The monologue of the Religious Right is over and a new conversation has begun! Join the God's Politics dialogue with Jim Wallis and friends Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass, Becky Garrison, Gareth Higgins, Shane Claiborne, Mary Nelson, Gabriel Salguero, Tony Campolo, and others.
Five weeks ago, we began a series of posts on the cost of the war in Iraq. We have focused primarily on the human costs – the death and suffering of Americans and Iraqis after five years of war. There have been moving posts from soldiers, veterans, their parents, Iraqis, peacemakers, and theologians. We launched a statement – "A Call to Lament and Repent" – which more than 26,000 of you have now signed – and publicized it with ads in the online editions of Christianity Today, Relevant, and The Christian Century.
While that series is formally ending, the war and the suffering go on. On Easter Sunday, four U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad, bringing the total to 4,000. Around the country of Iraq, more than 60 people were killed in attacks. The Iraq Body Count database has now documented 90,000 civilian deaths – other estimates go into the hundreds of thousands. And this week, new fighting is raging in several Iraqi cities, causing additional casualties.
More than ever, as our statement says, "The American occupation must end, a transition to an international solution to Iraq must be found, a peaceful resolution is possible and must be pursued. Our country should end this war; not try to "win" it; and we must help the Iraqi people build a safer and more peaceful country."
While the media pundits continue to debate levels of violence, "surge" successes and failures, and the lack of political progress in Iraq, we must continue to raise the larger and deeper issue of how fundamentally wrong it was to launch a pre-emptive and primarily unilateral war against Iraq. There were far better ways to deal with the evil of Saddam Hussein and the threats of terrorism - which this war has only made worse. Repentance means a fundamental change in direction; and that is what we must now call for in U.S. foreign policy.
On Easter we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the new life he brings. Where is Easter, that new life, for Iraq? How long will the suffering and killing go on? The need to lament, to repent, and to continue praying and acting to end this war is more important than ever.
In our little circles, we've been talking a lot about the need to create new holidays and rituals of remembrance as a Church–this peculiar, set-apart people of God. The early Christians talked a lot about how they no longer celebrated the "festivals of the Caesars" or the holidays of the empire, but had new eyes through which they looked at the world (this is a major theme of our new book Jesus for President). They had a new calendar. They had new heroes and sheroes (not just kings and presidents and fallen warriors). And they had new liturgies and songs. That's what Holy Week is all about, a new holiday–Easter is our President's Day. And our Holy Week here in Philly was magnificent, a stunning celebration of the Commander-in-Chief who loved His enemies so much He died for them.
One of the highlights was Good Friday at Lockheed Martin.
My mom and pop came into town. On Good Friday my mother and I went to a worshipful vigil–walking the stations of the cross, remembering the sufferings of Jesus–held on the property of Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is one of the world's largest weapons contractors and profiteers from war, headquartered right outside Philly. So it was there that we took the cross of Jesus.
Being the 5 year anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad, I was asked to reflect on my Easter in Baghdad in 2003. So I did. With mom looking on, I shared how she had supported my trip. I recalled how she had learned to ache with Abraham, Mary, and the parents of children in Iraq, all of whom have had to watch their own kids face grave danger. At one point, mom said to me, "The children in Iraq are just as precious to God as you are. How can I tell you not to get too close to their suffering?" And every night she prayed–weeping, hurting, groaning with God for an end to that suffering. As I spoke, I looked out and saw her eyes filled with tears. (NOTE: It was my mom's first "protest," so even though she had tears in her eyes, she also had a mischievous smirk as she stood next to a clever banner that read: "Lockheed Martin…. Making a Killing!")
After some speakers, scripture, and music, we walked through the stations of the passion narrative which led us onto the base of Lockheed Martin. There a dozen folks stood, holding crosses, in prayerful vigil.... And then, one by one, they were arrested for trespassing. It was an incredible embodiment of gentle dissent and vigilant hope – that holy mischief we see in Jesus as he triumphs over the empire's cross. Not the Fourth of July or Veteran's Day or Columbus Day – but Good Friday. Passover. Easter. Pentecost. These are our most beautiful holidays. So during this season of death and resurrection, we remember the contemporary sufferings of Christ, the other baby refugees being born amid the wars and genocides of our Herods. And we remember the Gospel promise that in the end life conquers death. It may be Friday, but Sunday is coming.
Jesus came with a job to do, to complete the work to which Israel was called. This work, from the call of Abraham onwards, was to put the human race to rights, and so to put the whole creation to rights. As the gospel writers tell the story, this task was to be accomplished by Jesus bringing about the sovereign healing rule of the creator God. Jesus was addressing the question, "What might it look like if God was running this show?" And answering, "This is what it looks like: just watch." And then, "just listen." In what he did, and in the stories he told, Jesus was announcing and inaugurating what he referred to as "the kingdom of God," the long-awaited hope that the creator God would run the whole show, on earth as in heaven.
But the problem was, and is, that other people are still running the show. Other kingdoms, other power structures, have usurped the rule of the world's wise creator, and the forces of evil are exceedingly powerful and destructive. Jesus' task of inaugurating God's kingdom therefore necessarily led him to meet those forces in direct combat, to draw upon himself their full, dark fury so as to exhaust their power and make a way through to launch the creator's project of new creation despite them. That is one clue at least to the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion, though that event, planting the sign of God's kingdom in the middle of space, time, and matter, remains inexhaustible. But let's be clear. As the gospels tell the story, Jesus' death was the culmination of several different strands: a political process, a religious clash, a spiritual war, all rushing together into one terrible day, one terrible death. And in the light of that, according to Jesus himself and his first followers, everything in the world looks different, is different, must be approached differently. With Jesus' death, the power structures of the world were called to account; with his resurrection, a new life, a new power, was unleashed upon the world. And the question is: How ought this to work out? What should we be doing as a result?
If we are to think Christianly, then we must think according to the pattern of Jesus Christ. And that means that the first place we should look for God in the "War on Terror" would be in the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers, and then in the ruins of Baghdad and Basra, the shattered homes and lives of the tens of thousands who have through no fault of their own been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the angry superpower, like a rogue elephant teased by a little dog, has gone on the rampage stamping on everything that moves in the hope of killing the dog by killing everything within reach. The presence of God within the world at a time of war must be calibrated according to what Paul says in Romans 8, that the Spirit groans within God's people as they groan with the pain of the world. The cross of Jesus Christ is the sign and the assurance that the God who made the world still loves the world and, in that love, groans and grieves.
But God wants his rebel world to be ordered, to be under authorities and governments, because otherwise the bullies and the arrogant will always prey on the weak and the helpless; but all authorities and governments face the temptation to become bullies and arrogant themselves. The New Testament writers, like other Jews at the time, saw this writ large in the Roman empire of their day. Those with eyes to see can see it in other subsequent empires, right down to our own day.
It is the task of the followers of Jesus to remind those called to authority that the God who made the world intends to put the world to rights at last, and to call those authorities to acts of justice and mercy which will anticipate, in the present time, the future, coming, final victory of God over all evil, all violence, all arrogant abuse of power. And where the world's rulers genuinely strive for that end, the Christian church declares as the ancient Jews did with the pagan king Cyrus, that God's Spirit is at work—whether the authorities know it or not.
Insofar as the last five years have constituted a wake-up call to sleepy western Christians to think urgently about issues of global justice and governance, we can see God, I believe, in that new stirring, warning us that we have a task and that we haven't been doing it too well. In particular, we must face the deeply ambiguous question of the present power and position of America. I am not anti-American when I criticise some policies of some American leaders, any more than I am anti-British when I criticise some of the policies of my own elected leaders. To suggest otherwise is simply a cheap way of avoiding the real questions. The creator God allows societies to rise and fall, empires to grow and wane. And though things are massively more complicated than this, we could see in the rise of America as the current sole superpower some great possibilities for bringing justice and mercy, genuine freedom and prosperity, to the whole world. Empires always carry that possibility. But empires also face the temptation to use their power for their own prestige and wealth. The challenge now is to provide a critique of American empire without implying that the world should collapse into anarchy, and a fresh sense of direction for that empire without colluding with massive abuses of power.
Where then is God in the war on terror? Grieving and groaning within the pain and horror of his battered but still beautiful world. Stirring in the hearts of human beings the desire for a more credible structure of global justice and mercy. Burning into the imagination of human beings a hope that peace and reconciliation might eventually win out over suspicion and hatred, that the world may be put to rights and that we may anticipate that in the present time. The Christian gospel, revealing the mysterious God we discover in Jesus and the Spirit, offers a framework for discerning where God is at work in the midst of the dangers and opportunities that confront us. All of us in our different callings are summoned to this task; some of you, perhaps, to make it your life's work. Jesus is Lord. The Spirit is powerful. God is doing a new thing. Let's get out there and join in.
I was conscripted into the South Africa military in the late 1980s. Still in my teens, I was shipped off to do two years of "service" for my country. This included not only military training, but also indoctrination about "the enemy." I was taught about the threat of communism, of the dangers of insurgents and the evil inherent in those who wished to destroy the "freedoms" we held so dear in our land.
South Africa was a country divided. Its history is reasonably well known to the world because of all we have since achieved. But the late 1980s were dark days, at the height of the apartheid regime's attempts to retain power in the face of growing international opposition and internal chaos.
One day, at home on leave, I was reversing my car out of our home's driveway in Randburg, Johannesburg. A knock on my window startled me. A young man, slightly out of breath, motioned for me to roll down the window. Slightly nervous, I lowered it a few centimetres. He asked if I could give him a ride. To this day I don't know why I agreed, as I am not in the habit of picking up hitchhikers. But, that day, I said, "Yes. Get in."
As we drove away, he calmly told me that he had just escaped from the police cells at the nearby magistrate's court. He was a political activist and had been arrested as a member of the ANC. He wanted me to take him to a nearby township where ANC cadres were known to hideout. But, he explained calmly, if I felt otherwise, I could take him up the road and hand him over to the police again.
Not many people are confronted with these sorts of choices. Not only was I under immediate pressure: Were the police coming down the road in hot pursuit? Had they seen me? But I was also being confronted with a mindset shift. Deep down inside I had a vague understanding that apartheid was wrong and that it should be opposed. But as a teenager, what chance had I to process these thoughts, or choose to do something about it? Now, what would I do? Whose side was I on?
It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't lived in a propaganda state how much can be hidden from the citizens by the government and selective media. And how much apathy there is in those not directly affected by the violence such a state perpetrates.
I wish I had done more to oppose apartheid. I can claim that I was young, and that apartheid was almost dead by the time I came of age. But so many young people gave their lives for justice. There are no excuses. I wish that day I had done more than I did. I drove that young man about five kilometres away, and then dropped him off on the side of a busy road where I knew he would quickly be picked up and taken to safety. I should have done more.
Maybe I should be doing more now.
This may be an overly harsh assessment, but some of what has happened in America under the current administration in the name of a "war on terror" looks and feels remarkably like the workings of that apartheid machine I grew up in. And the most concerning thing is that, just as many South Africans – white and black – were sucked into the apartheid system's mindset, so too the average American does not seem to notice it happening.
In the name of freedom, freedoms are gradually removed. The state spies on its own citizens, and explains that it does not need to explain why. In the name of peace, we declare others to be "the enemy" and wage war on them, crushing them with overwhelming superior force. Worst of all, we declare ourselves outside international agreements and norms. We can torture, because it's not really torture, and besides, the end justifies the means. We can refuse to sign international treaties, because what are others going to do about it anyway?
I hate to point it out, because the memory of that type of state is so fresh in the minds of South Africans like myself. I hate to point it out, because I would like to think that the most powerful country in the world is what it also claims to be: the most free, the most civilized and the most advanced. I hate to point it out. But I must: The so called "war on terror," most obviously evidenced by a 5-year ground war in Iraq, is nothing more or less than apartheid was proclaimed to be: a crime against humanity. It is a dark blot on our human soul.
And all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing about it. How I wish I had done more. But, how proud I am today to be a South African – part of the story of a nation of people who collectively decided that change was possible, and who each did just a little bit to make that dream a reality.
Dr. Graeme Codrington is a researcher, author, presenter and consultant on issues of people strategy. He works internationally from bases in Johannesburg and London, and can be contacted at graeme@graemecodrington.com.
"Speak to the earth, and it will teach you…The life of every creature and the breath of all people are in God's hand". --Job 12: 8, 10 (NCV)
Iraq has a rich biological history. The Mesopotamian marshlandswere among the most fertile areas of the globe until they were decimated by Saddam Hussein's government in an attempt to quell an uprising after the 1991 Gulf War. The latest Iraq war has destroyed the land, air and water quality even further.
According to the Iraq Development Program, more than 50% of the Iraqi population depends on natural resources for survival. Subsistence farmers, herders and grazers have lost their only known way of living while wildlife and clean drinking water disappear by the minute. A 2003 MedAct Report estimated that 40% of the water and sanitation systems in Iraq were damaged during the first 6 months of the U.S. attack, forcing people to the only remaining source of water: polluted rivers. The United Nations has managed to restore nearly 80% of the prewar infrastructure in Baghdad, but nearly 5 million people are still without access to any sanitation.
In rural areas, Iraqis depend heavily on irrigation as a means for prosperous agriculture. As irrigation pumps are destroyed and waste water can no longer be removed, we see a greater salinization (salt build-up) and desertification (drying out) of the soil. A high saline content in the soil makes growing crops more difficult, driving farmers to use chemical fertilizers on their fields. These fertilizers degrade the soil by removing natural nutrients, forcing farmers to bring in more (salt) water, starting the cycle anew.
Last year the Department of Defense began seeking environmental specialists to serve as advisors for the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) engineers. Working with local Iraqis, the PRTs have rebuilt much of the physical infrastructure that was destroyed since the 2003 invasion, but little is being done to correct the havoc that warfare has wreaked on the Iraqi environment. The World Bank estimates that it would cost upwards of $3.6 billion to jumpstart the recovery of the agricultural sector alone in Iraq.
As Christians, our obligation is two-fold: to care for God's creation, and to ensure the continued existence of the Iraqi people. We must do this through a combination of academic, legislative and humanitarian efforts, and we must begin now. It is up to Americans and Iraqis to work together to demand a change in policy and in practice.
For the people of Iraq, this is much more than just an environmental issue; it is an issue of survival.
Lindsay Hildebrant is a recent graduate of Adrian College in Adrian, MI with a degree in Environmental Studies, Philosophy and Religion. She is currently interning with the Policy and Organizing Department at Sojourners.
Holy Week this year brings with it a sobering coincidence. As the church prepares to remember Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection, the nation is marking five years of war with Iraq. In response, Sojourners has released A Call to Lament and Repent for the sin of this war – signed by Jim Wallis, a number of Red Letter Christians and Sojourners board members, and nearly 25,000 friends and supporters.
The statement begins, "this season of Lent, we are truly living 'in darkness and in the shadow of death' as we mark, on March 19, 2008, the fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq. It is a war that is being waged by our country, financed by our taxes, and fought by our sisters and brothers. As U.S. Christians, we issue a call to the American church to lament and repent of the sin of this war."
The week before the invasion of Iraq, I was locked in an e-mail debate over the war with a friend of mine from my home church in Texas. I explained to him why I was opposed to the war. He responded by saying that while he understood my opposition to the war as an Iraqi, as a Christian I should support it because it put America "on Israel's side – which is God's side – and that is the winning side."
A week after the fall of Baghdad he emailed me the following joke:
A Cowboy, an Indian, and an Arab were sitting around a table. The Cowboy was kicked back in his chair with his hat pulled down over his eyes. The Indian looked at the Arab and said, "My people used to be very great in number, but now they are very few in number. This is so very sad." Then the Arab said, "My people used to be small in number, but now we are very great in number. Why do you think this is?" Then the Cowboy sat up, tilted his hat back, looked at them both and said, "That's because we ain't played Cowboys and Arabs yet."
The man who sent it to me knew my Arab background, but even more appalling was that he had been educated in Christian schools and colleges, been active in full-time ministry, and was a lay leader in our church.
This past Palm Sunday, he and others like him probably waved palm branches in remembrance of the day Jesus entered Jerusalem before his crucifixion. What is interesting to note is that in Jesus' day, the palm branch was a sign of nationalism and military victory. By waving those palm branches, the people showed that they were expecting Jesus to rise as their military hero, overthrow their enemies and re-establish them as the top power in the world. But they failed to realize that Jesus came to overthrow a greater enemy than Rome, to redeem all of humanity and to establish a kingdom where the last would be first, the hungry would be fed, the homeless would be sheltered, the sick would be healed, the widow and orphan would be cared for, and where enemies would be forgiven ... and even invited to the table.
I think it is significant that Holy Week falls on the same week of the fifth anniversary of an unholy war. Why? For two reasons: First, because too many pastors and churches - from the run up to the war until now - have waved the flag before the Cross. In doing so, they missed the "Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven." And second, because it presents an opportunity for reflection on what the Cross accomplished for all of humanity, and for repentance for the sins that have been committed against the people of Iraq at the expense of our own ignorance and idolatry … and really bad jokes.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at www.firstbornstories.com
Five years ago today, on March 18, the British Parliament debated whether or not to support the pending U.S. attack on Iraq. It was already clear that the Bush administration was determined to attack, and desperately needed support from the U.K. That morning, Sojourners placed an ad in five major British newspapers – The Guardian, The Independent, The London Times, The Telegraph, and The Financial Times.
The ad was signed by five American church leaders who had met with then Prime Minister Tony Blair a month earlier in London – Jim Wallis (President of Sojourners), John Bryson Chane (Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C.), Clifton Kirkpatrick (Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA), Melvin Talbert (Ecumenical Officer of the United Methodist Council of Bishops), and Daniel Weiss (Immediate past General Secretary of the American Baptist Churches in the USA).
Headlined, "Prime Minister Blair, it is two minutes before midnight. We need you to be a true friend to America in this critical hour," the ad began, "The world needs you to find a 'third way' between war and inaction. It is two minutes before midnight, and the world's people are desperate for an alternative to war." It outlined a six-point plan with solid options for disarming Iraq without war.
The debate in Parliament was heated, and we heard that the text of our ad had been read on the floor. Nonetheless, the final vote approved the government's motion calling for military action against Iraq. There were significant defections by Labor Party members voting against their prime minister, and several high-level resignations from the cabinet. But the U.K. was committed to supporting the U.S.-led war.
Five years later, with the American, British, and Iraqi lives that have been lost, and the hundreds of billions of dollars that has been spent, we cannot help but wonder how history might have turned out differently had that appeal been heeded.
Duane Shank is the senior policy adviser for Sojourners.
During the last four days, more than 100 Iraq Veterans Against the War combat veterans, academics, and international guests shared their experiences with the world through Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. They offered their accounts in the hopes that they would induce a bit of accountability in the halls of Congress, and detailed the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the occupations of the few who profit, whose profession it is to ensure the longevity of this and other violent conflicts.
My own involvement was in the form of bearing witness [click here to watch the video] to the intricacies and fallibilities of the Rules of Engagement I encountered in my 14 months in combat. Many other panelists offered corroborating evidence and shared similar stories of inadequate training in the use of deadly force, and some explained the troubling, but verifiable, cases in which such restrictions were utterly ignored or outright rejected. In other panels, testifiers shared their experience with the failure of the VA system, outlined the presence of gender discrimination and racism in the military, and described corporate pillaging and war profiteering. The entire event was streamed live to the Web via IVAW's Web site and blogged live via KPFA Radio. Many news articles were written as a result, and the Department of Defense even issued a statement.
I was in the minority as a professed Christian, and I cannot blame my fellow compatriots for their occasional discomfort with the oft-misrepresented ideologies (Religious Right) of the Christian tradition. To my surprise, it was difficult to even blurt out in my own testimony that it was my faith, and not a reaction to the political, economic, or social reality of these conflicts, that inspired me to lay my weapon down. Furthermore, there was no shortage of personal courage displayed throughout the entire event: testifiers ripping off or tearing up the burdensome medals they wore, tears shed in bitter remorse and agony, and (unfortunately) failure to control one's language in frustration and angst. Our critics (whom we invited beforehand, and whom politely agreed to a rigorous code of conduct—to which they submitted faithfully and respectfully) even had some constructive, informative observations to share.
The weekend was never cast as a protest; there were no picket signs or chanting, no march or formation, and it was closed to the public (making the "Gathering of Eagles" just off campus the only actual protesters in attendance). The members and guests who gave "testimony" (a term with which we in the church are well-versed) did so only in the sense that it was an "account" of their experience.
There was one interruption, during the first panel on Friday, where an older gentleman trespassed onto the campus and shouted that people "lied and good men died." He also speculated that those testifying were betraying good men. Interestingly enough, he was NOT talking about our current commander in chief, who is not only directly responsible (according to military tradition and the UCMJ) for the 4,468 American lives lost under his watch, but also for 935 "false statements" (isn't that the same as a "lie?") his administration made in the months leading up to the invasion of a nation we ourselves armed and financed. Besides, the gospels remind us to be wary of any king of men who would reap what he does not sow, or burden his subjects with a yoke he would not carry himself.
Finally, as carefully as I chose to tread with my own faith background, the immense healing properties of confession were hard to ignore. Tears flowed and men of the highest caliber embraced unashamed and readily admitted their reliance on one another. It was an awesome experience that I will forever be proud to have been part of. These honest and humble accounts are a much-needed and too often overlooked offering that has been laid before the American people, a heavy yoke broken by the power of confession and repentance by contrite hearts.
Will America answer the call to metanoia and turn from its destructive, exploitative ways? Will we lay the idols of oil and nationalism and greed upon the altar, and seek a more firm and lasting peace with our neighbors in the global community?
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and has co-founded a faith-based veterans assistance initiative called Centurion's Purse, which seeks to provide financial and spiritual relief to fellow service members in need. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.
Five years after bombs first exploded over Baghdad with a "shock and awe" display of staggering military might, the Iraq war continues with tragic costs and still-unseen consequences.
First, we mourn and honor the American and Iraqi dead whose lost lives are the ultimate reminder of war's cruelty. These many thousands gone are not statistics. Fathers, mothers, husbands, and sisters will never come home again. Children will grow up without parents. Grief etched on the human heart does not fade like today's headlines.
The late Pope John Paul II warned before the invasion of Iraq that "war is always a defeat for humanity." It's impossible to calculate the damage done by war to the human spirit. As faithful citizens, we continue to seek justice that is the foundation of all peace. Speaking in a triumphal tone that divided the world into good and evil, President Bush described the "war on terror" as a "crusade." We have learned again during this dark era of fear and militarism that religion used in the service of power – the uniting of cross and sword – is a betrayal of faith's prophetic spirit and call to humility.
Author James Carroll, whose Constantine's Sword documents how Christianity's rise as a religion of empire stoked the historical flames of anti-Semitism, spoke movingly last week at the Washington National Cathedral - reminding us that "No war is holy." The religious imagination should help temper the fervor of American exceptionalism. More than ever we need to reclaim spiritual humility and pray, as Abraham Lincoln once did, that we are on God's side rather than claiming endorsement from the divine.
In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican and former general of the Army, warned that a growing "military-industrial complex" has grave implications for democracy if vigilance is not paid to how freedom can be trampled in the name of strength and security. Six years later, Martin Luther King Jr. preached against the war in Vietnam and said that a "nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." We need to heed these powerful words more than ever.
Along with the profound human and spiritual costs of war, we have squandered billions of dollars that could have been spent providing Americans with health care, living wages, better public schools, and services to help the most vulnerable. Just as the ambitious anti-poverty programs of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" campaign fizzled in the distant jungles of Vietnam, the Iraq war has drained limited resources from programs essential to building a culture for the common good. The gap between rich and poor has reached Depression-era standards. Our economy teeters on the brink of recession. American jobs are sent abroad as corporations seek cheap labor and minimal regulation. Meanwhile, companies like Bechtel, DynCorp, and Lockheed Martin earn record profits providing weapons and services for the war.
We have also lost a proper respect for patriotic dissent. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans who spoke out against preemptive war were told by a former Bush press secretary "to watch what they say and do." The millions who marched against the war were viewed with suspicion. Speaking for peace was subversive. The best minds of our generations were told to salute the flag and keep quiet. The late Rev. William Sloan Coffin Jr., a Christian unbowed in his will to speak truth to power, once described true patriotism as "a lover's quarrel" with your country. We must reclaim this reverence for engaged dissent.
It's easy to feel demoralized when we look back on these past five years. But the Christian faith teaches us to be undaunted bearers of a hope that refuses to yield to darkness. We look to the future strengthened by the abundant spirit of a God who comforts us in our sorrow and calls us to create the world anew.
Alexia Kelley is the executive director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and a member of the Red Letter Christians.
It was perhaps the most practical and personal question asked during a recent meeting of Iraqi civil society leaders who had gathered to advise the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) about its future peacebuilding work in Iraq.
The young Iraqi woman who asked the question saw it as the litmus test of whether "peacebuilding" is just nice talk, or whether it holds promise in an Iraq that has fractured along ethnic and religious lines, and where thousands of families have lost loved ones as a result of the U.S.-led war.
During the buildup to war, I fasted for 40 days. Each day I sent a letter to President George W. Bush, urging him to consider alternatives to war with Iraq. In my 40th letter, I wrote: "The question is not whether the United States can 'prevail' on the battlefield in Iraq. Likely it can. The more important question is what kind of world will there be a year from now and five years from now as a result of war? Will Iraq and the Middle East be more stable?"
Five years, $500 billion, and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of human fatalities later, the situation in Iraq is fragile at best. Almost 700 Iraqis were killed in February 2008. Across the country, many Iraqis are out of work. Most still don't have basic services like regular electricity.
And contrary to President Bush's promise in 2003 that the road to peace in Jerusalem goes through Baghdad, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at a low ebb. The U.S.-led war in Iraq has contributed to the popularity of more radical groups like Hamas. Ironically, the democracies the president promised five years ago have produced leaders that the U.S. fails to recognize or fully support today.
It is true that the number of war casualties has dropped during the last six months - although the numbers are still quite high and have begun to rise again this February and March. U.S. leaders credit the military surge for the positive trend. But the Iraqi leaders who gathered to advise MCC said that casualties are down because Iraqi society has now become almost completely segregated according to ethnic group membership.
They said that a healthy future for Iraq depends not on segregating Iraqis by homogeneous groups, but by developing projects that require Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, Muslims, and Christians to work together for a united Iraq.
The weakness of war as a foreign policy tool is that it undermines the very conditions necessary to create stable societies. Courageous Iraqi civil society leaders will play a critical role in pointing Iraq toward a better future. They deserve our full support.
J. Daryl Byler and spouse Cindy Byler are Mennonite Central Committee's representatives for Iran, Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. They live in Amman, Jordan.
On Tuesday, President Bush spoke to the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters. In a speech that The New York Times described as "Citing Faith, Bush Defends War Actions", he declared that “The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency; it is the right decision at this point in my presidency; and it will forever be the right decision.” After five years of war, his lack of reflection and, well, characteristic hubris should no longer surprise me, but the very boldness still does.
And why is he so certain he is right? It’s all because he believes in freedom:
I believe - and I know most of you, if not all of you, believe - that every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth has been given the great gift of liberty by an almighty God. And today I want to speak about this precious gift, the importance of protecting freedom here at home, and the call to offer freedom to others who have never known it. … when confronted with the realities of the world, I have made the decision that now is the time to confront, now is the time to deal with this enemy, and now is the time to spread freedom as the great alternative to the ideology it adheres to. … we undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our maker. That's why we're doing this.
Many U.S. Christians disagree. We also see the image of God in all those who have become the collateral damage of this awful war, and in the countless American lives snuffed out or broken forever. Also on Tuesday, along with Christian leaders on our Sojourners board like Brian McLaren, Mary Nelson, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, Barbara Williams Skinner, and Ron Sider, we launched “A Call to Lament and Repent.”
Rather than celebrating the decision to go to war, we lament the suffering and violence in Iraq. We mourn the nearly 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died, the unknown numbers of both who are wounded in body and mind, and the more than 4 million Iraqis who are displaced from their homes. And we repent of our failure to fully live the teaching of Jesus to be peacemakers.
We also believe that repentance must go deeper than just being sorry – it means a commitment to a new direction. This fifth anniversary of the war is the time for U.S. Christians to rededicate ourselves to the biblical vision of a world in which nations do not attempt to resolve international problems by making unilateral preemptive wars on other nations. While we are not utopians and believe that human beings and nations will have conflicts, given the toll that war has taken in our violence torn world, we must begin to learn to resolve our inevitable conflicts by learning the arts and skills of conflict resolution and a new international approach to just peace-making.
I’m grateful that since Tuesday, nearly 20,000 of you have already joined with us. Yesterday a friend of mine wrote to me. He is a strong Christian layperson, a successful businessman, and a lifelong Republican. But he said, “I have been looking for some form of penance since I argued so strenuously with you back in 2003 that, of course, our government had definitive proof of WMD, or we would not take the enormous geopolitical risk of invading Iraq. This enterprise seemed to be exactly the penance vehicle I needed.”
In Ramah, a voice is heard, crying and weeping loudly. Rachel mourns for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they are dead. Jeremiah 31:15
Last week a spate of four deaths in our Chicago high schools was blamed on gangs and guns. Last year, the public high school killings totaled 27, and already this year 18 have been killed. As one commentator said, "It's war on our Chicago streets and in our schools." Kids held up signs saying, "Stop Killing" and "Can't you see we want to grow up?" As we approach the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq war that moved us into devastating violence, we must take stock of our failed policies in Iraq and at home. Our current approach is not working.
Dr. Carl Bell, an expert on youth violence, talked about what prevention will take. He said young people need a sense of connectness, access to medicine and counseling, self-esteem and a sense of community. They also need to be able to communicate when they need help. Mayor Daley blamed glorified gun violence on tv and used as entertainment. So many opportunities for alternatives to violence.
Just think of what could happen if we got out of Iraq and redirected that $400 million A DAY we now spend to revitalize quality public education for all, create alternative life giving work experiences, training and jobs for disaffected youth, enable universal health care. Enabling youth to complete school, find meaningful employment would staunch the one way train to prison (which also costs us $25,000 per person annually). We have the resources. Do we have the will?
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.
A couple of weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, I received a call from my cousin. Her father-in-law in Baghdad was dead. His death was not the result a car bomb or a kidnapping. No bullets or beheadings were involved. Instead, it was a kitchen fire. He was badly burnt up and down his legs. They took him to the hospital … but there were no doctors who could help or medicine they could give him. He was killed by a treatable infection.
"What is it about this month?" my cousin asked. Only an exact year ago her brother had been shot to death in front of his house in a Baghdad neighborhood, forcing a new widow and her children to flee to Jordan.
A few weeks later I shared this story with another Iraqi living in Amman. "This is the way it has been for a while," she said. "After the first war, with the embargo, things were slowly getting worse. No medicine. No services. We were losing hope. But we never saw this second war coming. This destroyed it all. Now, there is no hope."
Over the last five years, as I have shared my family's story in churches and chapel services, I get a very common response: "I never saw them as human beings. I never thought to pray for the Iraqi people." This disturbs me. Even more disturbing is that many of the people who confess this to me are pastors and missionaries. They champion the need for food, plumbing, and medicine in so many parts of the world, but seem to hit the breaks when it comes to Iraq and the Middle East. I have visited many congregations around the country – Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Non-denominational – and I see a recurring pattern: nine times out of 10 the pastor will pray for the safety and success of the troops, but does not offer one prayer for the people and needs of Iraq.
While in Amman last month, I spent time with my two little cousins who now live as orphans and refugees. A family member shared that one of the girls has recurring dreams of her dead father, and is brewing with sadness and anger over his murder. A week later I sat in a church service in the States where the text in the bulletin was James 1:27: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (NIV). The "pastoral prayer" turned toward the troops, gay marriage and abortion, but there was not one mention of the 2 million internally displaced Iraqis, 82 percent of whom are women and children under the age of 12 (according to the Iraqi Red Crescent report of January 27, 2008). What a sad irony that the same church that so adamantly supports the "right to life" also supported a war that has robbed so many children of their lives and innocence.
In reality, Iraq has been bleeding to death for more than 15 years. Beautiful people, made in the image of God, have lived with violence and destruction for too long. The church in the U.S has played a major role in supporting that destruction. I have very few positive answers for my Muslim family members when they ask about how Christians in the U.S. perceive Iraq. Once, when I told a family member of some Christians I had met who support and work for human rights in Iraq and equal rights for Palestinians, he responded, "Wow. … I didn't know there were any other Christians who believed that way."
In the first chapter of Nehemiah we find this prayer: "I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned!" The key word here is "we." Nehemiah was not even alive when the people's sins, which led to exile, took place. Yet he took ownership of what the people of God had done wrong, and so led the way in confession, repentance, and ultimately, restoration.
How long before more pastors lead their congregations in confession, repentance, and prayers for the people and peace of Iraq? How long before more preachers preach that the life of an Iraqi is just as important to God as the life of a U.S. soldier? How long before we ask our congregations to see Iraqis as part of the human family, made in the very image of God, and in doing so broaden our definition of "family values?" How long before the church truly stands up to vote for a "right to life" for all children that goes beyond the unborn to include the children of those who we thought were our enemies?
I have been in worship services all over the country, and I still see too many churches that rallied for the call to war in Iraq failing to rally for the call of Christ in Iraq.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at www.firstbornstories.com
Two brothers, Jamal* and Khalid,* were arrested randomly in a raid of their neighborhood by Iraqi Special Police Forces, the Palestinian ghetto in Baghdad. They were tortured and forced to confess on a television program to acts of terror they didn't commit. Other Palestinian refugees have been dragged out of their homes and killed.
Dalia* and Sara,* two sisters, along with other members of their family, were accused of funding the resistance and were detained in Abu Ghraib for nine months. One day their brother's dead and tortured body was brought into their room and thrown on their laps.
In Fallujah, four months after the November 2004 massive U.S. attacks in which 60 percent of the buildings were destroyed - including several schools and the main hospital - the southern half of the city was complete rubble. The Musa Abdulla* family, of 26 persons, was one of hundreds of families that had been forced to return and live in a tent next to the remains of their former home.
Hundreds of Palestinian refugees living in Iraq fled to the Syrian border because of threat to their lives. Only some were allowed to go to a refugee camp in Syria. Others were not allowed into Syria - but also not allowed back into Iraq - so have been living in tents in the no-man's land in-between.
Six-year-old Mohammed was playing on the gate in his front yard when he was shot in the head in the cross-fire of a gun-battle between U.S. Military and resistance fighters. He lost his right eye and the right side of his face is disfigured.
When the surge started, our former neighbor, Alia,* in Baghdad told our peace team, "The increase of U.S. military forces in the city only increases the hell we are living in." A month later her youngest son was injured when a bomb blasted in our former neighborhood.
As a long-time human rights worker, Hameed helped mediate between fighting groups on the streets of his city. He made several trips with a group of Shia, Sunni, and Christians into Fallujah in 2005 to develop peaceful relationships between the different ethnic groups. In 2006 he survived an assassination attempt. He knows that at any time he could be targeted again.
* Real people and situations, but names have been changed
In my last post, I illustrated my intention to participate in a collective type of confession from members of our Armed Forces. I am of course speaking of the upcoming Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, D.C., from March 13 to 16 at the National Labor College in Silver Springs, Maryland. Many readers expressed no small amount of confusion in interpreting my motivation for doing so, and for not being more clear, I apologize. Let me state unequivocally that my allegiance to Christ infinitely trumps my allegiance to our country. Upon clarifying that, I might need to express the extent to which I remain in submission to our nation.
Our government, in affirming the rights of its citizens, forfeits the claim to unconditional subordination. While I am eternally grateful for the freedom I enjoy, such gratitude must n
Shane Claiborne is the author of Jesus for President, a Red Letter Christian, and a founding partner of The Simple Way community, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. 
Add to:
Category: Iraq, Nonviolence, Video, War
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Dr. N.T. Wright is a New Testament theologian and the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is the author of many books, including 
Dr. Graeme Codrington is a researcher, author, presenter and consultant on issues of people strategy. He works internationally from bases in Johannesburg and London, and can be contacted at 
"Speak to the earth, and it will teach you…The life of every creature and the breath of all people are in God's hand". --Job 12: 8, 10 (NCV)
Lindsay Hildebrant is a recent graduate of Adrian College in Adrian, MI with a degree in Environmental Studies, Philosophy and Religion. She is currently interning with the Policy and Organizing Department at Sojourners.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at 
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with 
Alexia Kelley is the executive director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and a member of the 
J. Daryl Byler and spouse Cindy Byler are 
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of 
Two brothers, Jamal* and Khalid,* were arrested randomly in a raid of their neighborhood by Iraqi Special Police Forces, the Palestinian ghetto in Baghdad. They were tortured and forced to confess on a television program to acts of terror they didn't commit. Other Palestinian refugees have been dragged out of their homes and killed.
Peggy Gish is a fulltime worker with