded to injustice and violence (his accusation and subsequent beating and death) like us. If this had been the case, he would not have died humbly, he would have waged war, thereby denying humanity reconciliation with God.
The only victor in war is violence.
Lord have mercy. Show me the error in my own ways, and bring Your kingdom.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said about the war in Vietnam: "How can I pray when I have on my conscience the awareness that I am co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam? In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible."
Repentance means more than just being sorry. It means both admitting that the course we have been on is wrong and committing to begin walking in a new direction. Repentance has to do with transformation, and that's exactly what the U.S. church needs to break out of its conformity to the U.S. government's foreign policy of fear and war. We must pursue our future foreign policy in ways that are consistent with moral principles, wise political judgments, and international law - rejecting unilateral preemptive wars for multilateral cooperation. We need a new definition of our national security. There is a better way. The global church feels it, and the world is hungry for it.
It's finally time for the U.S. churches to find their voice for Jesus' way of peacemaking and to demonstrate—in matters of war, peace, and the critical area of conflict resolution—just who we belong to.
Jim Wallis, "A Lenten Call to Repentence" [sojo.net]
Yes, let's. As for the end (demonstrating that we belong to Jesus and thus our family and loyalty is international), how do we do this? And what will it look like to care and love for the nation (nations, depending on Iran) after this is all over? I hear people speculate often about what evacuating Iraq would look like. Is that just leaving a huge mess? (Though, in thinking we are providing aid [often by force], aren't we really just perpetuating a hierarchy of dependence and hostility?)
I certainly can't answer such questions, but I beseech the Lord to reveal His answers. I confess I know very little, but Jesus taught that "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God," and though I know oftentimes those in the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex are referred to as "peacemakers," I cannot label them as such. The peacemaking Jesus requires is paired with mercy, meekness, a pure heart, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a mourning, all things that cannot be equated with murder, bombing, fear, and dehumanization of our own kind, regardless of the noble and pure intentions behind such actions.
There will always be photos of U.S. soldiers caring for Iraqi children, branding them as righteous heros. I do not doubt that many people who support the war (and fight in it) are kind-hearted and believe that this will liberate Iraqis, while protecting families in the United States from violence. As for the latter, what does that say about the equality of value of human life? Are children and families of the United States persuasion more valuable, or valued more by God than those in Iraq? And for the former, is the end goal of "liberating Iraqis" from injustice, justified by our own injustices?
Perhaps now I am too far in. I have much more to learn, and I've never been particularly politically savvy, but if it's true that God doesn't withhold love to teach someone a lesson (and if we are presuming that the United States is seeking to teach Iraq a few lessons) then how can we withhold love, following the example of the Beloved? Those of us who claim to have been saved by the ultimate peacemaking effort, the death of Christ on the cross-- the nonviolent and loving response of perfect Jesus who reconciled us with the Father--imagine the consequences if Jesus responded to injustice and violence (his accusation and subsequent beating and death) like us. If this had been the case, he would not have died humbly, he would have waged war, thereby denying humanity reconciliation with God.
The only victor in war is violence.
Lord have mercy. Show me the error in my own ways, and bring Your kingdom.
posted by kelly at
10:02 AM
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