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.

The Iraq war has cost lives. Perhaps this is such an obvious statement that many will wonder why it has been made. It has cost lives of military personnel, many thousands of civilians in the immediate theatre of war, as well as lives of insurgents. It has even cost lives away from the war zone. In 13 African countries the rise in oil prices - which may be directly attributed to the war - resulted in loss of income, more than off-setting the increases in foreign aid. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the cost of the war worldwide as $6 trillion. Such sums indicate the loss of lives through failure to invest in education, healthcare, and housing across the world. It is estimated that for $1 trillion eight million housing units could have been built, health care funded for 530 million children for a year, or 15 million school teachers trained. Had such investment been made in the breeding grounds of terrorism, many of the causes of conflict could have been addressed.

The war has cost democracy. The 2 million people who opposed the war represented a political pressure group never seen before in the UK. Suspicion was raised over the evidence for the need for war. Democracies thrive only when truth is told, however unpalatable. A loss of confidence in government is always dangerous in democracies. The war has placed real strains upon people's confidence in government.

The war has cost us our memory. While opposing the war, it has always seemed right to support men and women and their families who fight on behalf of their country. The loss of young lives - while leading to many moving services of remembrance at a local level - has led to little public recognition of the cost of laying down life for the country. Life is the only thing we really possess. Laying it down for others requires that both the cause and the end are perceived as worthy. Many are left to mourn their loved ones. Many question the cost. Many more of us simply forget and carry on with our lives.

Jesus promised blessing to peacemakers. More than one hundred references exist in respect of peacemaking in the New Testament. It is the supreme goal of the kingdom of God. It is the 'good news' of the angels at Bethlehem. It is the intention of Christ who came to make peace. The cost of the Iraq war is great. The cost of making peace is greater. It took the life of the Son of Man; and it has taken the lives of countless men and women through the ages who have opposed war and striven for peace in obedience to the gospel. No Christian is immune from this struggle. There is no cause greater or more urgent. Think peace, pray peace, act peace.

Rt. Rev. Peter Price is the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Church of England.

I am in the U.K. for a family holiday. We're celebrating the 50^th wedding anniversary of my wife Joy's parents, and our 10^th anniversary, in her home country. Everyone here is quite impressed with Gordon Brown's first few weeks in office and the leadership he has shown around the terrorist attack that came just days after he took office, the domestic crisis of flooding, another outbreak of foot and mouth disease among cattle, and his first visit to the United States since becoming the British prime minister. The British press reported how professional Brown was with President Bush, affirming the U.K./U.S. relationship for the long term while keeping the American president suitably at arms length—a great relief for the British people, who almost universally feel that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was much too close to Bush and his policies in Iraq. That Brown made his visit to the U.N. Secretary General in New York the highlight of his trip, and not his time with Bush in Washington, pleased the British public.

In his speech at the U.N., Brown helped to make some real breakthroughs on both Darfur and global poverty. The British newspaper The Guardian reported his description of the situation in Darfur as the "greatest humanitarian disaster" the world faces today, and his announcement that the U.K., France, and the U.S. would submit a resolution to the Security Council mandating a peacekeeping force. The resolution was passed later that same day.

But the heart of his speech was global poverty and the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals. In the text of his speech, Brown said that after seven years "it is already clear that our pace is too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk. … We cannot allow our promises that became pledges to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only words that symbolize broken promises."

He then challenged his audience:

And so my argument is simple: The greatest of evils that touches the deepest places of conscience demands the greatest of endeavor. The greatest of challenges now demands the boldest of initiatives. To address the worst of poverty we urgently need to summon up the best efforts of humanity.

I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes. And I firmly believe that if we can discover common purpose there is no failing in today's world that cannot be addressed by mobilizing our strengths, no individual struggle that drags people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that can lift people up.

To find that common purpose, he said:

Our objectives cannot be achieved by governments alone, however well-intentioned; or private sector alone, however generous; or NGOs or faith groups alone, however well-meaning or determined—it can only be achieved in a genuine partnership together.

After addressing governments and businesses, the prime minister went on:

Let me say to faith groups and NGOs—your moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make poverty history. Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose and expose harnessed to the energy to propose and inspire is given more support by the rest of us—businesses, citizens, and governments.

It was a challenging and inspiring speech. I think we may have a real leader here in the U.K.