This week, The New York Times ran an editorial about H.R. 6691, follow-up legislation to the June Supreme Court decision on D.C.'s gun ban. After reading the editorial, I made a resolution: One day I will join the National Rifle Association.

I first started learning about the sport of marksmanship when I was 10 years old at "Camp Good News." We practiced with our BB rifles every day after our morning worship services. I graduated to a .22 rifle soon after to rid our family's barn of pigeons and our garden of woodchucks. In the fall, our family would enjoy venison stew that came from deer shot in the woods behind our house. 

What has stopped me from signing up for the NRA thus far has been their support of legislation such as H.R. 6691. This legislation has nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with powerful business interests looking to make a profit by moving more product. This legislation would allow residents of D.C. to legally walk the streets with loaded AK-47s. It would make it legal to own .50 caliber sniper rifles with an accuracy of up to 1 mile in our nation's capital. 

The NRA has lost its way. It has made an organization of sportsmen and women into a cover organization for business interests ready to sacrifice safety and national security for their bottom line. 

I am ready to join the NRA the day I can be convinced that its goals are to protect my constitutional rights and not to protect business interests at the expense of public safety.  Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s non-voting member of Congress, has introduced alternative legislation that would responsibly ensure the District's adherence to the Supreme Court's ruling.  If it was about the Constitution, H.R. 6691 would be unnecessary.    

So one day, when the NRA puts American lives, safety, and rights first -- and not lobbying dollars -- I'll join.

Tim King is the special assistant to the CEO for Sojourners. For more information, visit the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Even though we don't often weigh in on local D.C. political issues, the Sojourners policy team made an exception on a new piece of legislation that would have a direct impact on gun violence in the District. We signed Sojourners on to a faith-group letter last week opposing the bill described in this New York Times editorial: 

The bill, which seems headed toward passage in the House, is advertised by its supporters as a necessary response to the Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down the district's 32-year-old ban on possessing handguns in the home. It is nothing of the sort. The City Council has already passed temporary changes to comply with the ruling and is working on permanent revisions.

This extreme bill goes way beyond what the high court required. Among other things, it would repeal a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and eliminate firearm registration requirements, even for such things as sniper rifles and small, easily concealed semiautomatic handguns. Under the lunatic logic of this bill, made to order for the gun lobby, such rifles could be toted around on the street fully loaded.

Sojourners has a long history in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in D.C., and many of our staff and their families live in the area in addition to working here. For many years we ran a neighborhood center and saw the results of gun violence in the lives of children who attended programs at the center.

So while we agree that the District of Columbia must adhere to the Supreme Court decision on handgun ownership, Congress should listen to residents, local businesses, and organizations and their need for safe streets, schools, and homes, and vote against HR 6691.

Elizabeth Denlinger is deputy director for policy and organizing at Sojourners.

Tragically, the culture war crossed over fighting words to shooting bullets. Once again, a community of faith was caught in the crossfire. While 25 children sang songs from "Annie," a gunman fired three shotgun blasts inside the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. The seven people shot and two people murdered on Sunday morning are the latest victims of the culture war.  

Sadly, this wasn't the first shooting to occur at a house of worship in the U.S. and not likely to be the last. Do we remember the four teenagers and three adults who were murdered at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1999? Two more died at New Life Church in Colorado Springs last December. In each case, the shooter turned his frustration with particular religious expressions into an occasion to kill. (And as a nation we continue to support the right to shoot others over sane gun control policies -- but that deserves its own separate conversation).  

While many evangelicals celebrated Cassie Bernall and Rachel Scott as martyrs who died for their Christian convictions at Columbine High School, I wonder if we will extend the same heroism to the victims in Tennessee? Evidently, usher Greg McKendry shielded the children performing selections from "Annie" and took the brunt of the shotgun blast. A retired schoolteacher, Linda Kraeger, also died from gunshot wounds. She was merely visiting the church. In both Columbine and Knoxville, the cowardly shooters took out their grudges upon innocent victims. Those with a conservative faith died at Columbine. Those with liberal beliefs perished in Tennessee. We mourn for them all.

The shooter in Tennessee, Jim Adkisson, has been identified as an unemployed divorcee. A four-page note found in his car described his contempt for liberals. When the system failed to work (evidently, his food stamps had just run out), Adkisson took up arms, aiming at those he had been trained to hate -- gays and liberals. 

Why did he single out Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalists? Evidently, the church recently posted a sign welcoming gays to their congregation. It set off a firestorm on conservative and Christian talk radio in East Tennessee. I found this online:

The specific chain of events that brought Jim Adkisson to the TVUC sanctuary was a recent decision to erect a sign specifically welcoming LGBT people into the congregation. That choice evidently set off a firestorm in the local right-wing community with the specific church and its location named repeatedly on right-wing and evangelical radio. The gunman, already looking for someone to take out his rage on, evidently took the path of local least resistance.  At any rate, while I'm not sure it's even worth assigning blame, it's not likely that Jim Adkisson would have driven the ten miles from his exurban hovel to my family's church if he hadn't learned what he needed about where to go on the radio.

While ultimate responsibility resides with the shooters, we can also connect these deaths to too much toxic talk radio. Both the left and the right play the blame-game all day long. On talk radio, my problems are always somebody else's fault.

This is the kind of tragedy that occurs when we adopt war rhetoric, turning our fellow Americans into enemies. Both sides have effectively demonized the opposition, laying blame for our problems at others' feet. Would it "kill" talk radio announcers to tone down their tenor for the sake of the common good? Could they sacrifice a few ratings points by refusing to serve the red meat their most radicalized listeners relish? Can we discipline ourselves to change the channel when the scapegoating begins?

I still recall my shock and horror when Paul Hill murdered Dr. John Britton in the name of "life." How could a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America take up arms, killing in the name of God? I recently saw the chilling documentary Lake of Fire, which illustrates all the tragedies surrounding the fight over abortion. Director Tony Kaye captured early footage of Paul Hill, boldly proclaiming death sentences upon abortion providers. Lake of Fire also presents the horrors of an abortion procedure, including the emotional trauma that also follows. This even-handed movie leaves you with an enormous amount of sadness. There are no winners in Tony Kaye's bold documentary (or in our current culture war).

In response to all the overheated rhetoric, I created a documentary, Purple State of Mind, with my college roommate, John Marks. As I was entering the Christian faith 20 years ago, John was exiting. We revisited that crossing as an example of a constructive dialogue across the religious and political divide. Purple State of Mind is rooted in the profound hope that we can co-exist despite our differences. But plenty of patient listening must precede that fragile peace. We will not get there by burying our differences, but by bearing one another's burdens enroute.

I write this with a fair amount of trepidation. To promote peace to a war-mongering people can get you in trouble. I don't want to be placed on anybody's hit list. I do not want to put my children in the line of fire because I extend an olive branch toward atheists, homosexuals, or anyone else deemed "other" by the conservative Christian community. Churchgoers in Fort Worth, Texas, Colorado Springs, and Knoxville want to worship in freedom rather than fear. When something your pastor says or your congregation does can get you killed, we live in decidedly dangerous times. Heaven help us all to cease fire.

Craig Detweiler directs the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary. He blogs at www.purplestateofmind.com. His new book, Into the Dark, searches for the sacred amidst the top-ranked films on the Internet Movie Database.  

I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence;
       I possess knowledge and discretion. 
    To fear the Lord is to hate evil;
       I hate pride and arrogance,
       evil behavior and perverse speech. 
     Counsel and sound judgment are mine;
       I have insight, I have power. 
     By me kings reign
       and rulers issue decrees that are just; 
     by me princes govern,
       and nobles—all who rule on earth.

—Proverbs 8:12-16

Wisdom is the key ingredient in the revival of talks under way between the government's party (ZANU-PF) and the opposition MDC. On Monday, these two parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which sets down the framework for talks about a future government for Zimbabwe. The language of human rights, the dignity of the person, and freedom of speech and press, etc., makes this document a "foreign language" in the context of Zimbabwean politics! Here are some excerpts:

The Parties are committed to ensuring that the law is applied fairly and justly to all persons irrespective of political affiliation.

Each Party will issue a statement condemning the promotion and use of violence and call for peace in the country and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that the structures and institutions it controls are not engaged in the perpetration of violence ... [each] shall refrain from using abusive language that may incite hostility, political intolerance and ethnic hatred or undermine each other.

It is a small step in the right direction; as a Chinese proverb says, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Thank you for your prayers and support. There are many challenges that face the negotiation process, and in our prayers let us include the following:

a. The cessation of violence.

b. Wisdom for all involved to ensure that democracy, human rights, and the interests of the Zimbabwean people remain central to the process.

c. Implementation challenges that require “mind shifts” from security organs.

d. Extraordinary wisdom and strategy to come up with a solution that fits in with the unique needs of Zimbabwe.

e. Groups that have gained considerably from the status quo and have the potential to derail the process.

f. A way forward without violence.

May Wisdom bring forth justice, peace, and prosperity for Zimbabwe. Thank you so much for your prayers and commitment. May God bless you, too, in all your ways. Shalom!

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows (Luke 12:6-7).

He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight (Psalm 72:14).

My friends and I were discussing the ongoing violence in Zimbabwe -- it seems senseless. Or is it? The explanation given for the violence prior to the recent elections was that it was part of "Operation: Who Did You Vote For?" -- also referred to as electoral cleansing. The goal was to ensure that the ruling party would win the elections, which they did.

But then why is the violence continuing? When the negotiations began last week between the political parties, cessation of violence was one of the key issues raised, and we all hoped the violence would eventually stop. But it has not, and the negotiations have hit a brick wall and are currently at a standstill. The loss and violation of human life goes to the heart of our faith. For each human being is made in the image of God and therefore has inherent dignity and is of infinite value.

I fear for myself and our faith communities that the ongoing violence may desensitize us to the value of human life and its preciousness to God. Somehow this is the "salt" and the "light" we need to be to keep the value of human dignity, especially the value of African life. Please continue to pray. Thank you.

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

Recently, I had the unique opportunity of meeting with four Iraqi evangelicals at a conference in a country near Iraq. They were young church leaders. Despite the circumstances in their country, they were upbeat and gracious. Having never been to Iraq, nor having personally met an Iraqi, I was eager to hear their perspectives on current events. My conversations with them helped me understand to a greater degree the true complexity of war.

One of them was a church planter in a large city in Iraq. When he spoke about his people, he was enthusiastic. He talked about how Iraqis were responsive to the gospel in times of peace. But when I pointedly asked him about the war and made it clear he could be honest with me, his response was a mixture of anger and depression saying, "It has been a disaster. My church has been destroyed. Christians had more safety and security under Hussein than we do now."

Another told me that her street was called the "Street of the Dead". The corpses from surrounding areas are collected and deposited on her street. Everyday she sees them; she walks by them; she smells them in her home. One looked at me with eyes full of desperation saying, "my entire life has been a war. I hate war."

I had made it clear to my four conversational partners that they could speak their minds. I also let them know that, on the basis of my religious conviction, I had been opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless I was startled at how angry and frustrated they were about their dire situation. All four of them, two women and two men from three different regions, assured me that life had been better under Hussein. I asked them what the other Iraqis thought. They said everyone they knew, Christians included, felt the same.

Later I mentioned this to an American evangelical who quickly retorted that they sounded like the Israelites after they had been brought out of Egypt. The intent of his analogy was to parallel the Israelites' desire to return to Egypt with the Iraqis' desire for the way things were. I responded, "Then who is God in this analogy? Who is Egypt? Who is Israel?" Though he did not respond, it seemed clear to me that he equated the related decisions of our current administration to the liberating acts of God. This shows the complexity of religion in the context of war.

I assured my new Iraqi friends that I would return to the U.S. and would try to find a place for their voices. I would try to convince others to see the complexity of war and face the fact that too often we equate the decisions of our nation's administration with the will of our loving God.

In a parting discussion, I asked them what message would they like to send to their brothers and sisters in the USA; what would they like for us to do? They unanimously said the following:

1) Insist the U.S. government make security its priority,

2) Help to develop the economy of Iraq so all Christians don't have to leave the country to find a job and

3) Please no more war in the Middle East.

Whether there is ever a "just war" is a matter of debate, but there is never "just a war."

 

Mark L. Russell (mark@markrussell.org) is Director of Spiritual Integration at HOPE International, a network of 13 Christ-centered Microenterprise Development organizations. He has a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies from Asbury Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Bachelor of Science in International Business from Auburn University. Mark lives in Boise, Idaho with his wife Laurie, and their children, Noah and Anastasia.

Its been months since I´ve written anything about the current events in Colombia. But I can't let "the hug the country has been waiting for" slip by without comment.

My infant daughter Amara and I were at the deli counter when the news broke. A current ran through the grocery store causing eruptions of joy. Ingrid Betancourt, former Presidential candidate, the three U.S. contractors and 11 others kidnapped by the FARC guerrilla group were freed this afternoon.

See reports in The New York Times and Colombia´s paper of record, El Tiempo.

An hour later as Amara nursed, I listened to interviews with mothers and other family members of the recently released. Ingrid, beloved symbol of the kidnapped, was held captive for more than six years. The U.S. contractors for more than four. A number of the Colombian uniformed officers released were kidnapped over 10 years ago. The visceral responses to the electrifying news of freedom doesn´t lend itself to tidy sound bites for radio interviews. The sobs and exclamations were beautifully stirring. Upon delivery to a military base, an emaciated Ingrid gingerly climbed down from the plane and fell into her mother´s embrace. She choked, "no more tears, mommy." I squeezed my little Amara tight.

The rescue is being hailed as an "impeccable military operation." According to news reports, Colombian intelligence infiltrated the FARC leadership and not a shot was fired in the rescue mission. If media sources are accurate, the Colombian military essentially tricked the guerrilla into handing over four of the highest profile kidnap victims and 11 soldiers and police. Human Rights Watch congratulated the military for carrying out the rescue without any civilian causalities or otherwise violating international humanitarian law.

By all accounts this largest and oldest guerrilla group in Latin America is weakened, and clearly the Colombian military is at a strong point. The U.S. has helped to ensure as much. These military achievements are in line with U.S. military strategists´ application of an El Salvador model in Colombia. As such, the FARC would be forced to the negotiating table. But at what cost, paid in human lives and quality of life?

Ingrid exclaimed, "this is a sign of peace!" Could it be? While this was an intelligence and not a military rescue in the traditional sense, recent events force reflection on my values and sense of the fundamental direction of history regarding military solutions. As is common, many of the jubilant declarations praising the military with religious overtones created dissonance with my beliefs, principles and politics: "Glory be to (Colombia´s military) intelligence! Glory be to the army soldiers!" ... "God blessed (this rescue operative), but not just God, Uribe blessed it! Yes, long live Colombia ! We are winning the war!"

As a Colombian army general noted, the mission could have turned out differently. At the risk of sounding like the relentless critic, the 15 hostages and the operatives who bore great risk to rescue them could all have been killed. Had the scenario played out differently the FARC may not have experienced yet another humiliating blow. Colombian President Uribe´s reelection campaign would not have this huge boost.

The threat of destructive force as an immediate strategy remains a problem. Military successes could lead to surrender and even armistice, but they should not be confused with lasting peace. As we have experienced with the paramilitary process, a settlement between the warring factions that does not provide for truth and justice, repentance and forgiveness may betray Colombia´s populace. A formal resolution that does not prioritize education, health, housing and other investments will not deliver the conditions necessary for dignified life for the majority poor. In the midst of the collective euphoria sparked by the release there are many questions. Which are the right ones to be asking?

Ambiguity and ambivalence aside, I am jubilant with those reunited with family once again. I´d hug the three U.S. military contractors myself, if I could.

It is wonderful to share good news from Colombia on the armed conflict front!

Janna Hunter-Bowman works for Mennonite Central Committee in Bogotá, Colombia, as the coordinator of the Documentation and Advocacy Program for Justapaz, the peace and justice ministry of the Colombian Mennonite Church.

"Don't shoot -- I want to grow up," read the protest sign an 11-year-old boy held in the wake of 30-plus shootings of Chicago schoolchildren this school year. The Supreme Court's recent assertion of the individual's right to own a gun for self-defense stands in sharp contrast to the anguished pleas of the father of one of the schoolchildren to stop the tragic gun deaths in our community, and to get rid of the guns so available on our streets. His pleas reminded me of Jeremiah's account of Rachel weeping for her children.

We are a violent nation. Forty-nine percent of U.S. households have guns in the home (Just Facts, 6/08). The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reminds us that 80 Americans die from gun violence every day in America. The Supreme Court decision is a blow to the scourge of gun violence in our communities and probably will be used to seek to block passage of common-sense gun laws that require background checks, forbid bulk sales of handguns, and other efforts. However, the decision as reported did not give license to "any gun, any time, for anyone" (Brady Center), and those of us who want to eliminate readily available guns have a lot of work to do to see that reasonable restricting laws are enacted.

The affirmation of the individual's right to bear arms must also be countered by us, as people of faith, with what is in the interests of community, of public safety, and what makes for the common good. We shouldn't be silent about this tension.

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.

Last week's headlines blared the news: The Supreme Court has ruled that there is a constitutional right to gun ownership. I'm not surprised -- disheartened, dismayed, disappointed, yes -- but not surprised. The photo accompanying the headline was of jubilant gun rights supporters carrying signs saying "Guns Save Lives." "The Great Object: Every Man Be Armed." "If guns kill people, do pens misspell words?"

And that's the real problem with gundamentalism (and I do see this ruling as an offshoot of gundamentalism). Its adherents believe that nothing is as important as the right to own a gun. Or many guns. Or many kinds of guns. The fact that 30,000 people a year, 80 a day, are killed by guns is not nearly as important as the right to own a gun. The day before the Supreme Court announced its decision, a worker in a Kentucky plastics plant shot and killed himself after shooting five coworkers and wounding a sixth.

What are the responsibilities that go along with this newly bestowed right? The Court's ruling does make room for sensible gun control. But as people of faith we must ask deeper and more difficult questions: Where do we place our trust -- in God or in guns? Who do we serve -- God or the second amendment? Where do we find our sense of worth and purpose -- from God or from guns? How do we bring about God's reign - with an open heart or with a gun in hand?

Rev. Rachel Smith is the founder of the God Not Guns faith outreach project of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

In the past week, the blood-stained regime ruling Sudan has once again engaged in "open and transparent effort to overthrow a neighboring government," Chad, where for the past week Sudanese-backed rebels have been attacking towns. The attacks put at risk half a million Sudanese and Chadian refugees in the region.

Khartoum seems determined to give new meaning to the phrase "repeat offender." The proxy militias it arms, in concert with the Sudanese military, continue to destroy villages and bomb schools in Darfur. Ahmad Harun--who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for recruiting and ordering Janjaweed to commit mass rape, murder, and looting, and who should be on trial in The Hague--instead continues to be the Sudanese government minister in charge of supervising (and impeding and expelling) humanitarian workers in Darfur.

Instead of enabling Khartoum's behavior by our inaction, the international community should be putting concerted economic and legal pressure on Khartoum, and on specific officials such as Harun, to get the promised U.N. humanitarian protection force on the ground in Darfur, and to get a real peace process started like the one that won an agreement stopping Sudan's previous civil war (which was north-south, rather than east-west). Instead of replicating that success, though, we've been letting Khartoum undermine it: Last month the Sudanese Armed Forces "burned the strategic town of Abyei to the ground, leaving the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) at extreme risk, " as John Prendergast of the Enough Project pointed out to the U.N. Security Council in a briefing on Tuesday.

Read Prendergast's Tuesday Security Council briefing and Enough's new report on how to get humanitarian protection and a long-term solution in Darfur. The world has stood idly by too long.

Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.

I will begin with some positive news of growing international pressure on the Zimbabwean government. The United Nations secretary general has demanded an end to the violence and lifting of the ban on food aid. The U.S. secretary of state has called a meeting with African leaders to discuss the situation, and the Botswana government has issued this statement: "Botswana is alarmed by these arrests and detentions as they disrupt electoral activities of key players and intimidate the electorate, thus undermining the process of holding a free, fair and democratic election."

The latter is particularly remarkable because this is the first government in the region that has issued an official statement condemning the violence. Botswana has always been a model of democracy in Africa but is now proving to be a model of statesmanship. Other leaders have followed suit and have together presented a document calling for an end to the violence and for free and fair elections. It is encouraging to witness this swell of support. Let us continue to pray for the process to continue and materialise in concrete action.

Sadly the situation on the ground has not yet changed, and violence continues. Yesterday when I felt overwhelmed by the violence, I recalled an African parable. It is a parable about a chick that was snatched from its mother by a hawk; the chick was asked why it was crying in such a hopeless situation. It replied, "I am not crying because I hope that someone will save me but because I want the world to know what happened to me."

For the sake of many who are victims of violence or have lost family members, it is our responsibility to tell their story to let the world know what is happening. As people of faith, we go further than the chick and trust that God will hear and act through people. Please continue to pray especially as we approach the week of the elections.

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

- William Butler Yeats, from his poem, "The Second Coming"

When I listen to stories of victims of the xenophobic violence in South Africa and compare those with the stories of victims of electoral cleansing in Zimbabwe, things fall apart because the experiences of violence are similar. How can this be? How can the experience of violence in a democracy be the same as that in a dictatorship? For the victims of violence -- most of whom are the poorest of the poor -- their experience blurs the distinction between a democracy and a dictatorship. Similarly, for the perpetrators of violence, democracy has not changed their material condition and has no real value. Are they the only role-players in this violence? What about our leaders and institutions dealing with welfare, immigration, housing, etc.? What about regional leaders' responsibility to challenge dictatorship? The violence is a collective shame that requires collective responsibility.

The violence is spreading like wildfire and is unstoppable. The headline in all the newspapers is "flames of hatred," with pictures of the latest act of brutality -- namely, pouring petrol on victims and setting them alight. The spirit of hatred and violence has taken root and it is unlikely that the violence will stop. Listening to talk shows on the radio, it is alarming to hear some of the hate speech. A friend phoned me last night and she was terrified because she narrowly missed being attacked. She lives in the centre of Johannesburg and locals told residents in the block of flats where she lives that they will be returning with enough petrol to set the building on fire and burn them all. The police have lost control. It feels surreal, and as I lie in bed -- safe for the moment -- I challenge myself to make my temporal safety an opportunity to do something. I am not sure what at the moment, but I am sure that I can find something to do -- join those trying to do something. I know that the starting place is prayer, because that is the only hate-free zone!

We need prayers for South Africa. Please include these requests in your prayers:

• actions to bring an end to the violence, as it is now spreading to other parts of the country
• visionary leaders who will "make concrete" the values and benefits of democracy for the poor
• healing and restoration of victims of violence
• justice and rehabilitation of perpetrators of violence
• new spirit and revival of African humaneness of "ubuntu"
• churches and individuals who have responded to the plight of the victims of violence to continue and find the resources they need.

In Zimbabwe, the date of the presidential election has been set for June 27, 2008. The violence is continuing and spreading across the country. There have been calls for the establishment of a government comprising both the opposition and "ruling party" so that the political situation can be stabilised first before an election. I doubt whether the "ruling party" will accept this -- they will insist on elections. In this context, prayers are needed -- please include the following requests in your prayers:

• for regional leaders to have the wisdom and courage to come up with alternative strategies toward resolving the deteriorating situation
• for victims of violence and their families
• for military leaders behind the violence
• for the leadership of the opposition -- for courage, vision, and perseverance that will strengthen the resolve of their supporters who face violence and torture
• for the biggest miracle of all -- the birth of a new democratic Zimbabwe!

Thank you all for your support and I hope that one day when things turn around for the best, we can pray for you too!

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

President Bush's remarks, made last week in Israel, suggesting that anyone who wishes to talk with a violent enemy is the contemporary equivalent of a Hitler appeaser, are so wide of the mark, patronizing, and simply untrue that they must be challenged.

The fact that he used the emotive context of Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations as the background for these comments is an abuse of an already misused people. And implying that Sen. Obama wishes to appease terrorism is not only factually inaccurate, but morally troubling.

Why? Because this is to suggest that the only two options available to "good people" in responding to terror are to terrorise the terrorisers, or to cower in fear or denial. This has never been true. It does not become the president of the United States, a self-affirming follower of Jesus, to endorse the sport of violent revenge and the belief that there are certain people in the world who are so irredeemable that we should not talk to them. This aside, it is not politically efficient to suggest that terrorism can only be defeated by beating its proponents down.

I live in a place -- Northern Ireland -- where the government is now stewarded by two parties, both of whom could be caricatured as representing ancient warrior traditions. Their most recent manifestation, in the form of Irish Republican terrorism (the IRA) and militant Protestant fundamentalism, contributed to the horrors of my childhood, where political murder was a near-daily occurrence. After decades of terror, we did exactly what President Bush denounced last week -- we negotiated with each other and arrived at a settlement that sees former terrorist leaders share political power with those who consider themselves to be their victims. Successive U.S. administrations did not condemn this. In fact, the negotiations between terrorist leaders and constitutional democrats were chaired by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. President Bush has visited Northern Ireland to endorse the process. He has shaken the hands of former terrorist leaders. He made a video appearance at an investment conference in Belfast two weeks ago, encouraging U.S. businesses to set up shop here and to work with, among others, the current representatives of the organizations responsible for our violent conflict.

His suggestion, therefore, that anyone who wishes to sit down and talk with terrorists is automatically the moral and political equivalent of a Hitler appeaser is not only historically false (in that we know for a fact that such negotiation at least sometimes actually does produce peace), but so absurdly detached from the reality of his own administration's practices that it suggests either a malevolent and politically expedient attention-grabbing propaganda opportunity, or that President Bush simply does not know the truth about Irish politics.

I imagine I will be criticized on at least two fronts for writing this. One, that I am singling out President Bush for no reason other than my personal antipathy toward him. To that I respond with the following: I believe President Bush is a human being in need of redemption, like the rest of us. I do not share much of his politics, but I have been willing to offer praise when he has made good decisions, such as his progressive engagement with HIV/AIDs in Africa. I also believe that his predecessor made terrible errors of judgment regarding violent conflict, not least in Rwanda, and might have been likely to make similar remarks had he been in office and in Israel last week. I hope I would have had the integrity to write this article about President Clinton were he seeking to make the same dishonest political capital.

The second criticism is more nuanced -- the suggestion that the Northern Ireland conflict is not comparable to that in the Middle East. To which I can only reply that the sectarian political divisions on this island have lasted for at least 800 years, and that the violence has at times been at least as barbaric as anything done by Hamas or al Qaeda. I think the real reason that people don't consider my home conflict comparable to others is quite simply racist: They think that Northern Irish Christians are more capable of persuasion than Middle Eastern Muslims. Or, more practically, they don't want to acknowledge that the distasteful and difficult journey traveled in Ireland may have broken the path that the rest of us need to travel too.

What is even more likely, President Bush's remarks mask what might be called another inconvenient truth. When historians uncover the background story to this moment in international relations, they will discover one of two possible facts -- either that the Bush administration is already secretly negotiating with terrorists, or that they really do believe their own propaganda. British military intelligence had a secret back channel to the IRA from at least the early 1970s. Without this, alongside the contribution of politicians, business and church leaders, and other forces, there would be no peace in Ireland today. It would be unthinkable if the U.S. authorities are not already, in some sense, talking to representatives of Hamas, Iran, North Korea, Hugo Chavez, Raoul Castro, and all the other members of whatever "axis of evil" we are told is most threatening at present. For to be honest, if the Bush administration is not engaged in dialogue with such as these, President Bush is both failing to heed the lessons of the history of conflict resolution, and, more seriously, to protect the American people.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com.

As a South African, it is a downright shame that brothers and sisters from other countries in Africa are being treated with such disregard. This injustice that has transpired is repulsive, shocking, and disgusting.

However, we must put pressure on the government to address this matter of xenophobia. President Mbeki needs to speak out against it, without delay of or need for investigation. The news reports are definitive enough and cannot be denied, so our president must stand up and condemn these acts of violence.

The complexity of South Africans acting out in frustration of their own circumstances, as people who are agitated by the non-delivery of democratic promises, can and must be understood, but not to the extent that we take out our frustration on our fellow African brothers and sisters who are need of our support, understanding, and love.

It is my hope that businesses, nonprofits, churches, mosques, temples, and any form of organized religion in the townships, suburbs, and all over South Africa make a stand for justice and play a major role in bringing these acts of violence to an end. It is my hope that government will quicken its steps and intervene. It is not enough to say this xenophobia must stop; we must see action by way of a national state of emergency to stop this nonsense immediately!

Let us do whatever it is we can to stop these human rights abuses in South Africa, where our own history does not allow us to forget the days when our comrades were being housed in exile by countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Kenya. The collective memory of our people must be reminded of those days within apartheid and that this violence must stop!

We need not grow weary in this time. Neither must we grow less Afrocentric or become pessimistic about our continent, our people, our motherland, our beloved South Africa. Instead we should call for peace, and stand for justice. The "I am African-ness" of our people, our continent, and our South African nation must be called upon to remember that we are African.

I am disturbed but I am African.
I am discouraged but I am African.
I am perplexed but I am African.

Our collective memory as an African people must rise again with a consciousness that reminds us of our centeredness in "I am because we are."

Seth Naicker is an activist for justice and reconciliation from South Africa. He is currently studying and working at Bethel University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the program and projects director for the Office of Reconciliation Studies. He can be reached at: seth-naicker@bethel.edu or smnaick@hotmail.com

It was only a short year ago that "shock jock" Don Imus chose to refer to the accomplished women playing in the NCAA Basketball Finals as "nappy-headed hoes," later billing the match-up for his listeners as the "jiggaboos" versus the "wannabes." Imus' disrespect came as little surprise. He had a long history of slur and slander against Blacks, Africans, Asians, Latinos, Jews, Arabs, women, homosexuals, the poor, and just about anyone he considered unlike himself. And he had been paid handsomely to be so. The absurd brevity of his time spent off the air is perhaps only surpassed by the financial profitability of his return.

But the story that a middle-aged white man of means in the U.S. showed himself to be (or made his living as a) racist and sexist is not news to me. He is not the first, nor will he be the last. Not that what he did was not news-worthy, but his misogynistic or otherwise bigoted views seemed almost beside the point to me.

The thing that captured my attention regarding the Imus coverage the first half of April 2007 was the power dynamic. You see, power matters, and Imus had plenty of it, which he used unrepentantly to pummel with impunity the dispossessed, disenfranchised, or otherwise already marginalized. Don Imus, who is now with ABC, at the time had a nationally syndicated CBS radio show that was simulcast on MSNBC (how much money was he making?), which NPR reporter David Folkenflik further characterized as attracting "an educated, affluent audience." Most interesting to me, again, was not that this was the case; however, I was floored by the sheer number of "educated, affluent" folks who unreservedly championed Imus' "right" to do what he had been doing. It was as if the unapologetically privileged got together and declared, "How dare you have a problem with us continuing to exercise our privilege at your expense? This is the way it's supposed to be. Haven't you gotten the repeated memos?"

They said it was a First Amendment issue, to which my only response can be: Neither hate, discrimination, nor any other form of exclusionary practice or language is a First Amendment issue. Freedom of speech does not guarantee one the right to be heard. Hate does not deserve a publicly facilitated audience (e.g. radio and television air waves), and those who resource it privately deserve whatever nonviolent (particularly financial) backlash they get.

Then came the story of Seung Hui Cho. The Western world cried out in horror at the massacre Cho perpetrated on VA Tech's campus—"the single largest act of recorded handgun violence on U.S. soil in American history" (the qualifiers "recorded handgun violence" and "on U.S. soil" are important because they help to conceal our selective recollection and shocking history of violence, particularly that which has involved what we would call "state-sponsored terrorism" if it were directed at us from the outside).

And we wept. And so should we weep again in the upcoming weeks, but not just for Cho's victims. We should weep for Cho and others like him, who are victims as well ... of the Imuses of the world.

Seung Hui Cho's multimedia manifesto read like the diary of an oppressed who had finally been transformed to embody the rationale and methodologies of his oppressors. Having bought their propaganda, psychological abuse and mental illness demanded that, rather than joining them, he beat them with a ferocity commensurate to his own pain. What Cho and others like him fail to realize is that neither the methodology nor rationale of the oppressor is just, thus it is doomed to fail - immediately for the less powerful and inevitably for the more powerful. Though I confess to loving the whole V for Vendetta fantasy of striking a crippling blow to the imperial system on behalf of the oppressed while somehow avoiding harm to any innocents, that's all it is: fantasy.

Don't misunderstand: I am in no way defending, justifying, or excusing what Seung Hui Cho did April16,  2007. I just believe we need a good dose of "whole truth and nothing but the truth" as we try him again this year in the court of public opinion. In so doing, I hope we see the need to indict ourselves as well.

If you're struggling to connect the dots, consider this quote from one of Cho's high school and college classmates, Chris Davids, as reported on npr.org:

In an English class during high school, a teacher threatened Cho with a failing grade for participation unless he read aloud as the other students had. Cho [a Korean immigrant] started to read in a strange voice that sounded 'like he had something in his mouth,' Davids said.

'As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, "Go back to China!"

Imuses behave as if their privilege (power and prerogative) entitles them to further marginalize and/or humiliate anyone they so desire. Well, you might say, "Crowding someone out—pushing him to the margins—doesn't give him the right to lash out." Sure. Yet I ask along with Langston Hughes, "What happens to a dream deferred"—dreams of belonging and significance, security and prosperity, dreams of equity? How do we critique his or her means of survival (those with less power and prerogative) without also critiquing our own (those with more)?

I'm reminded of the closing scenes of Malcolm X, the movie, in which a series of persons from all over the globe (ending with Nelson Mandela) stand up and declare, "I'm Malcolm X!" It seemed to spawn a whole genre of "I wanna be like ______" commercials. We are so quick to associate ourselves with the best and the brightest. Perhaps it would be cathartic to own our demons as well, by declaring, "I too am Don Imus!"

What I'm afraid will happen instead is that we will disassociate ourselves from both Imus and Cho, choosing to see ourselves as the unwitting victims of both, much like one VA Tech affiliate quoted by NPR:

In a lot of ways it makes it better to know he's just a crazy person. That is just completely not our university's fault. This has nothing to do with anyone else. This is just his issue.

Such self-congratulations will only lead us blindly back into the thoughtless patterns of behavior that inspire this kind of violence. The only hope I see in overcoming this vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence is to abandon and subvert the rationale and methodology of anyone, any institution, or any system that seeks to justify or legitimize gain at the expense of others as a valid means to an end.

But wait a minute ... wasn't abandoning and subverting the dominant power structures the way of Jesus? Well, at least we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the Washington Post and throughout the blogosphere, debates rage about the recent spate of violence between Palestinians and Israelis, each side condemning with righteous indignation the sins of the other and proclaiming their own side's innocence. In a recent Post letters section, for example, Yaffa Klugerman wrote, "I was shocked to read [the] assertion that the murder of eight students in a Jerusalem seminary ... was reminiscent of a 1994 attack by Baruch Goldstein, a Jew who shot a group of Palestinians at prayer" (killing 29 Muslims and wounding another 150).

Another writer decried the Post's lack of balance in putting the seminary killings on page one and having no mention at all of an attack a few days later in which Israelis killed five Gazans. (A short news item in the April issue of Sojourners magazine reported on Hamas rocket attacks that sparked reprisal raids into Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces, but the magazine went to print before the killings at the seminary.)

For those seeking to justify their next round of violence, there will always be another provocation to point to; revenge and retaliation will never end anything, but merely create the rationale for the next bloody attack. And both sides can legitimately condemn acts of inhumanity committed by the other. The only way to stop the deadly spiral is to stop – to recognize that all life, on both sides of the conflict, is sacred, and that the proper, humane response to suffering inflicted even on one's enemy is mourning, not vengeance. Until then, violence will continue to beget violence, and hopes for peace in the Middle East will remain a pipe dream.

Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners magazine.

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 5^th 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.

Jeff Carr was Sojourners' chief operations officer before taking a post as L.A.'s gang czar (anti-gang czar, that is) last summer. He was featured in this report by CBS News, and I'm sure he would appreciate it if you'd join with the Sojourners team in supporting his difficult work with your prayers. Watch it:

I write these words from Iraq, where I have worked through the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) since October 2002 - before, during, and since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. CPT attempts to follow Jesus as we seek to reduce violence in conflict areas around the world. In Iraq our team has worked at this by accompanying Iraqi people in dangerous situations, "truth telling" through our reports on the abuse of detainees and other consequences of war and occupation, and training and working along side local organizations on projects of reconciliation and finding nonviolent alternatives to the problems they face. This fall and winter, we have been working in the Kurdish north - accompanying people who are sanctioned for speaking out against human rights abuses, and families displaced by violence by Turkish troops on the borders.

After five years of being in the midst of the instability and suffering of the Iraqi people - hearing their pain, fear, and increasing hopelessness as they tell us about their lives, their shattered hopes and dreams - witnessing and experiencing violence ourselves as a team; but also witnessing truely courageous people who have not lost faith and hope as they work for peace, I am led to reflect on the legacy of the war and occcupation as I write the following:

After five years of war, Iraqis live with:

• Deaths of an estimated 794,000 Iraqi civilians. (John Hopkins University study)
• A physically devastated society. The rebuilding of Iraq's society and infrastructure has progressed very little. There is still a lack of clean water, electricity, and fuel. Medicine or medical equipment in hospitals and health centers are grossly inadequate.
• Continued economic crisis. There is still massive unemployment, poverty, and increased malnutrition. The Iraqi government is under pressure by U.S. government to pass a new oil law which could allow foreign corporations equal access to new oil fields, resulting in billions of dollars in oil revenues being taken out of the country.
• Anger and despair increasing as Iraqis lose hope for a better life.
• Iraqi and U.S. forces continuing violent house raids and brutal detentions of Iraqi men. Many innocent detainees are forced, through torture, to confess to acts of terror they did not commit.
• Civilians living in fear due to daily explosions, gun battles, and personal attacks. Sectarian violence, exacerbated over the years by U.S. Military presence and policies as well as by Iraqi police and military forces.
• Women subjected to increased violence and loss of personal rights and freedoms.
• Children growing up seeing violence and killing as the norm.
• A country-side polluted with radioactive depleted uranium from U.S. weaponry used in the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq, resulting in increased cancers and birth defects.
• An elected government and ratified constitution, but with a government that most Iraqis feel doesn't really represents them and their needs. Sunni Iraqis fear the influence of Iranian government on the mostly-Shia, Iraqi central government.
• The U.S. military in the process of transferring "security" to Iraqi police and military - but instead of feeling protected, Iraqis feeling terrorized by these forces which have been trained and equipped by U.S. forces that have also trained human rights abusers in Latin America.
• Iraqis also being told that the only way to security is through excessive violence and giving up their civil rights.
• Continuation of collective punishment. One U.S. antiterrorism strategy in Iraq is to surround and attack, often with heavy bombing, whole neighborhoods, villages and cities. After attacks, non-combative civilians killed are often labeled "terrorists," in news reports. (During the November, 2004 attacks of Fallujah, 65% of the buildings, of a city of 300,000 residents, were destroyed.)
• Because of the hardship and dangers, an estimated 4 million Iraqis fleeing their homes to other countries or as displaced persons in their own country.
• Instead of U.S. military presence bringing stability, perpetuating instability.

Words cannot express the anguish that the Iraqi people have experienced in these last five years because of the war. The longer occupying forces are in their country, the longer they suffer the violence and hardship of daily life. We must not continue to justify paying for and prolonging this war.

Peggy Gish is a fulltime worker with Christian Peacemaker Teams, which seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. CPT initiated a long-term presence in Iraq in October 2002. She is the author of Iraq: A Journey of Hope and Peace.

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.

We are painfully reminded once again of the cascading violence in the U.S. after the senseless killing of six and wounding of many others at Northern Illinois University. But in my low-income Chicago community, the violence and killing have almost numbed us. I hear gunshots out my window regularly in the summer, and the annual homicide toll from guns in our two-square-mile community is often more than 30. The Children's Defense Fund indicates that almost 3,000 youth die in the U.S. annually from gun violence.

David Walsh points out the strange dichotomy between our shared nonviolent, cooperative values and the values of the marketplace and TV programs imposed on our children. Eighty percent of Nintendo games have a violent theme. Violence, sex, and humor are the themes that sell TV ads; 80.3 percent of all TV programs contain acts of violence. It's hard to find a popular movie without significant violence.

We are a violent nation. We label people enemies, inflict shock-and-awe violence, and promote first strike weapons. Soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with violent responses and post traumatic stress disorder. Kids bring guns into schools, women carry guns in purses, and automatic weapons abound - doing much more damage than good. One hundred twenty U.S. mayors have called for national leadership to wage war on gun violence. Marian Wright Edelman urges, "There must be a movement to end gun violence and stop the proliferation of guns."

A recent Christian Organization Board discussion of a group of parents whose children died from gun violence admonished the leader/speaker not to get "political." When are we going to say "enough is enough" and get political? Jesus challenged us to try a different approach to violence. Why not do it?

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.

Susan sat on her bed, looking frightened and sad. The 27-year-old had lost the lower half of her left leg when at 2 a.m. Dec. 16, Turkish fighter planes dropped four bombs on her home in a village along the northeastern Iraq-Iran border.

"When the fourth bomb exploded, everything was fire, and I heard my daughter screaming," recounted Susan's father. For several hours planes flew overhead. The blasts also killed their cows and sheep. "It was several hours later when we were able to carry her to a car that could take her to a hospital," he said. The next day they were among the estimated 3,000 persons or 800 Iraqi Kurdish families who fled border areas out of fear.

Of all Iraqis, the Kurds have been the most supportive of U.S. military presence in their country. However, U.S. policies concerning Turkish incursions into Iraqi border areas have not only caused suffering to the Kurdish victims, they have increased Kurds' anger toward and mistrust of the U.S. Such policies perpetuate the cycles of violence in these conflicts, when what is needed is leadership toward peaceful resolution.

"I have no hope for my life now," Susan told us. "I am not good physically or psychologically. I cry all day long."

This was the Christian Peacemaker Teams Iraq team's second visit to Susan's family as part of a project to monitor this border conflict and be prepared to accompany displaced families back to their villages. Tomorrow Susan has an appointment with a Kurdish organization to assess whether she is able to participate in their six-month rehabilitation and vocational program for amputees.

Susan's family isn't the only one questioning the role the U.S. has taken in allowing Turkey to fly over Iraqi air space in its anti-terrorism campaign. Kurdish Iraqis express little support for the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), whom they consider terrorists, operating in more remote areas of the Qandil Mountains. They expected the U.S., as the occupying force in Iraq, to protect civilians in their care. Many Iraqi Kurds believe that Turkey's real motives for Turkey's invasions into Iraq are to sabotage the possibility of a strong independent Kurdish state in northeastern Iraq, and to take control of the oil fields of Kirkuk province.

In the past five years, the actions and policies of the U.S. government have eroded most of the initial gratefulness Iraqi people had for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Excessive violence, domination of Iraqi political and economic structures, and the U.S.'s failure to rebuild the physical, social, and medical infrastructures of Iraqi society feed into the increasing anger and violent resistance that have emerged.

Peggy Gish is a fulltime worker with Christian Peacemaker Teams, which seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. CPT initiated a long-term presence in Iraq in October 2002. She is the author of Iraq: A Journey of Hope and Peace.

As I wrote here last week, this year's Oscars, which take place on Sunday night, seem to have caught a cultural mood in cinema that's worthy of reflection – films that take ethical themes seriously are all jockeying for position, with the highest quality slate of Best Picture nominees in years. To my mind, the Academy Awards only matter inasmuch as they provide a snapshot of a cultural moment, and that they sometimes help decent but overlooked films reach a wider audience. And it is, of course, a valuable and often beautiful thing when artists recognize the achievements of other artists – in spite of the superficial glamour and absurd over-statement that often accompanies the ceremony.

So, in the spirit of gentle reminder that there are some pretty wonderful films out there, here are my predictions for what might happen on Sunday. (All made, of course, in the knowledge that false prophets put themselves at great risk – I trust readers will treat me with compassion for the categories where I am proven wrong!)

The Iraq war film No End in Sight is likely to take the documentary award, proving that at least some pop culture mavens have not forgotten that moral disaster. Julie Christie will probably win Best Actress for her work as an Alzheimer's sufferer in the tender Away from Her, although Marion Cotillard more than deserves the award for showing - with near preternatural incarnation - the irony of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, a woman known for singing about having no regrets, but who in reality suffered torments of almost biblical proportions.

While any one of the Best Picture nominees is worthy, (Juno's delicate and witty story of unplanned pregnancy - a likely Best Original Screenplay winner; Michael Clayton's puncturing of the myth of the moral neutrality of big business economics; Atonement's suggestion that it's title is impossible; There Will Be Blood's raging portrayal of greed), the Academy is likely to reward the Coen Brothers for career achievement by giving the statuette to No Country for Old Men – a film that has divided commenters on this blog between those who see it as a cry for a change of direction in a violent world, or simply a bleak vision that suggests human nature is irredeemable. However I still consider it to be one of the most humane cinematic treatments of violence I've ever seen. It also has the potential to provoke a serious discussion about just how to end the cycle of dog-eat-dog without resorting to the same methods. The fact that this discussion has been largely ignored, having been acclaimed by most critics merely on its entertainment merits, may be something that the Coen Brothers – who will share the Best Director award - themselves consider an ironic postscript. Their film, which is so profoundly aware of the damage that violence does, has been praised for the 'beauty' of its violence, and the only performance in it that will be recognized is Javier Bardem's chilling portrayal of a psychopath when he wins Best Supporting Actor. (Although even the brilliant Bardem agrees that Hal Holbrook should be winning for his performance in Into the Wild, his exceptionally tender essay of a sage Christian who has been too committed to self-discipline to actually allow his life to breathe reminded me of the deep value of respecting your elders. The Academy should take note and give him the award.)

Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor for There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's discordantly compelling near-opera of early 20th century greed; in which one man's lust for oil and another's pseudo-religious mania are shown to be two sides of a coin: the love of money as the root of all evil. There are of course echoes of our contemporary ways of expressing power, but this film is not an allegory – it's just a magnificently told story about how selfishness is at the heart of all sin; and Day-Lewis happens to be the strongest physical performer in movies today.

Meanwhile, rat-lovers and gourmands everywhere will go home happy when Ratatouille takes the Best Animated Film trophy – and while I know everybody praises this film til the sauce boils over, it really is that rare thing – a kids' film that works better for adults; and does more than bring a wry smile of delight to its audience. It actually reminds us that life could be better, and that sometimes it just takes a change of perspective to get us there. And from a - not purely ethnocentric - Irish perspective, I hope beyond hope that Once, my favourite film of last year, is recognized with a Best Song award. This film said something about modern relationships that reminded me of the possibility that, as Rowan Williams once wrote, no human face has no divine secret to reveal. Like I said, the Oscars are only important inasmuch as they indicate a cultural mood. On this evidence, the mood looks like the marriage between a Hebrew Bible prophet and a hopeful comedian. And I suppose you could do worse than to live in that particular universe...

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/

Tim Burton's striking and gruesome film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sweeney Todd' made me feel alternately impressed by Johnny Depp's singing talent and wince at the violence. The story of a 19th century barber who avenges the loss of his wife and daughter by providing the closest shave ever to a litany of customers including the judge who caused his pain left me preoccupied by thoughts closer to home.

If the film is trying to make a serious point, it is that Sweeney's spiral of violence never ends. The previous night I had attended a meeting of the Consultative Group on the Past – a body established by the UK Government to examine methods of helping the people of Northern Ireland to address the legacy of our own violent recent history. Two things were clear from the comments made at this meeting by members of the public: first, that the levels of genuine sorrow in this society are unfathomable – families ripped apart, minds taken to the edge of destruction, small communities shattered. This is real, and not interpretation. Second, we often lack the ability to empathise with the pain of the 'other' community. It is all too easy to see 'our' pain as exclusive, and to become blind to the suffering of the community on the other side of a political divide.

This is as true in situations of deep horror – such as the killing and mayhem that plagued Northern Ireland for so long – as it is for more benign contexts – such as political campaigning. I was impressed by Mike Huckabee's empathetic comments when he was asked to respond to the now well-known moment when Hillary Clinton teared up in New Hampshire. He made the common sense point that politics is tough, and that it's easy to become emotional on the campaign trail. He even risked the wrath of those who appear dedicated to brutalizing politics by acknowledging, as if it needed to be said, that Hillary Clinton is a human being and needs to be treated more humanely. I seem to recall him suggesting at a previous debate that if he were to fund a NASA mission to Mars he would want Hillary to be the first person on the rocket; so his more tender response to her tears is welcome.

Joking aside, what is the connection between 'Sweeney Todd', dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, and the US Presidential campaign? I think it's simple: a cynical world breeds the opposite of empathy. And where there is no empathy with those whom we feel are different, the killing can begin. History shows us that where no attempts are made to resurrect empathy as a meaningful part of politics, the killing may never stop. Obviously, politics requires a degree of robust debate; but all too often our political discourse is reduced to mocking, dehumanizing, or in some cases, let's face it, even killing our opponents. The serious questions I want to ask are: What would it mean to restore empathy with 'the other side' to our politics? What have we got to lose? What have we got to gain?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

Last year, my wife Jeanette and I returned to Honduras with a group from our congregation. What alarmed me was that a decade ago the MS (La Mara Salvatrucha) had a considerable presence in many of the poorest neighborhoods. Now they have a stronghold. One of my pastor friends told me, "Gabriel, people are afraid to come to church. The MS killed a woman in front of the church just the other day." The MS is going global. Recently Law & Order had an episode that featured the MS presence in New York City. The MS has chapters in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Increasingly, some of our youngest and brightest are seduced into a culture of violence that is perpetuated to their children and later generations. Violence, sample one.

Last month, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated as she sought to be a voice (in spite of her shortcomings) for democracy in Pakistan. Violence and disruption ensued as many are still concerned about the future of democracy and stability in Pakistan. Violence, sample two.

Presently, tens of thousands of Kikuyus in Kenya are fleeing from ethnic violence in reaction to questions about recent elections. The Kalenjin and Kikuyus have fought before and this struggle is re-emerging in ever more violent ways. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighting between Congolese Tutsis and other factions, including some Rwandan Hutus, has sparked the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops to call for an end to fighting. In Sri Lanka, the end of a truce looms large and there is a growing concern of escalating conflict. The long standing violent impasse between Palestinians and Israelis still remains unresolved. Violence, samples three to six.

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq do not appear to be headed to an end and there is the growing question of how the countries involved will come to a place where governmental stability and peace for its citizens will emerge. Violence, samples seven and eight.

In the midst of all these examples, and so many others too high in number to mention, the question is, "How do the followers of the Prince of Peace respond to this surge of global violence?" I think that one of the contemporary challenges of the followers of Jesus is to hear the beatitude anew: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God." While I recognize that many may disagree on how peace should be attained, few would disagree that genocide, gang violence, terrorism, and endless wars are not what Jesus expects from his disciples. Certainly, Jesus knew that humanity has a propensity to destroy those with whom they disagree. Still, the Jesus message is a call to a higher standard. Jesus in his life and ministry took the road less traveled.

Someone once asked a civil rights leader about his method of non-violence deeply influenced by Gandhi. The response: "It's how you pick up the phone." In short, we as followers of Jesus are challenged to emulate the Prince of Peace in even how we talk to on the phone or in traffic. People of every generation are calling for a revolution in culture where we do not rush to violence, but seek the way of peace. I am not saying that tyrants need not be confronted and that theories of just war theory are not valid. Neither am I saying that I too haven't sinfully yielded to the temptations of violence in thought or speech. What I am saying is, "There's too much violence in the world and regrettably, too often it is the first and only option." I pray for the day when all of God's children "will study war no more." Until then let us model peace, in as much as we are able.

Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City, a Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and the director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a Sojourners board member.

Here's the good news: The Golden Compass does not promote atheism. It isn't going to steal your children. It does not signal the end of hope for religion in the West. That's the good news. Here's the bad news: it promotes the same, shallow "don't touch my stuff or I'll kill you" message that appears in so much of popular culture. But more than this, in spite of delightful visual imagery, and a couple of performances in which it's clear the actors are having fun (an icy Nicole Kidman, and the great English theatrical knight Derek Jacobi to name two), it's simply a boring film.

At its centre there is at least an attempt at exploring interesting territory – we are in a parallel universe in which everyone is accompanied by a 'daemon' – an animal representation of their personality, and a comfort in times of trouble. Meanwhile, a shadowy authoritarian body, "the Magisterium", is abducting children and performing daemon amputations. Too much daemon, too much free will, too little for the Magisterium to do.

The religious resonances are obvious, but the film doesn't make any explicit commentary on Christianity. Rather, its enemy is the misuse of power to force people to think or act against the exercise of freedom. The image of severing our connection to that which keeps us in a state of wonder is a powerful one; and The Golden Compass does a good job of reminding us just why children can sometimes understand things that confound adults.

But, as is typically the case with such large canvas "family films," the antidote proposed is nothing more than violence on a massive scale. I have not read the acclaimed Philip Pullman books on which this film – the first in a trilogy – is based, so I don't know where the story leads, or if the huge fight at the crescendo of the movie is proportionate to the text. But while the film of The Golden Compass is angry about religious and cultural imperialism, its response is strangely Nietzschean – the reassertion of individualism and the use of physical brute force appear to be the only answer it can think of.

At the same time, it's so muddled as a film - having clearly been made by a studio breathing down the talented director Chris Weitz's neck, with scenes ended before they're finished, and a script that doesn't seem to know where it's going - that it maybe shouldn't be taken anywhere near as seriously as some angry activists think.

It's surreal watching a film like this, for you feel like you're being told something over and over again that you already know: religious power can be a dangerous mix, and so needs to be handled with care and be accountable to the community. This film wants to think that religion and power can never be used for good; and yet, in its unthinking embrace of survival of the fittest/might as right philosophy, it may actually end up on the same side as the neocons and religious imperialists it seeks to condemn.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

After more than six years of field exercises in some of the most grueling weather our country offers, I am rarely affected by even the most chilling winter rains. Months of accumulated time in the forests of North Carolina, the deserts of California, and the wetlands of Louisiana - training for war has built up in me a bit of immunity to succumbing to the shivers. However, there is one thing that pierces my calloused exterior with ease.

Tremors begin in my chest—tiny convulsions shortening my breath. They quickly spread to my upper back and neck before spreading throughout my body. Even now as I write, my fingers pause over many keys, timing the moment they may strike with relative certainty that I will not have to delete keystrokes. My breath becomes shallow and I feel warmth leave my hands and feet.

In a tab on my browser, a Washington Post article lies hidden behind my word processing program. It is a story that hits horrifically close to home. It speaks of Army Lieutenant Elizabeth Whiteside, facing court-martial—being prosecuted for attempted suicide—while rehabilitating in the Psychiatric Ward of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The same officer had served in the prison that sent Saddam to be hanged, in the Iraqi government's illusion of redemptive violence.

Days ago, another article, from AlterNet, described a recent CBS investigation that found an alarming trend in those who have served our country. I would never have believed the finding had it not been for the devastating news Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) received last Tuesday. One of our active members had taken their own life. Their spouse, another IVAW member who suffers from PTSD, had found the body the night prior.

In 2005, an average of 17 vets committed suicide every day. No, that is not a typo: 17 every day. More alarming is the response within the Armed Forces - which is disturbingly outlined in the case of 1st Lt. Whiteside, wherein a clinical diagnosis is being utterly ignored in the interest of saving face. At the same time, many of our vets' disability claims are being verifiably reduced or denied. This treatment sends one strikingly clear message to those who have served and sacrificed: you are not worth the effort. Is it any wonder why vets of all generations are more prone to homelessness and suicide than any other demographic?

The church has historically labeled suicide an unforgivable sin, as the opportunity for repentance destroys itself with the victim's final breath. However, before labeling suicide as "the coward's way out," I think we need to look at our own corporate complicity in these deaths. In our modern era, we have not learned from the ancient orthodoxy that taught warriors to remove themselves from the community for a period of reflection and healing before reentering.

Today, a soldier can move from Kirkuk to New York in a matter of hours. What does that do to their grasp of reality? When they cry out for our holistic (not superficial) support, we fumble about, feeding them gross misinterpretations of scripture such as the Just War Theory, hoping to ease their consciences with hollow justifications. When they find no solace in that, we walk away confused about why we could not "fix their problem," casting shame upon those who can find no affirmation.

I don't think a transcendently benevolent God is that insensitive. I think God feels their pain long before anyone on earth accepts the responsibility to share in Christ's saving work, which begins even before the seed of self-hatred is sown. Surely we are not so blinded by our own plank that we fail to see that if we will not share their pain, we shall share their guilt. A suicide is anything but a personal transgression; it reflects an outright failure of community. Our heart should ache for all those who have been suffocated of hope, beaten to the point of desperation by a world that offers no source of redemptive healing for the beaten and broken.

I wonder if we get so defensive because there is no room for restitution, no scapegoat upon which to place blame. We hastily label it a personal sin, as we are made impotent by the inability to cast judgment. We forget that indeed a murder has taken place, but that the stones lay in our own two hands. It is not one stone that kills a person, but many; not one sin that destroys a life, but an accumulation. The truth leaves us naked, and fig leaves held tenuously together by half-truths and moral manipulations are all that conceal us from reality.

My fingers still quiver and the quakes in my chest have not subsided. My joints ache with grief and my hands still have no warmth in them. I am sick with disgust and contempt for the systems we have in place and their utter failure in our national time of need. This frustration is sin crouching at my door, threatening to overcome me, but I can be its master. I am not incapable of overcoming anger with compassion, defeating hubris with humility. May God have mercy on me. May I rest in peace. May God enable me to be the change I wish to see, to reach those close to death's door and be Christ's heart and hands to the least among us.

May God direct us all in being the prophetic witness to our government, to help us create means of healing for those who sacrifice their mental and physical health. May the author and protector of life give us hearts of flesh and rebuke us every time we marginalize and dehumanize our brothers and sisters by casting the stones of disregard, indifference, and neglect.

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 currently resides in Camden, New Jersey, in an intentional Christian community called Camden House, where he continues to seek ways to wage peace wherever he goes. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.

Suddenly it seems there's a full-scale war going on in our neighborhood, and we and our neighbors here are in a new kind of danger.

On their way back to college after helping out at our weekly dinner party, our friends Jenny and Alyssa stopped at an intersection and noticed a group of guys milling around in the early evening, less than a block from our church. A moment later, guns started firing on both sides of them, and, before they could pull away, four bullets entered their car. They weren't hurt, but they could have been killed.

The next night, a few blocks away, four men carrying automatic weapons walked by our friend Helen as she was sitting on her front steps watching her grandchildren play. As she hustled the kids inside, those men shot up her block.

Two days later, back on our church's corner, an older kid I know named Wu took a bullet in the foot just after midnight. When I asked him about it yesterday he brushed me off, but I know he's scared, and well he should be. You see, unlike our college girls or Miss Helen, Wu knows exactly what's going on around here. He's part of it.

The bottom line is that earlier this year a local guy named Turtle was murdered in a bar. There were plenty of witnesses, but none of them would testify against the killer. Evidently, as friends of the victim, they wanted him to be released so they could take care of him in their own way. Of course, the killer has friends too. However, nobody on either side seems to be able to shoot straight—or is willing to hold their fire until after the rest of us are safely tucked in.

Marty and I are genuinely afraid - for our neighbors, for the folks in our little community, and especially for our precious Miranda and Roman. And, of course, we are doing all we can to keep them safe in the midst of this trouble.

Then again, we are not doing the one thing that would keep them safest of all right now: We are not putting them out of harm's way. We are not moving. On the contrary, every day we are quite intentionally rooting ourselves more deeply in this neighborhood, in spite of our frequent inclinations to cut and run.

Miss Helen has no choice in the matter. She must live here, or someplace like here. Likewise with Wu (though he could at least choose to be part of the solution from now on, instead of part of the problem). But Marty and I, Ric and Karen, Donna and Jeff - we all could go if we chose to, which is probably the most important thing that sets us apart in this neighborhood, for better and for worse. We're educated and connected in ways that mean we can never really be poor, no matter how little we may make or live on. Poverty, after all, is not so much the absence of money as it is the absence of choices.

Right now, though, it is those choices that keep Marty and I up at night, even more than the gunfire. We wonder what it means to say we love our neighbors if we aren't willing to stay with them here. We wonder what it means to say we love our children if we aren't willing to take them away. And we wonder what it means to say we love God if we still can't always tell the difference between God's will and our own desires and insecurities.

Bart Campolo is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks, writes, and blogs www.bartcampolo.com about grace, faith, loving relationships and social justice. Bart is the leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship www.thewalnuthillsfellowship.org in inner-city Cincinnati. He is also founder of Mission Year www.missionyear.org, which recruits committed young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods across the USA, and executive director of EAPE, which develops and supports innovative, cost-effective mission projects around the world.

When a film ends with the recounting of a dream in which a weather-beaten, life-weary man searches for the fire his father is building to warm them, it's impossible not to think of the love we all yearn for and can hopefully muster. It's also a welcome spiritual respite when that film has seduced its audience on a journey into a hell of the relentless violence that follows a man after he steals drug money in the naïve belief that its owners might ignore him, and the slow-moving chase that ensues when a truly psychopathic person pursues the man and the cash. No Country for Old Men, the new picture from the Coen Brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, is probably the most accomplished film released this year.

I'll do my best to avoid spoilers, as it would be unfair to assume that readers have seen it. So I must skirt around the issues that cause me to praise this film so highly. In short, No Country for Old Men is a slow, thoughtful, frightening, and beguiling film about the selfishness of people and the desperate need to restore the virtue of community bonds. Its central character – called Anton Chigurh, and played by Javier Bardem – is one of the most titanic characterizations of evil intent I've ever seen in a film. He simply kills what gets in his way, and even plays sport with some of his potential victims - inviting them to toss a coin to determine their fate. Josh Brolin is the man who finds the money belonging to Chigurh's employers, and Tommy Lee Jones the sheriff baffled by the trail of death that ensues in their wake.

We follow these characters - scared of the killer, ashamed of the thief, and hoping against hope for the sheriff. We look away from the screen when the violence occurs, but may perhaps feel a little horrified by the fact that a part of us still wants to watch. And when one character finally stands up to Chigurh, it is not with physical violence, but by simply speaking and refusing to accept his games, forcing him to face the fact that he, and he alone, is responsible for his murderous ways. This film does not suggest that – as some critics have implied – there is no way to stop evil, but rather that we live in an age where we need to find new ways of resisting the violence many of us face. It doesn't provide simplistic answers, but suggests that the path may be found in such things as renewing the bonds of community and mutual respect, refusing to accept the moral reasoning of those who resort to force at the drop of a hat, and embracing something like the vision of the 5th century BCE Chinese thinker Mozi:

'If every man were to regard the pain of others as his own person, who would inflict pain and injury on others?'

The country where violence is king may indeed be no country for old men; but, to my mind at least, the film that takes this term as its title offers nothing less than a prophetic reflection on the most important question facing humanity today: Where do we go from here?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

Two months ago, for the first time in my eight years living in Washington, D.C., I was mugged. Two young men rolled up in a pickup truck while I was unloading groceries from my car in the alley next to my condo building. They made me lie on the ground, held a gun to my neck as they took my money, and then locked me in the trunk of my car as they made their getaway. Fortunately I still had my cell phone in my pocket and was able to call 911 from the trunk. The police were able to free me, as well as pursue and arrest two suspects who are now in the District court system.

I was not hurt, they took little of real value, and I feel like I've done a pretty good job of refusing to let fear change the way I live. Fairly or unfairly, with my privileged status, I'm not worried about my future or my survival. I am worried about those two young men, and many others like them. What influences, role models, or lack of positive options allowed them to make such stupid and destructive choices?

In reflecting on my mugging, I've only recently begun to connect a few dots. For the past six years, I've been on the board of Urban Family Development (UFD), a nonprofit organization that currently runs programs for after school enrichment, tutoring, and mentoring - and we have lots of big dreams for expansion. However, it's always been a struggle to find funding and volunteers for this kind of work with such a great need, many worthy ministries, and a limited pool people willing to sacrifice their time or money.

I don't know what the government of D.C. is going to spend to prosecute and potentially imprison those muggers, but I'm pretty sure it would be enough to give UFD a solid financial boost - and then some. The most visible anti-crime measures in my neighborhood consist of portable floodlights rotated around sketchy street corners. A church friend who once interned at UFD and is now a D.C. policeman confirms what a band-aid these strategies are, even as he tries to do his job with integrity. Instead of high-visibility, low-impact band-aids, I want UFD to provide better options for as many youth as possible, so that fewer young men and women grow up to make stupid choices like wrecking their lives to steal my $20. I want to execute a preemptive strike on this kind of stupidity by supporting a program that provides a safe place for children, gives them mentors through the difficult years of adolescence, and then celebrates their success - all of which UFD does.

Why can't we - both as a society and as a church - do better at providing positive choices for our youth? And for me it is a both/and. I've seen more small-government conservatives willing roll up their sleeves and volunteer as tutors. Meanwhile, it's mostly the justice-minded liberals who march and lobby to end poverty and violence. How can we get more liberals to show up at UFD and more conservatives to advocate? (I know these categories are unfair and far from universal, but I've seen this dynamic over and over in my own church experience.)

Government at every level must do better at making the needed resources available, if for no other reason that the churches simply don't have the resources to do it all on their own. But the church must also be the conscience of the state - challenging not only with words, but by example in serving and caring for those at the margins of society. Conversely, the words of the prophet Jeremiah may inspire the church, but they were originally spoken to a king: "Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the Lord." (Jeremiah 22:15b-16)

Consider this as the onslaught of opportunities for "Canned Compassion" wash over us with the holiday season, and look for opportunities to do both justice and mercy, not with band-aids of a march here or a meal there, but with sustained service and activism that seeks real healing for our communities.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is web editor for Sojourners.

Gaza is a place isolated and unknown. Although the small coastal strip is all too often in the media spotlight, this can be a source just as much for generalization as information.

The murder of Rami Ayyad one month ago today was a source for such confusion concerning what would have brought about such a horrendous act and who would have carried it out. It is too simple to suspect that which is unknown or those who seem to be opposing "us."

An AFP article quotes Rami's brother Ramzi explaining his reaction:

"We are not afraid of Hamas because as a government they are responsible for protecting people. We are afraid of those who are more extreme than Hamas."

Palestinian Christians number around 75,000, but there are only 2,500 - most of them Greek Orthodox - living in the Gaza Strip among nearly 1.5 million Muslims, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Gaza has no history of tensions between the two communities, and Christians say they are bound to their Muslim neighbours by shared suffering.

The article also quotes Gaza City's only Catholic priest:

"Christians are isolated just like Muslims. They are scared just like Muslims," says Father Manuel Musallam, the head of Gaza's 200-strong Catholic community, his lips trembling with anger against Israel. ...

In a rousing sermon, Musallam - an ardent Palestinian nationalist from the West Bank who Israel has only allowed out of the Gaza Strip twice since he assumed his post in 1995 - called on his weary flock to remain strong.

"The Church has always been under threat, and it has always endured. Rami was not the first martyr, and in the life of the Church he will not be the last," he said, his soaring baritone voice echoing off the stone walls.

"To those who are scared, to those who want to flee Gaza, we must open our hearts, our doors, and our pockets ... and we must always remember the sacrifice of Christ on the cross."

Some may fear that Gaza is going the way of Iraq, spiraling into chaos and out of control. How would you and I manage in a community completely closed; isolated from the rest of the world; being barred from travel, schooling, and work opportunities; locked in an enclave of unemployment and humanitarian dependence? We need to ask ourselves what role we, our governments, have played in allowing such events. This is a question of chicken and egg and it is too simple to blame Palestinians, Muslims, or extremists without looking at the context they exist within.

If people want to take a minute to examine the complexities of Gaza's conflict, here is a 30 minute BBC documentary that is an excellent resource for this:

Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian who lived and worked in Gaza from 2005-2007. He blogs at: tabulagaza.com

I narrowly missed being attacked with an axe last night on my way out of a cinema showing the disturbing film Rendition, about the practice, begun in the Clinton era, of the U.S. sending terrorism suspects to countries that allow torture as an interrogation technique. I managed to escape unharmed - mostly due to the fact that the axe was made of plastic and being wielded by a child who couldn't have been more than six years old, but whose parents had decided to fit him with a grim reaper mask for their trip to the mall. Given that I'd just been confronted with a fictionalization of the realities of rendition - which has its roots at least ostensibly in responding to violence - I was not in the mood to see the kid's Hallowe'en costume as innocuous. Our children are raised – like our forebears and ourselves – on the notion that violence is good, and that it can even be fun. At the very least, our culture does not nurture sufficient challenge to the idea that violence works. It was bleakly ironic that one of the characters in Rendition says that war is "the only way to freedom." He's an Islamic militant, but these words also find easy echo in the mouths of those who rattle sabers on behalf of Western interests in the Middle East.

Rendition is not a great film by any stretch. Its characters are mostly uncomplicated - Reese Witherspoon, for example, rarely seems more than mildly inconvenienced by the fact that her husband is being tortured in North Africa. But it would be a shame if the weaknesses of the film drowned out the wider questions it raises about the absurdity of the practice of rendition, and, wider still, the contemporary values that appear to endorse the use of horrific violence in response to perceived threat.

We know that torture does not produce results proportionate to its method. Indeed, it can simply pour fuel on the fire of ethnic conflict - never mind the fact that franchising it out to a second party because it doesn't fit our value system is morally nonsensical. Theodore Roszak may have spoken the prophecy of the age when he wrote that "people try nonviolence for a week, and when it does not work, they go back to violence, which hasn't worked for centuries." It is obviously a key task of this generation to tell a better story than the one that narrates the current dominant paranoid paradigm - wherein, as I wrote here a few weeks ago, the only way out presented is the arrogance through which everybody tries to destroy everybody else. This idea - that being right (or being perceived to be strong) is more important than doing good - is not true, in spite of its political appeal (or effectiveness as an evangelistic tool). But what alternative story can we tell that prioritises nonviolence over its opposite? In other words, what will a reformation of our culture's values regarding violence actually require of us?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

The last time I saw Rami, we were at the beach near Gaza City. A group of us were in the water and I was trying to force Rami underwater. Rami was a big man, weighing at least twice what I do. Needless to say, I did not manage to get him to budge. When he in turn came after me, all I could do to protect myself from suffocating under him was flee. Eventually I was able to sneak up on him under water, pull his legs out from under him, and escape again.

There are around 3,000 Christians living in Gaza today. Rami was the office director of the Teacher's Bookstore, a Christian bookstore in downtown Gaza City. The store sells Christian books and offers computer and language lessons, which are attended by Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip. When I would visit the place, Rami was always there on his swivel chair cracking jokes. Few people entered that did not already know him. Gaza can be a place of sadness, and Rami always reminded me much more of the mentality of Egyptians - laughing and joking no matter how depressing life becomes.

On Saturday afternoon, Rami closed his shop as he always did at 4:30 p.m. He had told his brother that three days earlier he had sensed he was being followed home after work, but had not made much of it. Two hours after closing up, he called his wife and told her with much uncertainty that he hoped to be home in two hours and not to worry. He was not able to say where he was or why he was there. Rami never came home. Friends and family searched for him until late into the night. At 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, his body was found beaten, a bullet through his head, another through his chest. His wallet, ID, and watch were gone.

No one has made any statements, no group has taken responsibility. This is the first time in Gaza's recent history that a Christian has been kidnapped and killed. Sadly, such incidents do occur in revenge killings - usually of political nature - but never with religious causes. In Gaza, Muslims and Christians live and die side by side, sharing every element of the Israeli occupation - a reality for as long as most Gazans alive today can remember. Rami had no political or factional involvement, nor was his family implicated in any feuds. Rami's boss was quoted in The Independent saying, "We don't know who was behind the killing or why. Was it for money, or was it because he was selling Bibles?"

Gaza is a place overrun with violence. Readers of this blog have followed the complexities of the makeup of Gaza's social and political makeup, I will not repeat again what I have so often said before. Violence here has deep roots in injustice and occupation, but beyond this, every individual, every political grouping, and every community makes the choice of projecting their experience outward and returning violence for violence. In Gaza, victims of bloodshed often themselves become shedders of blood.

Rami experienced the harshness of occupation, the limitation of curfews, Israeli military incursions, civilian targeted sonic booms, restrictions on travel beyond the 365 square kilometer confines of the Gaza Strip, and the strife of civil war. Rami chose to respond to violence with laughter, love, and peace. The strength to live such a life is what I hope for Rami's killers. It is what I hope for every Palestinian living and born into the living hell of Gaza today.

Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian who lived and worked in Gaza from 2005-2007. He blogs at: tabulagaza.com

The Kingdom opens with a striking historical montage, depicting the roots of Saudi Arabia and why this country means so much to the U.S. We're soon plunged into a horrific attack, viewing the killing of whole American families and the Saudi police who guard them in compounds where Islamic law does not apply. It's not long before Jamie Foxx and his intrepid FBI colleagues are secretly flying to the kingdom to show the Saudi police how to solve crimes.

The film constructs all the clichés of cops traveling to foreign lands – there's a local officer who our own hero at first dislikes, then grows to love, then is killed in a hail of bullets; the token "good Muslim" gets to die a martyr to the cause of keeping Foxx and the rest of us safe; while Jennifer Garner seeks to undo the trauma of violence by offering a lollipop to a child who has just witnessed their rampage. The local State Department official is ineffectual, committed only to keeping the FBI from doing anything that would annoy the Saudi hierarchy.

This film wants to be a serious exploration of U.S.-Middle East relations, and in its portrayal of Saudi street life it manages to be more accurate than many. But ultimately, The Kingdom is in love with violence. The modus operandi of the FBI characters is to look for evidence and then shoot the guilty. It's mob rule, more akin to Wild West stereotypes than even the most right-wing interpretation of due process. Near the beginning of the film, one character tells a grieving friend of one of those killed in the attack, "we're going to kill them all." The friend is relieved and stops crying. The film's implication is that so should we.

Having lived through the civil conflict in northern Ireland, I know closely what it means for people to kill each other over politics, ethnicity, and religion - for nearly 40 years. We have finally brought the violent part of the conflict to an end, not because one party achieved victory over another, but because we agreed to share political power. Some of the very people who supported the killing are now holding office in a devolved local government administration. Former sworn enemies are now responsible for such things as agriculture policy, education, and property tax rates.

Our "peace" was not won through sentimentality, nor did it come by repaying violence with violence. Peace processes are not often about traditional notions of justice – indeed peace processes often necessitate that injustices be done. For example, the release of prisoners who only a few years earlier had ripped out people's teeth or smashed open their skulls is a very painful thing for their victims to observe. But in transitional societies, it may be the only thing that allows everyone to have a new start, whether they deserve it or not.

It should go without saying that "we're going to kill them all," or dealing with guilty people simply by shooting them, does not make it easy for the contrition necessary for reconciliation to happen. It unequivocally does not reduce the tensions that produce only more violence.

The story we tell ourselves about justice in large part determines what we will stomach in the real world. In this regard, perhaps The Kingdom knows more than I want to give it credit for. A film that ends with both the American hero and the future leaders of Islamic militancy swearing, "We're going to kill them all," doesn't just understand the human tendency to seek violent revenge, but prophesies what planet earth will look like if we don't rethink our approaches to violence, justice, and how to have security without destroying our neighbors.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

It's intriguing how many current films address questions of revenge and justice. Like all cinematic epidemics, this is a mixed bag, from Quentin Tarantino's alternately boring and horrifying car-crash fest Death Proof, just released on DVD, to the slasher-style terror of Death Sentence starring Kevin Bacon, to the mature and moving reflection on justice and fatherhood in 3:10 to Yuma, to the ostensibly more thoughtful treatment of vengeance in Jodie Foster's new film The Brave One.

The Brave One begins with a murder that the filmmakers show in subtle but horrendous detail. We really feel the loss of human life that occurs when her character's boyfriend is beaten to death in front of her. Her subsequent fear and desire for revenge are presented as entirely natural responses; in this regard, the film is intelligent and humane. Far too many representations of the aftermath of violence in popular culture refuse to treat it with respect. But when she actually starts killing people, despite the fact that her victims are all portrayed as evil, the movie becomes something other than the serious exploration of how to deal with violence that it purports to be. The victim becomes a perpetrator, and the audience is made complicit.

Throughout its two-hour running time, I hoped the film would suggest that the revenge Foster's character takes does her more harm than good, and certainly does not end or even come close to challenging the spiral of violence in the world. My hope was unfounded, for the film not only presents its protagonist as doing what is normal, but ultimately endorses her violence as the only way to resist evil. In a world where finding alternatives to conflict-as-usual may be our greatest challenge, we desperately need more nuanced investigations of how to respond to violent threats and injustices than this.

What's surprising is that both Jodie Foster and her director, Neil Jordan, know better than this, having between them made smarter films such as The Accused and The Crying Game. But in producing The Brave One, a film that appears to co-opt the values of the war on terror into the domestic life of a character who works for an NPR-style radio station, they have created what The New York Times has called "a pro-lynching film that even liberals can love." Of course, doing nothing in response to injustice will not make the world a less violent place, but neither will suggesting that the only thing we can do is to use the same tactics as our opponents.

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

A few weeks ago we looked at the calendar and saw that Sept. 11 is now officially titled "Patriot Day." We started thinking of what would be an appropriate way to celebrate and remember this day, especially for those of us who have caught a little of the ex-patriot spirit of a new kingdom… you know, an "in the world but not of it" sort of thing. Then we heard that the film The Camden 28 was going to debut nationally on PBS, and with suspiciously brilliant timing -- on Patriot Day.

My Sept. 11 was surreal, heart wrenching, and with a little mystical dazzle. We'll get to the film in a minute.

I had originally hoped to post this yesterday morning (Sept. 11), partly to give a little shout-out about the film, yada yada, but then came the drama. As I was writing my original little ditty, "Reflections of an Ex-patriot," from my room here in north Philly, a fight broke out among some of the kids on our block. Then their parents came out and the fight grew louder and louder, until our whole block was a chaotic brawl. It's actually been a while since we've had a fight like this one. It just kept building and building, consuming our neighborhood, reminding me of the inferno a few weeks back. Ugliness. Ugliness I can hear out my window and see in Iraq.

I thought of how quickly revenge escalates from a couple of kids to a block filled with rage. I thought of Sept. 11, of Iraq. Obviously, I couldn't just keep writing about peace while a war raged on my street. So, out I went (hence the tardiness and change of the title on this piece).

I remember hearing a definition of idolatry as "something you would sacrifice your children for." There is nothing we fight more passionately for than flag and countries, biology, and nation. And so the fire rages on. But I am thankful for days where we pause to mourn, to honor life, and to cry together. I cried with a few neighbors yesterday about how people hurt each other, and I cried with a church last night over a world that can't stop hitting back. Before the showing of The Camden 28, we celebrated Mass in Camden. We prayed that God would heal the brokenness of our world, our cities, and our hearts. The scripture for Mass was Romans 8, which describes all of creation as groaning as in the pains of childbirth. Today is a day for groaning. And yet we were reminded that these are the pains of birth -- not death -- but birth. There is still hope, even on a day marked by death, and death after death. In the end the world is pregnant with hope, the hope of a kingdom other than Rome or America. And we were reminded that we are the midwives of that kingdom. We are to help give birth to the new world.

After Mass we viewed the film. It is an award-winning documentary about a group of 28 of our friends here in Philly/Camden who entered a federal building during the Vietnam War and destroyed the draft cards. I'm going to do my best not to give away all the best moments in the film in case you didn't get a chance to see it (if you don't want to hear any more skip this paragraph), but there is one moment in the film that is unbelievably redemptive. One of the 28 had become an informant to the FBI, but during the course of things his son was in a tragic accident and died. Our priest here in Camden, Michael Doyle (also one of the 28), was asked to do the funeral. I thought to myself, scandalous, but what is even more scandalous is that brother Michael DID IT! He tells the story of how the funeral was filled with FBI agents and peace activists, and how the little group of activists surrounded their Judas with love and friendship. At the funeral Michael's message was reconciliation and grace.

In the end, the informant ended up testifying on the side of the defense, offering instrumental testimony before a very attentive jury. But beyond the drama of the courtroom is the story of forgiveness and grace. That is what the world is hungry for, pregnant for -- especially on Sept. 11.

The evening ended last night as the filmmaker joined us in Camden. Members of the Camden 28 presented him with the clock from the courtroom here in Camden where the trial took place. It is now permanently set for 2:30 p.m., the time where these prophets heard those beautiful two words: "not guilty."

The only thing that could have made the day more perfect would have been another little trip to the federal building ... maybe next year.

Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, 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.

Check local listings for future broadcasts of The Camden 28.

It was a big day for a general on Capitol Hill yesterday, as Gen. David Petraeus made his long-awaited "progress report" to a joint House committee. But one congressman remembered the last time a general's testimony drew such public attention. It was on April 1967 that Gen. William Westmoreland made his speech to Congress about how much progress we were making in Vietnam. Later, in November 1967, the general spoke to the National Press Club saying, "With 1968, a new phase is starting ... we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view." It was in that speech where we heard the historic phrase about the "light at the end of the tunnel." Then, January 1968 saw the Tet Offensive and the beginning of the painful end of Vietnam.

U.S. deaths in the war from 1956 to 1967 totaled 19,560. But after 1968, there were 38,633 more (including those who died from wounds after the war ended with the ignominious departure of U.S. troops in 1973). More than twice as many of the names on the black wall that is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial came after it had become clear that the war strategy had failed.

There were lots of "facts" offered up yesterday by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. While the security situation is mixed, said the general, the Bush "surge" is working and things are getting better. He recommended that the increased force levels be maintained through next spring and into the summer (give or take a brigade or two). Crocker, while admitting the political situation is "difficult" and "will take time," suggested that a unified and democratic central government in Iraq is "attainable."

Of course, independent and nonpartisan assessments of the levels of violence, the continuing sectarian conflict, and the success of the Iraqi government are quite different. According to The Washington Post, Comptroller Gen. David M. Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), painted a far bleaker picture of Iraqi progress last week, issuing a report that said the Baghdad government has failed to meet 11 of the 18 political benchmarks established by the U.S. Congress. And despite the U.S. troop surge, the report concluded that it is "unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased." In his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Walker and the GAO labeled the Iraqi government "dysfunctional" and reported that "overall key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billon in reconstruction funds."

The Post also reported on a second independent report ordered by Congress, which called the national police "dysfunctional" and riddled with sectarianism and corruption. The 20-member commission, headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr., said Iraq's security forces will not be able to fulfill its obligations for at least 12 to 18 months. The report called for a "strategic shift" in Iraq, with U.S. forces reducing their massive "footprint" in the country where we have the clear perception as "occupiers."

President Bush said the "surge" was to create "breathing space" for political reconciliation among Iraq's warring factions. And that has clearly not happened, despite the reports of mild security improvements in some areas. In fact, on Sunday's Meet the Press, Gen. Jones said the opposite was true -- that real security in Iraq was not possible without political reconciliation. And because there has been no political reconciliation because of the surge, it is so far a policy failure. Despite the surge, sectarian violence still reigns in Iraq, young Americans remain caught in the crosshairs of a civil war, and the bloody insurgency/counter-insurgency continues the kill each week.

But the general with four stars on his shoulders and a chest full of medals says we should soldier on, which is what we all knew the president had already decided to do. When was the last time you saw a general saying he was losing a war?

Where there has been real progress on security, like in Anbar province, it is because of tribal leaders (other Muslims) getting tired of the religious extremism of al Qaeda terrorists -- it is not because of the surge. In addition, because the area is virtually all Sunni, the promise of Sunni/Shiite reconciliation is low. But in the undermining of support for Islamic radicalism among other Sunni Muslims, there are clearly lessons to learn about strategy -- but more than military strategies.

Yet the Bush administration still refuses to learn any lessons from the 9/11 anniversary other than military responses and, indeed with Iraq, in a misguided and disastrous military response. Iraq was not the central theater of the "war on terrorism" until the U.S. intervention turned it into a terrorist training camp and recruiting ground for a new generation of suicide bombers.

The Iraq debacle reveals military solutions to be among the least effective in the battle against terrorism. Bin Laden's latest video reminds us that he is still out there. Does anybody really think we are safer than we were before 9/11 or that Iraq has made us more secure?

And the Bush administration has not even begun to learn the biggest lesson of 9/11 -- that unilateral strategies are the most ineffective response to the real threats of global terrorism. But the new and creative multilateral strategies we most need to undermine and defeat religious extremism and political terrorism are blocked from emerging in the kind of unipolar world that the U.S. still wants to dominate.

For example, any serious opponent of the war in Iraq knows that having so disastrously intervened, the U.S. is indeed responsible for stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq in ways that protect against the potential post-war bloodletting that the White House continually warns us about. But how we best do that is the critical question. A real argument for international involvement and multilateral solutions can be made for that very task, one that includes a primary focus on regional diplomacy to prevent more destabilization in the Middle East. But it is, in fact, the continued U.S. occupation that most obstructs the possible international interventions that could save Iraq and the region.

In the meantime, it is the human cost of the continuing war that is most painful. Every week more Americans will die, along with an untold number of Iraqis. And there is no end to the killing in sight with President Bush's intransigence and Gen. Petraeus' promises. After today's testimonies on Capitol Hill, it's clear that the next war is already being prepared -- a war with Iran. A state of permanent warfare is now the U.S. strategy for defeating terrorism, which will only make it worse.

John McCain keeps talking about "honor" and hopes the surge will help his wilting presidential campaign to surge again. But there is no honor in a war that was fought on false pretenses, that sends young Americans on hopeless missions only to die, that slaughters the innocents in even greater numbers and doesn't even bother to count the dead, and learns nothing from its mistake of relying on military solutions instead of political ones. Because George Bush now compares Iraq to Vietnam, I will too. The endless killing of my generation in Vietnam was justified by one changing rationale after another, but the last justification for continuing the killing was reduced to "bringing our boys home with their heads high." We're hearing that again now in talk about "winning" and "credibility" and "honor." Well, the Vietnam boys came home with their heads disillusioned, their bodies broken, and their hearts sickened.

We probably won't end this strategy of destruction and defeat until fathers (like me) and mothers decide that their sons and daughters won't participate in it anymore. So last night, I talked to my 9- and 4-year-old sons and told them I never want them to fight in America's misbegotten wars.

I wrote here a few weeks ago about the new Die Hard film, and especially how I felt it represented a disturbing advance in the portrayal of heroes as violent men whose main purpose is to uphold materialism. Among other things, Bruce Willis' character, John McClane, kicks a woman half to death, then drops an SUV on her head for good measure, and we're supposed to applaud. Surprisingly enough, the comments on this blog were mostly critical of what I said – which is of course perfectly fine, given the freedom of discourse that exists on this site. But it was ironic to find that the very point I was making – that we have become inured to violence in the real world by its portrayal on screen – appeared to be borne out by many of the comments.

So it was with a sense of trepidation that I approached The Bourne Ultimatum, another film marketed as a violent revenge fantasy in which another American hero fights his way to freedom from the bottom up. I had enjoyed its predecessors, but not enough to be excited about this second sequel in the story of a CIA operative who is brainwashed into carrying out murder missions for his handlers, and who now wants his identity back.

On the surface, this is an exceptionally good action film – there are undeniably exciting sequences, filmed as if the camera was attached to Matt Damon's belt. The plot rattles along at a heckuva pace, and the story centers on a thoughtful question: what happens to people who realise that the secrets they keep for the sake of someone else's idea of "national security" are not worth the price of their soul?

The central character is obviously not a typical action hero. He has doubts about the meaning of what he has done for president and country; he has loved and lost; he fears that he has passed the point of redemption. Also, unlike the John McClanes of this world, he fights because he hasto, not just because the director sees yet another opportunity to titillate the audience's desire to see metal things being blown up. Jason Bourne comes to a self-understanding in this film that there are some things not worth doing even for the sake of your country. He is horrified by his past; he wants his identity back because he recognises it's the most important thing – perhaps the only realthing - he has. The philosopher Simone Weil once wrote that the most important possession we have is the ability to say 'I' – to take responsibility for acting in the world. In this, she echoed Rudyard Kipling's adage that each of us "should strive for the privilege of owning one's life." The Bourne Ultimatum provocatively reminds us that an uncritical approach to, for instance, defense, or economics, or prison, or immigration policy involves ceding ownership of one's life to "the authorities"; doing it "just because they say so." All too often, refusing to ask questions about the status quo only serves to keep injustice in its perfect equilibirum. Unthinking patriotism or ideology of the kind that allows secret sins – whether of deceit, or conspiracy, or killing - to be carried out in our name because "the country" depends on it meets its match in Jason Bourne.

The Bourne Ultimatum is directed by Paul Greengrass, the British film-maker responsible for last year's recreation of what may have happened on United 93. That film was a stirring and moving reminder of the horror of 9/11, but it managed to take a sober enough view that it tended to inspire mourning rather than feelings of vengeance. Greengrass' intelligent treatment of violence continues at the climax of The Bourne Ultimatum, when the protagonist looks into the eyes of a would-be assassin and asks, "Do you even know why you're supposed to kill me?" Even though this film still derives much of its entertainment value from violent action sequences, it is at least honest enough to affirm the fact that those who live by the sword still have a pretty good chance of dying by it. It underlines Edmund Burke's statement about the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing. I'm glad that in a summer beset by exploding robots, women with machine guns for legs, and Bruce Willis killing people with cars for our pleasure, at least one action film is attempting to tell the truth about violence. To Bourne's final question I would add, "Do we even know why we are entertained by men and women killing each other?"

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

Ray LaMontagne’s recent album "Till the Sun Turns Black" ends with one of the most beautiful songs about peacemaking I’ve ever heard—in which he simply repeats the refrain "War is not the answer, the answer is within you" over the most delicately lilting instrumentation. It’s the kind of sentiment that could be accused of being too vague to have any practical meaning, but warm and positive enough to be popular. But there’s something about it that feels deeper than that.

It comes to mind as I sit in a cramped and crowded airport in Missouri, between cities on a trip that will take me from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest, meeting and talking with people seeking to explore faith at the margins of institutional Christianity. I’ll be part of a conference the week after next on the topic "Dangerous Living"(www.solitonnetwork.org)—a title ambiguous enough to invite further interrogation. The organizers aim to build a temporary community of fellow travelers asking questions and sharing experiences of what it means to follow the radical Jesus in a culture that often seems to privilege consumerism above all else and seeks to avoid anything resembling physical work at all costs. We’ll talk about faith and social justice—just what does it mean in our day to hear Jesus tell the rich young ruler how hard it is to get into the kingdom of heaven? We’ll investigate faith and authority: What kind of leadership is required when so many of our public role models leave so much to be desired? We’ll immerse ourselves in faith and creativity, hoping to become more attentive to the voice of God in art, film, music, and nature. Most of all, we will wonder together what it means to be stewards of the Christian tradition that we inherit without falling into the trap of religious imperialism. In other words, how can we take responsibility for sharing our faith without imposing it on others in a way that prevents anyone taking us seriously?

These questions were not far from my thoughts this afternoon, as we sat down for a meal at one of the in-house airport restaurants. Just after my Diet Coke arrived, the gentleman next to our table took a phone call, the first few lines of which went as follows:

‘Hi there—didn’t realize you were on that side of the pond. You looking for more bombers, or just drinking Irish car bombs?’

I froze in my seat, absorbing the impact of his comedic spin on the horrific conflict around which I grew up. I thought of the people I know back home in Belfast who have lost relatives or friends to bombs, sometimes hidden under their cars, and became so incensed that my body began to shake. It turns out that "Irish car bomb" is a name for a drink mixed from Bailey’s Irish Cream, whiskey, and Guinness. As the guy kept talking, I had to seriously consider whether or not to speak to him when the call was over. Wouldn’t it be a betrayal of all the Northern Ireland troubles’ dead if I remained silent? I freely admit that in the grand scheme of things, whether or not a burger-eating business-class traveler understands the pain he may cause by invoking the name of an insensitively-christened cocktail should not be the greatest of our concerns. But at the same time, I have come to believe that it is the small moments of dehumanization that allow the larger context of destruction on our planet to occur. What the late cultural critic Benjamin DeMott in the August issue of Harpers magazine calls the obsession with "impact"—the catharsis that is present when human beings watch images of other human beings violently killed—has become one of the driving forces of our society. Jokes about Irish car bombs not only reveal the ignorance of the speaker, but reinforce the often brutal way in which we are teaching ourselves to relate to each other.

In the end, I didn’t speak to our table neighbor; I felt that it would be unfair to make him carry the responsibility for all the angst I feel about the decades of death from which my home society is emerging. But when we have lost touch with our humanity—and the humanity of others—to the extent that we are willing to sacrifice the dignity of those who have died in war for the sake of the name of a drink, then perhaps our desire for "impact" is stronger than our hopes for peace. When Ray LaMontagne sings that the answer is "within you," might he just be suggesting that we already know that the path we’re on is the way of destruction? That, for a start, we could at least commit ourselves to being careful with the words we use for fear they may re-victimize people who have already suffered far too much?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

This story in today's Washington Post made my day. As a pacifist Mennonite, I can't count the number of times someone has posed "The Question": If someone had a gun to your loved one's head, and you could use lethal violence to save them, what would you do? This scenario that unfolded in a D.C. backyard doesn't fit that exact hypothetical scene in every detail, but it does help point out the absurdity of it—what are the chances that reacting violently in such a situation is guaranteed to save your loved one and only hurt or kill the "bad guy"?

At the very least, true stories like this one remind us that violence is never our only option:

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze—and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder, described as being in his 20s, to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants. ...

"I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

Of course, this story (and please, read the whole thing) is ripe with indirect biblical allusions—though the article makes no mention of any spiritual or philosophical motivations for anyone's actions. And of course, there's every possibility that in spite of a nonviolent response, it or similar situations might not have ended as happily—but Jesus never promised as much when he taught us to love our enemies and bless them. In fact, he promised the opposite. Still, it's beautiful when turning the other cheek, giving your shirt, and going the extra mile have the intended effect: confronting our enemies with our humanity—and their own.

Though theological arguments aside, I suppose another moral of the story could be, quite simply: In case of armed robbers, always have a bottle of good wine handy.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

We don’t need another election. We need an exorcism. It is this that leads me from vigil to vigil and I burned with it on the evening of March 16, when I participated in nonviolent civil resistance and was arrested with more than 200 others as part of the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. I shook from it in court some three months later when I pleaded “no contest” to failing to obey a lawful order.

There were 13 disciples in court that day, each with a unique mission. Many spoke beautifully to issues of amendments, traditions, permits, and codes. I ask you, sisters and brothers, what is our message? I wonder: Should we defend ourselves in finite opportunities to testify, or ought we defend the lowliest victims of war?

I stood at the podium that day, my throat dry and my hands cold, testifying to the message of the nonviolent Jesus. I stood and prayed there—as I had in front of the White House on that bitter cold night so many of us remember—strictly to relieve the ringing in my ears: speak for the dead or join them. I could not discuss the First Amendment or the parameters of the permit. Rather, I felt commissioned by God to speak to one truth alone: The frontline in Iraq is everywhere and the children have no place to hide. When I sat down I felt, but for a moment, clean.

Eda R. Uca is a member of Jonah House, an intentional faith-based resistance community in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of Ana's Girls: The Essential Guide to the Underground Eating Disorder Community Online.

Great helicopters and explosions abound, the witticisms are barbed, and the cinematography is silver-grey in Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free or Die Hard, depending on which empire you see it in). I was tired to start with, but the film couldn't wake me up. I vacillated between being bored and horrified, as Bruce Willis yet again stands in for the lone American male whose first resort is always violence (in the first film he was the archetype of a Vietnam War vet, assailed by terrorists on the one hand, and a frustrating civil service bureaucracy on the other; this time he clearly represents the guy who'd go to Iraq just because it's the right thing to do, even though he knows the government sending him is corrupt).

Bruce may well be caught in the middle between two kinds of bad guys—government flunkeys and monstrous villains—but this film makes it very clear where its allegiances lie: with the worship of commerce. The villain's consistent objective seems to be to destroying the U.S. financial system, partly to take some cash for himself, partly just to show the government where it is vulnerable. He's a public-service kind of terrorist, you see. One of the scenes that's clearly supposed to make us feel horrified takes place on the New York stock exchange floor, when the bad guy uses a computer virus to creating a selling frenzy. I have to say that I found it difficult to muster much sympathy for rich boys freaking out at the prospect of not being so rich any more, but given that the film was paid for by Mr. Murdoch, I imagine I'm not the movie's target demographic.

This scene, however, was not the most striking example of cynicism in Die Hard 4.0—that would be the moment where the extremely attractive Asian woman, played by Maggie Q, gets kicked and beaten by our surrogate Bruce, and eventually crushed and blown up by an SUV while Willis chuckles at having destroyed a hot chick. We're supposed to laugh along with him.

But that's not all—for the price of our ticket we get hatred of people who ask legitimate questions about government power, we get an air force pilot who does the wrong thing for the right reasons and therefore gets to escape with his body intact, we get a decent FBI chief who could pass for being Middle Eastern—you can almost hear the film-makers screaming, "Look at us! We're inclusive!" We even get a propaganda speech by the tech-geek nerd/ wacky sidekick guy confessing his realization that his previous ideas about challenging authoritarianism and supporting a more equitable distribution of wealth are the kind of beliefs that lead to America being blown up by thin cheek-boned terrorists with expensive hardware. He's an Apple geek, of course—and the computers used by the bad guys are right out of Steve Jobs' daydreams. Willis' character may be "a Timex watch in a digital world," but this film is pure Microsoft—battering down the competition with a utilitarian ethic that owes more to John Wayne's arrogant self-belief than anything resembling the beauty of being in favor of life.

Now I know I sound like a killjoy—which is, I suppose, what Bruce Willis does to a lot of people in this movie—but the question still remains:

Why is it that when we fear this kind of thing in the real world, we still want to be entertained by it?

Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com

“Norman, Harmeet and I have forgiven our captors,” says Jim Loney in yesterday’s op-ed to The Toronto Star. “Our reason is very simple. We've had enough with bombs and guns and gallows.”

Sojourners and I spent many an anxious moment while our compatriots in Christ with the Christian Peacemaker Teams were held captive in Baghdad between November 2005 and March 2006 (see Sojourners December 2006). In the end, this saga of modern martyrdom ended in the tragic death of Tom Fox and the ultimate release of Jim Loney, 42, Harmeet Singh Sooden, 34, and Norman Kember, 75, by British and American soldiers.

In November 2006, Jim, Harmeet, and Norman were told that an unspecified number of men alleged to be their kidnappers were in U.S. custody. According to Loney, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Scotland Yard asked them to testify in a trial to be conducted in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (see Paul Brenner’s authorization for the formation of the CCCI). An RCMP officer indicated, "The death penalty is on the table."

A recent report from the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq says the CCCI "consistently failed to meet minimum fair trial standards." Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark calls the CCCI a "meat grinder." "It reminds me of the reign of terror in Paris," he says. "You guillotine some, imprison others--it's unclear who's more fortunate." Amnesty International (AI) says at least 100 people have been executed and at least 270 more have been condemned to death by the CCCI.

In a May 23 op-ed to The Toronto Star, Loney told the RCMP that he won’t testify:

I cannot participate in a judicial process where the prospects of a fair trial are negligible, and more crucially, where the death penalty is a possibility. The death penalty is the legalization of blood vengeance. It is a cruel, degrading and irrevocable judgment. Take away the fancy legal rationale and the dignified court proceedings and what remains is an act of murder, plain and simple, no different than what was done to Tom Fox. Capital punishment is a manifestation of the very violence it claims to deter. Those who kidnapped us and murdered Tom were swept into a vicious cycle of violence and retribution for violence that was put in motion in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq and its continuing occupation.

Jim ends his statement by saying, “We want to see an end to all killing, regardless of the reason. Capital punishment is simply the legal face of the dead-end cycle of violence and retribution for violence that is destroying Iraq. We want to see something genuinely new and different, a future that begins with the power of forgiveness.”

This is an example of who we are as Christians. Death – and all its attendant principalities and powers of violence cloaked in the lie of necessary evil – has no dominion over us. This is the freedom that we are offered in Christ.

Rose Marie Berger is an associate editor of Sojourners magazine.

The New York Times reported today that an indictment was issued on Wednesday in a 40-year-old murder case that helped inspire the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. Jimmy Lee Jackson was killed by Alabama state troopers, and retired trooper James Fowler has long admitted that he was the triggerman, although he claims it was in self-defense.

Sojourners magazine reported the story of Jackson's murder in John Fleming's article "Who Killed Jimmy Lee Jackson?" in its April 2005 issue. Fowler, who is likely the person indicted by the Alabama grand jury, told Fleming, "I don’t remember how many times I pulled the trigger, but I think I just pulled it once. But I might have pulled it three times. I didn’t know his name at the time, but his name was Jimmy Lee Jackson."

Fowler told Sojourners in 2005 that he wasn't afraid of being indicted. "I don’t think legally I could get convicted for murder now no matter how much politics they got ’cause after 40 years they ain’t no telling how many people is dead." Jackson's cousin, Carlton Hogue, responded at the time that "There ain’t no statute of limitations on murder." He said, "That man needs to be prosecuted...."

It looks like it's finally about to happen.

Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners magazine.

Virginia Tech ... although most of the nation has moved on to other headlines, Virginia Tech has not faded from my memory. As each day passes, I can’t help but feel the same mixed emotions I had during the 1992 L.A. Riots: anger, bafflement, and sadness. In both cases, the media played with the lives, fortunes, and futures of Korean Americans, portraying them as foreigners who did not belong in the U.S.

Like Seung-Hui, I came to the U.S. at an early age and consider the U.S. my home. I doubt that I would survive if I was dropped off in South Korea. Consequently, I was quite disturbed - and even angry at times - to see the media distort Seung-Hui Cho’s name and identify him as a foreign alien. I am even more baffled by the fact that even after over 150 years of history and contribution to this country, Asian Americans can still be mistreated as foreigners by today’s media. As I braced myself with other Korean and Asian Americans for the potential backlash from the Virginia Tech massacre, the whole ordeal saddened me deeply. Because of our country’s racism and ignorance, minority communities are forced to deal with the tragic action of one person.

There is no denying Seung-Hui Cho was one sick individual whose wild rampage was senseless and tragic. At the same time, I can’t help but mourn and wonder whether or not this tragedy could have been averted if Seung-Hui had early intervention. For too long, Asian American communities have been ignored or left out of policy, program, and funding decisions under the justification of being "model minorities." Only recently, studies are acknowledging that monolingual Asians and their families are underserved in this country. Such short-sighted decisions are costing many innocent lives, and taking a huge toll on the community and the country. For example, juvenile delinquency for Asian Americans has increased while it has decreased for other groups in the last 20 years. Asian Americans suffer from high suicide, depression, and domestic violence rates.

Last year, the Korean American community and its family challenges received some attention by mainstream media, including the LA Times and The Washington Post, when three Korean American men committed family murder suicides, killing their spouses, their children, and themselves, all during a one-week period. In all three cases, there were serious business, financial, and marriage problems, even though they had projected the appearance of wealth, good education, and the typical model minority image. Although these stories are just the tip of the iceberg, the tragedies and problems that exist in the Asian American community are often ignored or simply not covered. Just two weeks ago, a Korean woman killed her husband and then herself. This week, a Korean American man confessed to killing both his wife and mother in law.

The need for accessible, comprehensive, and culturally and linguistically sensitive services is great - yet adequate resources are still not allocated for the Asian American community. How many Seung-Hui Chos does this country need to see before policy makers, government officials, and others starting paying some serious attention to the Asian American community? How many more innocent lives will be lost before there is serious action?

Virginia Tech is a wake up call to the nation. Asian Americans are no different than any other American in that we all want to be part of the American dream. When any segment of society is left out and left without hope, the rest of our society bears the consequences.


Hyepin Im is the the Founder and President of Korean Churches for Community Development (KCCD).

Having spent the first ten years of my life in Zimbabwe, and still feeling a somewhat deep sense of loyalty to the country of my birth, my ears prick up when the news turns to our troubled closest neighbor. Understanding the broader issues around what has gone down in Zimbabwe during the past 25 years is crucial and helpful in trying to get into the previously brilliant mind of the current dictator. That Britain has played a controlling hand regarding land issues, patronizing the first democratic government and isolating President Robert Mugabe in the process, cannot be ignored. That there was no significant process of truth and reconciliation, as happened in South Africa, to draw a line in the political sand; that nothing significant in the way of restitution on a national level took place – these issues cannot be seen in isolation to the current mess. That being said, what is happening just north of our borders is unjustifiable on any grounds and affecting the lives of thousands of Zimbabweans in unimaginable ways.

Even more puzzling than the spiral of a beautiful and successful nation into its current demise in a relatively short space of time, is South African leadership's well-publicized “quiet diplomacy” in the face of despotic behavior that smacks of our condemned previous regime. Having given up trying to get into Mugabe's mind a while back, I try to get into my own president's mind. But there comes no further understanding yet. For Thabo Mbeki, and other African leaders, to not only stand back and allow the blatant abuse of human rights, but openly welcome Mugabe into the proverbial fold, is more than mind-boggling to citizens of a nation that prides itself on its high regard for human rights and recent struggle for freedom.

The journalist who shot footage of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai leaving official government hands after severe beatings, was murdered in Harare recently - one of the first glaring signs of a crumbled democracy. Unheard-of inflation rates, increasing poverty and a dictatorship that has some blindly bowing and cheering whilst others are beaten and arrested – on the surface level alone, Mugabe's regime is slowly sucking the lifeblood out of the once priceless country. The South African Council of Churches has come out in grave opposition to the state of Zimbabwe and her current wave of human rights abuses. The Zimbabwean church holds on during this time of persecution – many seeing it as just that – persecution. And the South African government, for whatever reason, insists that the current foreign policy is the best way forward. In the meantime, people are intimidated, beaten, murdered, and forced to flee their homes because of an old man who clings to power, pulls the race card, and is mildly affirmed for it by his African peers.

Probably one of the saddest twists to this tale is the fodder that this is giving to doomsayers and colonials, one of whom told me to “wash my hand” after I had excitedly shaken Mugabe's when I was ten years old. As my heart sinks when I hear of another level of downward spiraling in our beloved Zimbabwe, I am reminded to pray for the peace of that nation, for her children, for her churches and for her government.

Linda Martindale is a journalist in Cape Town, South Africa. She is the author of Celebrate Hope (City Mission Press, 2002).

The dust has settled. Most - if not all - of the cameras and the national media have vacated Blacksburg, Virginia. America, and even the Virginia Tech campus, seems to be trying to move on. There’s a presidential race to dissect. American Idol is headed towards its stretch run. The Virginia Tech shooting becomes another American tragedy that slips into the American subconscious.

I must admit that as a Korean-American I have tried to stay under the radar on the recent events at Virginia Tech. I’m almost glad that the slaughter is no longer a lead story. There was too much shame, there was too much pain.

When it was first announced that the shooter was a Korean-American, there was a visceral reaction on my part. This is an individual with a funny sounding name, just like mine. This is an individual who grew up in an immigrant home in the Washington, D.C., area, just like me. This could have been someone who once sat in the back of my youth group, deliberately lowering his eyes and avoiding all human contact.

How did I treat the misfit when he showed up at church? There is a collective shame felt by the Korean-American community for not taking care of one of our own and possibly preventing a national tragedy. It's not completely rational, but it is reflective of the valuing of community among Asians. Maybe collective shame is a good thing to feel every once in awhile. Maybe then, the shame of racism will be a social issue rather than being reduced to an attempt to absolve individual guilt (and what individual is actually guilty of racism? It is so much easier to scapegoat Imus and pretend that corporate racism doesn’t actually exist). So I, personally, feel the shame of someone that looks like me being responsible for the slaughter of innocent lives.

After the initial shock and sense of shame came the frustration and anger. Why do the newscasters continue to point out that the shooter was a South Korean national when he was more American than Korean? Why is the South Korean government issuing not one, but two public apologies on behalf of an individual who was clearly more shaped by American culture than by his Korean origins? Why would anyone feel the need to lash out against the entire Asian-American community for the actions of an individual? Why can’t even one national newscaster pronounce his name right?

Believe me, I have no sympathy for the shooter. My sympathy is with the families of the victims. I just hope the circle of sympathy doesn’t have to spread too far.

Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary and a member of the Sojourners/Call to Renewal board. He blogs at: http://www.xanga.com/scrah

Violence by terrorist groups has caused great suffering for Israelis, and has served as the rationale for many of Israel's most restrictive policies regarding Palestinians. For that reason, it is all the more important to hear stories of Palestinians and international activists that are opposing Israeli policies nonviolently. Mairead Corrigan Maguire received the Nobel peace prize in 1976 for her work as co-founder of the Community of Peace People (www.peacepeople.com) in Northern Ireland. This is her story:

On Friday, April 20, outside Ramallah, Palestine, Ann Patterson and I attended the Second Bil’in International Conference on Non-violence. We joined the Bil’in Popular Committee on their weekly nonviolent protest march to the Israeli “apartheid wall” to bring attention to the wall that separates Palestinians from their land and, in this case, cedes land to expand Jewish settlements in the area. Together with Israeli peace activists and internationalists from more than 20 countries, we made the trek to the wall. The internationals came from France, the United States, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Canada, and India. It was at the “security wall” that I was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet and gassed by Israeli Defense Forces [photos]. Watch the video:



Before the peace vigil, I participated in a press conference with the Palestinian Minister for Information, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, in front of the international press corps. Minister Barghouti praised the nonviolent vigil of the Bil’in people and the nonviolent resistance of many people around Palestine, saying that Bil’in is a model and example to all. He called for a stop to building the wall, and for the upholding of Palestinian rights under international law. I supported his call and thanked the people of Bil’in – offering my support for the nonviolent resistance to the wall because it contravenes international law, including the International Court of Justice decision in The Hague. I also called for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which soon will mark its 40th year. I called for recognition by the international community of the Palestinian government, together with restoration of economic and political rights of the people.

Both Dr. Barghouti and I called for the release of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston, held by Palestinian militants in Gaza. I also called for the protection of journalists all over the world, whose ability to cover the truth is being infringed upon by violence. During the press conference the Israeli military drove through the gate onto Palestinian land, with many foot soldiers. They surrounded the international press gathered and warned us that if we did not disperse they would attack in five minutes. Dr. Barghouti and I condemned this as an abuse of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and of a peoples’ right to peaceful protest.

After the press conference, we returned to the village of Bil’in and joined the peace vigil as it moved down the road towards the wall. Several hundred people participated with the Palestinians leading the march. I walked with my Palestinian interpreter who told me his home was on the other side of the wall. His 12-acre land had been confiscated by Israeli authorities and his 400- year-old olive trees uprooted and taken to Jerusalem to be planted in new Israeli settlements.

When those participating in the vigil got half way down the road, the Israeli soldiers started firing tear gas and plastic bullets directly at us. At another point they used water canons. We were a completely unarmed peaceful gathering. The soldiers blocked the upper part of the road, which prevented Dr. Barghouti and some of the Palestinians from joining the main vigil group. Then those of us in the main group were tear-gassed. As I was helping a French woman retreat, I was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet.

Two young women - one from the U.S. and one from New Zealand - helped me towards an ambulance. I saw an elderly Palestinian mother carried on a stretcher into the ambulance. She had been shot in the back with a plastic bullet. I saw a man whose face was covered in blood and a Palestinian youth overcome with the gas. About 20 people were injured.

When we could, Ann Patterson and I went back to the protest, where the people were being viciously attacked with tear gas and plastic bullets. I was overcome with gas and had a nose bleed that resulted in being carried to ambulance for treatment. We were advised by medial staff not to return to vigil and obliged to leave our friends several hours later still heroically trying to get near the wall. This attack from the Israeli soldiers was a totally unprovoked attack upon civilians.

We were all traumatized by our experience. With the gas still in the air, the words came flowing back to me from a Palestinian doctor who said, “The whole Palestinian people, after 40 years of occupation, the whole people of Palestine are traumatized. It is time the international community acted to put a stop to this suffering and injustice of our people.” I agree: Enough is enough. It is time for action to force the Israeli government to enter into unconditional talks to end this tragedy of tragedies against the Palestinian people.

Click the link below to the speech Ms. Maguire's gave at the nonviolence conference before the demonstration:

Nonviolence: The Way Forward for the Human Family
An address by Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire

Salaam Aleikom, Shalom, my Friends,

I am very happy to be here and I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for their kind invitation to speak to you. I have chosen to speak on the subject “Nonviolence–the Way forward for the Human Family.” I am deeply conscious that many Palestinians have committed their lives to working for a nonviolent solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem, and they are committed to the nonviolent Palestinian resistance movement, to resist the wall and Israeli occupation. I fully support this movement, as I believe that all forms of nonviolent resistance to the wall are legal, as the wall itself contravenes international law, including the International Court of Justice decision in The Hague. I believe the separation wall is a monument to fear and failed politics. I look forward to joining you in nonviolent resistance at the wall.

I am aware that there is a strong Palestinian tradition of nonviolent resistance, and your history records that Palestinians responded to the Israeli occupation with a well-organized nonviolent resistance movement. I am aware, too, of the risk attached to participating in this movement, as at demonstrations, etc., many are targeted by police and picked up later, being ‘charged’ with being at demonstrations - and their confessions are used to pick up others that they name under duress. Some are Palestinian children, 14 or so. This practice by Israeli security should cease immediately if there is to be any hope for peace. Yet, you continue to struggle in spite of daily hardships, checkpoints, oppression, and humiliation, in trying to do the basic things of life, like getting to work, educating and feeding your children.

I believe for many Palestinians daily living is so hard, it is indeed an act of resistance. I thank you all for this. I am honored to join in solidarity with you in your rightful demand for equality, freedom, and the upholding of human dignity through the full implementation of U.N. resolutions, human rights and international laws, which are currently being broken and violated by the Israeli government. I believe the European Council and all governments of the European Union should recognize the Palestinian government and cancel all economic, social, and political restrictions which have been placed upon it. The EU Council and Governments of the European Union should recognize the opportunity to revive the peace process with Israel and Palestinian governments.

I fully support and encourage you as you continue to peacefully organize, protest and resist, and to continue building your nonviolent grassroots peoples’ movement which will be the cornerstone of a new Palestine/Israel, and a new Middle East.

I am conscious, too, that there are many international peace activists here in Bil’in and in the occupied territories. The inspirational work of the International Solidarity Movement is well known, and I would like to thank them for their work. I would also like to pay tribute to all peace activists who come from many countries to join in solidarity and support for those suffering injustice. These activists are people of courage, with hearts of compassion, and they have the wisdom to know an injustice to one is an injustice to all, and must be nonviolently resisted, until justice and peace is established. They pay a high price in stepping out of their comfort zones, into highly militarized, dangerous areas.

Sometimes much is asked of them, as in the case of Rachel Corrie, who gave her life protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israeli military. But it is the Rachels of this world who reminds us that we are responsible for each other, and we are interconnected in a mysteriously spiritual and beautiful way. Recognizing this, as the human family, each one of us has to stretch beyond self-interest, or the concern of just our own family, friends, community, religion, culture, nation, and seek ways in which we can help the whole community of life on earth, and protect the earth, our communal home. These courageous people disarmed in mind and hearts, and coming armed with love to serve, in organizations, such as International Solidarity Movement, the Israeli peace movement, Christian peacemakers, Rabbis for Human Rights and against the demolitions of Palestinian homes, Doctors without Borders, and many NGOs, show us it is possible for each of us to move beyond selfishness, tribalism, nationalism, and identify with the whole human family and the earth itself. This movement of nonviolent people, united in working for justice and equality, and irrespective of nationality or religion, unarmed and willing to take risks protecting civilians in danger, is one of the most hopeful and inspiring movements of our time.

I myself am very hopeful for the future of the Middle East. I first visited Israel/Palestine at the invitation of the Rabbis for Human Rights and against the demolition of Palestinian homes. I stood in the ruins of Palestinian Homes and I sat at the Military Trial of Abu Faiz, a Palestinian father of 13 children, whose only crime was to build a home for his family. Since then I have returned many times to participate in various ecumenical and peace activities. I also support people here working for a Middle East Nuclear weapons free zone, and the abolition of war.

From where do I get my hope? From the people of this place, and those Israeli/Palestinian peace activists who believe passionately that given justice and equality for all its citizens, peace and human security is possible in this holy land. I take hope, too, from the courage of the young Israeli reservists, who, following their conscience have refused military duty in the territories. (I hope that more British and U.S. soldiers will follow their conscience and refuse to participate in the continuing U.S./U.K. immoral and illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and further unnecessary and illegal wars, so that much continuing unnecessary suffering and death can be avoided.)

But I have watched, too, those in the resistance movements, who believe justice will only come through violence, and in their frustration, pain and anger, have turned to armed resistance, suicide bombs. Suicide bombs tragically take the life of those who use them, and have taken the lives of many Israeli people, and others, and such actions can never be justified. I would therefore like to appeal to those who use such violence, (including those who use the threat of violence by calling for the destruction of Israel) to abandon these immoral and illegal methods, and use nonviolent language and means of working for justice and freedom. They can take inspiration, as I do, from the words of Abdul Khaffer Khan, a great nonviolent Muslim leader who demonstrated the power of courageous Islamic nonviolence through the unarmed Servants of God’s army and parallel government to liberate the Pathan people from British colonial rule in India’s North-West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan). Abdul Khaffer Khan, also taught: “The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into the world and taught us ‘that man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God’s creatures. Belief in God is to love one’s fellowmen’.”

From our own experience in Northern Ireland, we have learned that violence begets violence, and paramilitarism, militarism, violence, and war, do not solve the problems, but indeed are the cause of much reciprocal violence. We have also learned in Northern Ireland that when a government tries to deal with terrorism by curtailing civil liberties, or by complete disregarding and violating international norms and standards, then this only adds fuel to the pain, anger and fear, and is the cause of much reciprocal violence. If we want justice, peace, and human security, then the means must be consistent with the ends, we must use good means to achieve good ends. This lesson is important both for the Israeli government and the Palestinian authorities, and all citizens of Israel/Palestine if there is to be real progress towards peace.

I hope you will take inspiration from the peace process in Northern Ireland. We too, in our most recent history, have been in dark places where it seemed injustice and its child of violence was in danger of destroying us. In l976 we were on the brink of civil war, and the cycle of violence seemed impossible to break. Sadly a tragedy happened with the death of my sister Ann’s three young children (Joanne, John, and Andrew) in a violent clash between the Irish Republic Army and British Army. Out of this tragedy, there arose a massive grassroots peace movement, demanding an end to violence, and offering nonviolence as a way forward for the Northern Irish people.

Many other social movements, and efforts by the civil community, took place to resist violence and demand justice and peace. It was a spontaneous people's movement. Ordinary people from all walks of life joining in solidarity saying ‘enough is enough’ there is another way of nonviolence to solve our problems. We took our inspiration from Jesus/Gandhi/King arguing that nonviolence is not weak; it is active, powerful, because it comes from the soul and it therefore has the power of truth, and is simply the right thing to do. We refused to carry arms and refused armed protection. Our nonviolence was risky and dangerous, we received death threats from all sides, our property destroyed, were verbally and physically attacked, but we had the joy of witnessing in the first six months of the movement, a 70 percent decrease in the rate of violence, and the beginning of peace.

It was a long, difficult, and dangerous path; often we though things were so bad peace would never come. It took a long time for the message of nonviolence to be heard, but it was finally, and ended up in all inclusive dialogue when the British/Dublin Governments spoke to their enemies through representatives of the paramilitary groups, and all the Political parties. This all inclusive dialogue, eventually lead in l998 to the Good Friday Agreement, then to the historic meeting in March 2007 of Dr. Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party) and Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) sitting at the same table and agreeing to share power in Northern Ireland on 8th May, 2007, when there will be a devolved Government in Northern Ireland, a Power Sharing executive and an Assembly. Truly miracles do happen, and should give hope to others!

There are many lessons to be learned from the Northern Irish Peace Process, one being that peace is possible, but it takes courageous political leadership, and also the civil community to compromise and take risks for peace. Perhaps the most important lesson is recognition by those in power that militarism, paramilitarism, and the so-called ‘war on terrorism’ does no solve these deeply complex ethical/political problems, and that nonviolent conflict resolution does work.

Here in Israel/Palestine I believe, it will also take a recognition that Israeli security lies not in oppressing the Palestinian people, but in dialogue and negotiations that recognize their right to equality and freedom. I hope the Israeli government will follow our example in Northern Ireland, and enter unconditional talks with their partners, the Palestinian authority in order to find solutions together. Peace is possible, if we act justly, accept and celebrate the diversity we encounter, give and accept forgiveness, work to heal the divisions of the past, and above all choose the path of non-killing and nonviolence, then we can build non-killing communities and a world civilization with a compassionate heart. Building such communities, starts in our own hearts, in our families, and then reaching out to the other with mercy, compassion and kindness. An important part of building peace is the need for Palestinians and Israelis, in spite of the fear and pain, to reach out to each others in forgiveness, and to build trust. This can only be done by a grassroots people to people contact and the Israeli Government can help this process by removing all restrictions which make it impossible for Israeli/Palestinian people to meet and work together. To build a peace process people must see improvement in their every day lives, through freedom of movement, economic development.

But there are no quick fixes to peace. It is hard every day struggle to be more peaceful ourselves, and to have the courage to accept diversity and difference, yet all the while listening to others with a deep respect for their perspectives and views no matter how different from our own. Trust building and friendship making are foundation stones for peaceful, democratic societies, and we the people of the world, no matter where we live, must do the work of laying these stones, and building the bridges with our enemies. Here in the Middle East, the task of making friends with your enemies is necessary, in order to open up the long-term possibility for an everlasting peace.

As in Northern Ireland, Protestants and Catholics, must become their own best friends and build a shared future together, so too Jews and Arabs must become their own best friends, and build a shared future together. Here, in this holy land, the three great world religions, (there are many paths to God) united in their faith and love of Abraham, by working together, can become an ethical and spiritual force for good in the World.

These religions can teach that the holiest thing is the life of a human being and we have no right to kill each other, and are called to love our enemies and love the stranger. Such a clear peace message coming out of the heart of the holy land would change the world. But there is an obstacle to peace, and it is fear. We humans are often fearful and anxious, and sometimes we get stuck in the past, feeding our fear and negativity thus destroying our imagination and creativity. In order to overcome this fear let us remember Allah loves each one of us equally, the kingdom of God lives in every one’s heart, and this connects us as the human family, who need each others’ love and support in the difficult, yet joyous journey of life.

Salaam Aleikum, Shalom, my friends.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire received the Nobel peace prize in 1976 for her work as co-founder of the Community of Peace People (www.peacepeople.com) in Northern Ireland. She gave this talk at the Second Annual Conference on Nonviolence in Bil’in, Palestine held April 18-20, 2007.

For more on Abdul Khaffer Khan see Nonviolent Soldier of Islam by Eknath Easwaran and My Life and Struggle: Autobiography of Badshah Khan.

A recent survey showed that 59 percent of all Americans know “a lot” or “some” about the conflict in Darfur, compared to levels reported in 2004, when only 14 percent said they were familiar with the conflict. This shift has been caused in large part due to a growing movement of public education, vigils, paid media ads, lobbying, and rallies all across the country. We now face the challenge of increasing this momentum and translating this growing awareness into intensified public pressure.

After four years of protracted bloodshed and unbearable suffering, a degree of cynicism is justified in reaction to the recent promise by the Khartoum government to allow 3,000 U.N. military personnel to enter Darfur. This critical action would complete phase two of a desperately needed – and long overdue – three-phase process toward deploying a more robust, hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force to prevent further killing and restore security to the beleaguered region. This concession repeats an all too familiar cycle, in which President Bashir plays a manipulative game of deterrence with the international community, making new promises as soon as the world’s patience starts running out or the United States and other nations reach the brink of taking punitive action. There will be no quick fixes or easy solutions. But where the politics of delay have failed, the power of our movement calling for bold leadership will succeed.

On Wednesday, with the Holocaust museum as his backdrop, President Bush gave what was arguably his strongest speech to date about the moral imperative to end the genocide in Darfur, saying:

Just this week, Sudan's government reached an agreement with the United Nations to allow 3,000 U.N. troops and their equipment into the country to support the A.U. force. The world has heard these promises from Sudan before. President Bashir's record has been to promise cooperation while finding new ways to subvert and obstruct the U.N.'s efforts to bring peace to his country. The time for promises is over – President Bashir must act.

In deference to recently appointed United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s diplomatic effort to secure an agreement from Khartoum, President Bush agreed to hold off on imposing a series of stringent economic sanctions on Sudanese companies and individuals, and postponed pursuing a new Security Council resolution against Sudan. These sanctions have been under discussion for months as a part of the so-far-empty threat of engaging in a set of coercive actions under what has been termed “Plan B.” After meetings with State Department officials and with the special envoy to Darfur, Andrew Natsios, I’m convinced that there are many people with the administration that are working diligently to end this genocide. However, they have faced competing foreign policy priorities, a reticence to take costly action, and bureaucratic inertia.

History shows that moving the Sudanese government requires both real carrots and real sticks. So far the U.S. approach has been unable to muster enough of either. We have been engaged in a protracted chess game with a regime that has brutalized the Darfuri region. In a recent strategy paper, John Prendergast argues that:

[T]he central paradigm must be to move away from the current policy of constructive engagement without any leverage ... to a more muscular policy focused on walking softly and carrying – and using – a bigger stick.

A robust U.N./A.U. force is necessary to stop the killing and create an enabling environment for renewing a peace process that can addresses the underlying causes of this crisis.

As Christians called to be peacemakers, we should support aggressive diplomacy, choosing military action through a no-fly zone, blockade, etc., only as a last resort. In the case of Sudan we haven’t used all of the economic and political tools at our disposal. Broader economic sanctions will send a strong signal to government in Khartoum that we are unwilling to play politics with the lives of our brothers and sisters in Darfur. We must also continue to pressure European countries, China, Russia, and the Arab League to follow our lead in imposing stricter sanctions. Bush’s promise of sanctions with greater teeth on companies and individuals, as well as his promise to initiate a new Security Council resolution, should be applauded. The devil lies in the details of Bush’s promise to act within a short timeframe. After four horrific years of this genocide we cannot bear much patience for the word “short.” Short timeframes have too often resulted in empty threats, broken promises, and empty rhetoric. We are far beyond a short timeframe.

We must remember Dr. Martin Luther King’s words from a speech at Riverside church, exactly 40 years ago to the month, when he said:

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is the thief of time … Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.”

Sojourners/Call to Renewal is partnering with the Save Darfur Coalition during the 3rd Annual “Global Days for Darfur,” April 23 to April 30, 2007. This week of rallies, marches, and vigils will call attention to the escalating violence and the continued failure of the international community to adequately respond to this crisis. Our unified message is that "time is running out" for the people of Darfur. “Global Days for Darfur” currently consists of 273 events in 175 cities and 42 states (and D.C.) across the country, as well as events in 20 countries, and the number is growing daily. I pray that you will join us in proclaiming the message that it is not too late for Darfur. For God’s sake, save Darfur!


Adam Taylor is Director of Campaigns and Organizing for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

+ Click here to learn more about the "For God's Sake, Save Darfur!" campaign

Monday morning in Blacksburg, Virginia, 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech were killed in the largest single shooting in modern American history. The shooter, an angry and disturbed young man, then killed himself.

Looking at the profiles of the dead, I am struck by their diversity. They ranged in age from 18 to 76; they came from nine states, along with Puerto Rico, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Romania. They were male and female, African-American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian. They were all people who began Monday little knowing it would suddenly end their lives.

This is not a time to seek easy answers or to assign blame. It is, rather, a time to pray, mourn, and reflect. While this tragedy can perhaps be partially explained by the easy accessibility of guns in our society, by the saturation of violence in our popular culture, by the fact that the visible signs of Cho Seung Hui's troubled life could have been taken more seriously, by concerns about university security, or by any number of other things, ultimately there is no simple explanation. And there are generally no single causes for such horrible events. In the Virginia Tech memorial convocation Tuesday evening, Professor and poet Nikki Giovanni said:

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. … We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

All of us at Sojourners/Call to Renewal join in the national mourning. We offer our prayers and send our condolences to the families and friends of those who died, those who were injured, and to the entire Virginia Tech community. We pray that the comforting presence of God will be felt in the midst of such deep heartache. Sorrow can sometimes prove redemptive in ways no one could have imagined beforehand. It’s time to let sorrow do its reflective and redemptive work, to hold the hands that need to be held, to let our tears open our hearts to change those things that lead to such tragedy, and to trust our pain to the loving arms of God.

I’ve always heard the old adage, “violence is a weapon of the weak.” But after events like the Virginia Tech massacre, it’s easy to think that violence has ultimate power. After all, we’ve learned history through the lens of war. And we read the news through acts of violence rather than the hidden acts of love that keep hope alive.

But there is a common thread in many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention – they kill themselves. Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved – so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide. When people succumb to violence it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their own death. Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a violent kiss, ends his life by hanging himself with a noose. After his notorious persecutions, the Emperor Nero’s story ends as he stabs himself. Hitler passed out suicide pills to all his heads of staff, and ended his life as one of the most pitifully lonely people to walk the earth. We see the same in the case of Columbine, the 2007 Amish school shootings, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and this recent Virginia Tech massacre – each ends in suicide.

Violence is suicidal. Suicide rates of folks in the military and working the chambers of death row execution are astronomical; they kill themselves as they feel the image of God dying in them.
It is in moments like these violent times that grace looks so magnificent. It is in the shadow of such violence, as was the case after the Amish school shooting, that the victims' grace to the murderer’s family shines so brightly. Sometimes all the peacemakers need to do is practice revolutionary patience, and steadfast hope – for the universe bends toward justice, and the entire Christian story demonstrates the triumph of love. And it makes it even more scandalous to think of killing someone who kills – for they, more than anyone in the world, need to hear that they are created for something better than that.

I am reminded of a letter I got from someone currently on death row. After reading some of my writing, he wrote to me to share that he was a living testimony against the myth of redemptive violence (the idea that violence can bring redemption or peace). This fellow on death row told me that the family of his victim argued that he should not be killed for what he did, that he was not beyond redemption, and so he did not receive the death penalty for his crime. “That gave me a lot of time to think about grace,” he said. And he became a Christian in prison. Another story of scandalous love and grace.

So in these days after Easter, even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.

Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, 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.

This morning, on my way to Dulles Airport to catch a flight, I was listening to radio coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. The reporter was talking about shooter Cho Seung Hui, analyzing his personality and background, and trying to understand what may have motivated the college student to murder 32 people and then commit suicide.

In the recitation, the reporter made a point of Cho’s religious background. Evidently, his mother is a devout Christian. Cho, the reporter said, experienced a rift with his mother over issues of faith and had rejected her beliefs. Since the shooting, Cho’s family has remained in isolation, issuing no statement to the press. One news outlet reported that his mother had been hospitalized for shock.

Other than being the mother of one of the murdered students, I can imagine nothing worse than being the mother of the murderer, a murderer who committed suicide. How isolated she must be. She, too, is grieving, mourning the loss of her only son, mourning her dreams for him, and mourning her memories of his childhood. She has little – except confusion, guilt (however misplaced that may be) and questions.

One of the things I regularly do as a writer is to listen to stories – happy ones and tragic ones; old ones and unfolding ones – and try to understand the experiences of all those involved. In the Virginia Tech shootings, attention has been rightly directed toward the innocent and toward the guilty. But the grieving mother? Where is she in this story? Other than “Mrs. Cho,” I do not even know her name. This morning’s Washington Post quoted her neighbors as saying that she is “quiet, modest, and hardworking.” No one seems to have known her well.

I am not calling for a media pursuit of this anguished woman. Rather, her absence from the story strikes a heart-breaking cord, causing me – also a Christian and mother – to wonder about her silence.

That silence brings to mind another silence: the silence of Eve. In Genesis, the first words uttered by Eve after the expulsion from the garden are those of joy at the birth of Cain, her son: “I have gotten a man from the LORD!” No long thereafter, she bore Abel, a second son.

But joy turns to tragedy as the two grow to manhood. Cain, jealous of his younger brother, killed Abel. And there, in Genesis chapter 4, right at the beginning of biblical history, the first murder occurs. God chastises Cain and punishes him by making him a “fugitive and a vagabond” upon the earth.

Throughout the story, however, Eve says nothing. She is silent. One can only imagine her anguish: Have I birthed this violence into the world? My son, my beloved son, the firstborn of all humanity, is a murderer. He has killed his brother. Is this my fault? What have I done?

Finally, at the very end of the tale, Eve says one thing. She bore a third son, named Seth. “For God,” said Eve, “has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” Cain is not only a fugitive from the earth but banished from his own family, exiled from his mother’s heart. Only Abel is remembered; Seth replaces him, the beloved son. The sin of murder destroyed more than life – it destroyed memory and motherhood. For all intents and purposes, Cain was dead, too. Eve birthed both victim and perpetrator. No wonder she was silent.

Silence may well be the primal response to sin: a mother’s choked pain, the pain of birthing sin, and the pain of birthing children victimized by sin. What can one say in the face of it all? Nothing, absolutely nothing. We are mute. But we are not entirely alone; we are embraced by the silence of Eve.


Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University. She is the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (Harper San Francisco).

On April 9, 2003, Saddam Hussein’s government collapsed as the U.S. military swept into Baghdad. The next day, President Bush delivered a triumphant “message to the Iraqi people.” In it, he said:

The goals of our coalition are clear and limited. We will end a brutal regime, whose aggression and weapons of mass destruction make it a unique threat to the world. Coalition forces will help maintain law and order, so that Iraqis can live in security. We will respect your great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq’s future. We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave. Iraq will go forward as a unified, independent and sovereign nation that has regained a respected place in the world.

Fast forward four years. Monday, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites took to the streets to demand that the U.S. leave. According to the British Guardian newspaper,

they shouted "Yes! Yes! Iraq. No! No! America" amid a sea of banners and Iraqi flags. "We were liberated from Saddam. Now we need to be liberated again," read one placard. "Stop the suffering, Americans leave now," demanded another.

Along with the continued death and suffering, the sectarian violence that has been unleashed has resulted in ethnic cleansing of once peaceful neighborhoods. I recently heard a powerful NPR story, "Mixed Baghdad Neighborhoods Become Enclaves." The reporter interviewed a Shiite father who watched his son being beaten by a Sunni boy with the encouragement of his father, and a Sunni who was told “your son or the house,” while his son was being beaten by Shiites. It’s a situation, said the reporter, where “no one can risk trusting anyone anymore.” Estimates are that 700,000 people have been displaced in Iraq due to sectarian violence. U.S. military officials claim the situation is improving, but as the report concluded, “Even if it becomes safer, it’s not clear what’s been broken can be put back together again.”

And then there is the story of 50-year-old Khadim al-Jubouri. Four years ago, a picture of him went around the world, as he stood with a sledgehammer attacking the base of a bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Now, according to The Washington Post, he says:

It achieved nothing. We got rid of a tyrant and tyranny. But we were surprised that after one thief had left, another 40 replaced him.

Far from a “unified, independent and sovereign nation,” Iraq four years later is shattered, occupied, and violent. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

This past week has been a blur of activity with the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, but I didn't want to let the passing of Rufina Amaya go unmentioned on this blog. If that name is unfamiliar to you, Amaya was the sole survivor of the worst single massacre in modern Latin American history. A recent Washington Post article by Alma Guillermoprieto, one of the journalists to originally document the atrocity, recounts Amaya's testimony in chilling detail:

An army officer who was a friend of her husband's, she said, had told the villagers early in December not to worry about a coming offensive against the guerrillas, because El Mozote, which had a large evangelical population, was not known to be subversivo, or subversive.
...
But the troops returned. Acting on orders, they separated the villagers into groups of men, young girls, and women and children. Rufina Amaya managed to slip behind some trees as her group was being herded to the killing ground, and from there she witnessed the murders, which went on until late at night. An army officer, told by an underling that a soldier was refusing to kill children, said, "Where is the sonofabitch who said that? I am going to kill him," and bayoneted a child on the spot. She heard her own children crying out for her as they met their deaths. The troops herded people into the church and houses facing a patch of grass that served as the village plaza. They shot the villagers or dismembered them with machetes, then set the structures on fire. At last, believing they had killed all the citizens of El Mozote and the surrounding hamlets, the troops withdrew.

I'm personally compelled to memorialize Amaya and El Mozote for three reasons:

1) When I visited El Mozote and other sites of atrocities in El Salvador as a college student in 1997, the resounding theme from survivors was to tell these stories so that people never forget what happened, and especially for gringos, that we know what crimes our government supported through its military aid.

2) Lest you should assign these horrors to ancient history, look no further than Colombia, the recipient of the most U.S. military aid in Latin America (third in the world), where it is now more clearly documented than ever that right-wing paramilitary death squads have been operating in close cooperation with the very military our government supports. Then, as now, that flow of aid is dependent on human rights ceritification, a highly politicized process that resists hearing the testimony of peasants caught in the meat-grinder of counterinsurgency warfare. Reading Guillermoprieto's article alongside recent reports from Colombia, I'm overcome by vertigo-inducing deja vu.

3) One detail that has always struck me about El Mozote is that the villagers had been told that because they were evangelicals - generally perceived as apolitical, and not liberation theology-inspired "subversivos" - they would be spared. That they were massacred anyway is a stark reminder that apolitical piety is no protection from the principalities and powers. Though innocent farmers, they were, in Guillermoprieto's words, "simply fodder in one of the last battles of the Cold War."

The lesson for Christians seeking to love our neighbors as ourselves is that we are inextricably linked to the policies and actions of our government, and are vulnerable to their consequences whether we choose to engage them or not. So, whether the issue is military aid to Latin America, the war in Iraq, or violence in our own neighborhoods, let us engage those powers, with Christ as our model of sacrificial love; rejecting both the violence of Zealots and the superficial public piety of Pharisees.

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered 27 years ago tomorrow, was a shining example of that kind of faith, which can also get you killed. Below are the final paragraphs of the homily delivered the day before his death at the hands of assassins, two of whom received training at the U.S. Army School of the Americas:

I would like to appeal in a special way to the men of the army, and in particular to the troops of the National Guard, the Police, and the garrisons. Brothers, you belong to our own people. You kill your own brother peasants; and in the face of an order to kill that is given by a man, the law of God should prevail that says: Do not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin. The Church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of the dignity of the human person, cannot remain silent before so much abomination.

We want the government to seriously consider that reforms mean nothing when they come bathed in so much blood. Therefore, in the name of God, and in the name of this long-suffering people, whose laments rise to heaven every day more tumultuous, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you in the name of God: Cease the repression!

Ryan Beiler is the Web Editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

The struggle against torture and cruel treatment of prisoners by the U.S. received a major boost this week. In its recently concluded meeting, the National Association of Evangelicals board of directors last weekend endorsed an important new statement - An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Human Rights in an Age of Terror.

The statement begins:

From a Christian perspective, every human life is sacred. As evangelical Christians, recognition of this transcendent moral dignity is non-negotiable in every area of life, including our assessment of public policies. This commitment has been tested in the war on terror, as a public debate has occurred over the moral legitimacy of torture and of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees held by our nation in the current conflict. We write this declaration to affirm our support for detainee human rights and our opposition to any resort to torture.

Then follow sections on the scriptural grounding, human rights, the ethical implications of human rights, and international law and treaties regarding human rights. The statement was drafted by a group of evangelical ethicists, theologians, and pastors, and is carefully researched and coherently argued. Its conclusion is four fundamental declarations:

(a) We renounce the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by any branch of our government (or any other government)—even in the current circumstance of a war between the United States and various radical terrorist groups.

(b) We call for the extension of basic human rights and procedural protections to all persons held in United States custody now or in the future, wherever and by whomever they are held.

(c) We call for every agency of the United States government to join with the United States military and to state publicly its commitment to the terms of the Geneva Conventions related to the treatment of prisoners, especially Common Article 3.

(d) We call for the legislative or judicial reversal of those executive and legislative provisions that violate the moral and legal standards articulated in this declaration.

A new Web site has been launched, Evangelicals for Human Rights. It seeks to “to reaffirm the centrality of human rights as an unshakable biblical obligation fundamental to an evangelical Christian social and moral vision.” The site provides resources for churches and organizations, current legislation on torture, and news developments.

An Associated Press story on the statement was titled, Evangelicals Condemn Torture. I urge you to read the declaration and add your name.

The struggle against torture and cruel treatment of prisoners by the U.S. received a major boost this week. In its recently concluded meeting, the National Association of Evangelicals board of directors last weekend endorsed an important new statement - An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture: Human Rights in an Age of Terror.

The statement begins:

From a Christian perspective, every human life is sacred. As evangelical Christians, recognition of this transcendent moral dignity is non-negotiable in every area of life, including our assessment of public policies. This commitment has been tested in the war on terror, as a public debate has occurred over the moral legitimacy of torture and of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees held by our nation in the current conflict. We write this declaration to affirm our support for detainee human rights and our opposition to any resort to torture.

Then follow sections on the scriptural grounding, human rights, the ethical implications of human rights, and international law and treaties regarding human rights. The statement was drafted by a group of evangelical ethicists, theologians, and pastors, and is carefully researched and coherently argued. Its conclusion is four fundamental declarations:

(a) We renounce the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by any branch of our government (or any other government)—even in the current circumstance of a war between the United States and various radical terrorist groups.

(b) We call for the extension of basic human rights and procedural protections to all persons held in United States custody now or in the future, wherever and by whomever they are held.

(c) We call for every agency of the United States government to join with the United States military and to state publicly its commitment to the terms of the Geneva Conventions related to the treatment of prisoners, especially Common Article 3.

(d) We call for the legislative or judicial reversal of those executive and legislative provisions that violate the moral and legal standards articulated in this declaration.

A new Web site has been launched, Evangelicals for Human Rights. It seeks to “to reaffirm the centrality of human rights as an unshakable biblical obligation fundamental to an evangelical Christian social and moral vision.” The site provides resources for churches and organizations, current legislation on torture, and news developments.

An Associated Press story on the statement was titled, Evangelicals Condemn Torture. I urge you to read the declaration and add your name.

At the beginning of March, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced the winner of the so-called "Reliable Replacement Warhead" competition that pitted the nuclear laboratories against each other. Lawrence Livermore won out against its long-time rival Los Alamos. If all goes according to plan, the Berkeley-based lab's design will eventually end up as submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Still, NNSA administrator Thomas D'Agostino insisted that the new warhead "is not about starting a new nuclear arms race." But what else could it possibly be about? In the April 2007 issue of Sojourners I’ll catch you up on the new nuclear surge.

Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate at the New School University’s World Policy Institute.

The reality of Cambodia’s sex trafficking industry was vividly exposed to me one humid afternoon as I sat on a courtroom bench in Phnom Penh. I was sitting with four young girls as their sellers were escorted into the room. Their sellers were their mother, aunt, and grandmother. I didn’t need to understand the language to feel the fear, pain, and devastation that had just filled the room. I didn’t need to hear the words of the lawyer or the judge to understand the full situation.

You don’t have to work for a non-governmental organization or visit the red-light district - even the slightly observant tourist eye can see signs of sexual slavery, violence, and abuse. Pick up the city’s thin daily newspaper and you are likely to find another report of abuse, rape, or trafficking. Drive around the block and count the number of “massage parlors” filled with young women and rows of cots. Walk into a seemingly pleasant garden restaurant-bar and pass the “pretty girls” waiting to offer their services after a few drinks.

The perpetrators are shamelessly bold, as I experienced one day while using a hotel gym. After making polite conversation with the middle-aged white man on the next treadmill, I found myself in complete shock when he told me, “I come to Cambodia for the girls. They’re good for one thing only.”

The organization I work for here, Hagar Cambodia, helps women who have been victims of trafficking, abuse, or rape. Hagar seeks to transform despair into true hope. Hagar is passionate about the recovery and restoration of women and children through a long-term commitment to care and a belief in sustainable economic and work opportunities as an avenue for empowerment, dignity, and hope.

On your side of the world you can continue to cry out against this violation of basic human rights. You can advocate, pray, fight, and demand a stop to trafficking and other forms of abuse. On this side of the world are the lives and stories of these women and children. My hope is to build a bridge that connects our two worlds.

In Cambodia I use a bag that carries a story of hope, even on days of overwhelming hopelessness. It’s a bag made by the women employed at Hagar Design, and it's the story of how beauty can be made out of brokenness and despair. It represents a journey of transformation that may be long and difficult, but that can be sewn together one piece at a time. Hope is what allows us to rise in the morning and gives us strength to carry on another day, no matter what side of the world we’re on.

Elise Elzinga is a former Sojourners intern, and the communications and advocacy coordinator for Hagar Cambodia in Phnom Penh. To read more about Hagar and human trafficking, see “In You I Take Refuge,” by David Batstone, in the March issue of Sojourners magazine.