Is War the Answer?

by Joe Mayer

This pondering is from a talk I gave Sunday, Oct 29, at the Congregational – United Church of Christ in Rochester. It's a little longer than the normal ponderings. It seemed to be well received.

"Forgive us…as we forgive"

A few weeks ago a gunman murdered five young girls in an Amish school. Rather than cries for vengeance, vengeance we refer to as justice, the family of the killer was offered forgiveness by the families of the victims. School shootings have ceased to shock us. This was the third within a week. What shocked us was the response of "replacing the human impulse for retaliation with something kinder and gentler." It was the Amish carrying out "seventy times seven," living our prayer, "forgive us…as we forgive."

In 1999 a school shooting occurred at Columbine High School in Colorado. Two days later Pres. Clinton traveled to a school in Alexandria, VA, to say: "We must do more to reach out to our children, to teach them to express their anger and resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons." Later that day he ordered more bombing of Serbia, 500 lb. bombs that killed children as collateral damage.

Shortly after the Amish school tragedy, Pres. Bush called a conference on Character and School Violence. The next day researchers released an updated body count of Iraqi citizens – 600,000 killed including women and children.

When the Iraq war began Pres. Bush openly declared his intention to use violence. Christians across the nation cheered, seeing no paradox, no problem of accepting violence within their Christian context.

Violence is politically bi-partisan. Violence is tolerated and used by religion.
In this world does religion have a higher calling than aggression?

"God Bless America"

We see it on signs. We decorate our cars with ribbons saying the same. We hear presidents signing off major speeches with it.

Elaine and I were 67 years young when we first stood on the street protesting our government's actions. On some occasions I held a sign reading "God Bless All Nations." Many reactions were positive. But some were negative, some downright nasty, some delivered in sign language.

We now live in a world where violence is used in the name of God – Jesus, Allah, Jehovah. We've made our gods nationalistic, patriotic, tribal. Christians of different countries are beseeching the same God for different ends, each claiming God approves or even encourages their behavior. Different ends, same god, for the U.S. and Panama. For U.S. and Nicaragua. It is not uncommon to have a national flag in Christian churches.

We are all born into the same human race. Most of us here today were born into citizenship of the United States and we've retained it. Only some of us here were born into our current faith tradition. Even then we've made a conscious decision to stay, or to move to another faith tradition. How do we prioritize our humanity, our citizenship, our faith? What happens if we equate faith and citizenship? When we do this are we not echoing the theocracy we condemn in some Muslim countries?

Jesus saw people not as citizens of nations, but as members of humankind. Either we see God in everything, everyone, or we deny our Christian basis for seeing God in anything, anyone. If God is not the center of our being, we're faced with being the center ourselves.

Jesus was wrong by the standards of both church and state. They combined to crucify him. The genius of our country's founders was to separate church and state. Many of them had experienced the injustice and even the terror of state religion. This separation of church and state, although violated at times, has served our nation well. But now I see that God must be taking a personal interest in the American elections as more and more candidates indicate they have been directed by God to run for office. Theocracy?

Do we really believe America has a preferential place in God's divine plan? Does that plan approve of our use of violence? Even if state violence kills many more than terrorist violence?

Is God's movement in history larger than any nation, any denomination?

9/11

Immediately after 9/11 the world bestowed sympathy and goodwill on the United States . In our patriotic frenzy the Bush administration and Congress were given a green light to do whatever it took to overcome terrorism. What happened? Five years later the goodwill of the world has turned to hatred and fear. The U.S. is perceived as a dangerous nation. The president's approval ratings are near all-time presidential lows and Congress recently set a modern record of approval of only 19% of U.S. citizens.

During this dramatic shift in world and domestic sentiment, political power remained securely in the conservative's grip. What caused this dramatic shift? Did the Democrats cause it? Doubtfully, I find many of them spineless. Protesters? Terrorists? The press? al Qaeda? The Taliban? It's hard to conceive that any one of these or any combination could cause this dramatic shift. What then? Only those in power, the administration and Congress themselves, can be held responsible for this change.

War transmutes, it changes, it turns things upside down, turns things inside-out. For example:

• We are asked to give up our "freedoms" as we fight for "freedom" in Iraq .
• We are told we must give unitary (Cheney's term) unitary, imperial power to the president as we make war to spread democracy.
• We are told we are a "peaceful" country when we have been involved in more "warring conflicts" than any other country since World War II.
• We are told it is unpatriotic to protest war or our president as he and Congress overturn our Bill of Rights, one being the right to protest.
• We are told "we don't do torture" as Congress is impelled to legalize "torture."
• We are told the "United Nations" is irrelevant as we seek "United Nation's" sanctions against Korea, Iran, etc.
• We are told we are fighting "terrorism" even as the National Security Estimate says that war is causing an increase in recruits for "terrorism."
• We are told rendition, torture, domestic wiretapping and indefinite jailing without trial, all "human rights abuses," are necessary as we fight for "human rights."
• We are told we are fighting for "democracy" as top neo-conservatives aim for total global "dominance." (The project for a New American Century)
• We are told we must "break" the nuclear proliferation treaty and upgrade our nuclear arsenal so that others "don't break" the nuclear proliferation treaty and acquire nuclear arms.
• If we want "peace," we are told, we must fight "perpetual war."

The United States spends nearly as much on our military and intelligence as the remainder of the world combined. Yet, yet, we, as a people, are the most fearful on earth. This doesn't make sense. This military and intelligence spending is supposed to make us safe, more secure. Why then are we fearful? Who benefits from this fear? Is it real or contrived? Is this spending on war and Homeland Security achieving the stated goals? In a democracy, why is questioning government actions considered seditious, unpatriotic? Isn't power in a democracy supposed to reside in the people? These hard questions need to be asked.

In one sense the terrorists have already won. We've compounded the tragedy of 9/11 by playing into their hands. Many in the world now look on us as a bigger danger to world peace than the terrorists. Terrorists become the reason, the excuse. They've caused us to compromise our values. They caused our government to use fear and hate to cause us to fear and hate. They've caused us to spend our treasure and our children's treasure on the imperial desires of a few. They've caused us to lose our moral and persuasive powers as a world leader. They've bitterly divided us. They've caused our leaders to turn the most trusted, and respected country in the world into one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared and distrusted in the world. And, since we call ourselves a Christian nation they've even caused the non-Christian world to question Christian belief, motivation and practice.

Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is the absence of fear, the absence of hatred, bitterness. Peace is not bashing the immigrant, the poor, the sexually different. Peace is not wealth, not power, not consumerism. Peace is not democracy, not capitalism, not globalism.

Peace, like justice, is about right relationships, about "doing unto other as…," about "loving neighbor as oneself." Can interpersonal human relations be governed by such teachings, these tenets of our faith, and then international relations be governed by "might is right?" International relations affect people's lives. People react to government kindness and government violence in the same way they react to personal acts of kindness or violence. We reacted to 9/11 with vengeance. Iraqis are reacting to "shock and awe" and occupancy with vengeance. The Taliban in Afghanistan are reacting to our bombing with vengeance. Who wins? Who wins? Who wins? Are there any winners or are we all losers?

Is War the Answer?