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Christian Peace Witness for Iraq
-- page 2
For our first reports on this event >> |
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reports and comments on the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq
"There is a new
spirit sweeping across our churches ..."
[4-7-07]
From Rick Ufford-Chase, writing for the CPWI Steering Committee:
March 16th, 2007 was a sign that there is a new spirit sweeping across
our churches in the United States. Though many of you were frustrated by the
weather and unable to join us as planned, we still numbered close to four
thousand people on that cold, wet, snowy Friday night as we filled the
National Cathedral and New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Rev. Raphael
Warnock named the challenge we must help our nation reclaim its very soul.
More >>
The witness spilled out of those two magnificent houses of worship and
processed through the cold night to the White House. As we journeyed the
three and a half miles down Massachusetts Avenue I could feel my own soul
lifted up with the opportunity to be a part of a witness that so clearly
reflected our deepest commitments as lifelong, faith-based peacemakers.
Stretched out behind me, covering four or five city blocks, I saw thousands
of Christians like me with candles bobbing and songs floating quietly on the
crisp cold air.
Then, energized once again by the words of Rev. Lenox Yearwood as we
huddled close together in Lafayette Park, the procession moved on to circle
the White House. Simultaneously, two-hundred and twenty-two of us stepped
forward to stand or kneel on the sidewalk in front of the White House,
offering prayers for peace and eventually being arrested for our act of
conscience an expression of our common conviction that there can be no more
business as usual until the war is brought to an end.
Since that evening, I've received dozens of emails from folks who
participated in Washington or in one of the over two-hundred local Christian
Peace Witnesses that took place across the country. Many have written to
share their own moments, which were just as personal and as powerful as the
one that I shared with my family as we walked to the White House. Today,
almost three weeks later, I was wearing my CPWI t-shirt as I flew
cross-country, and a young man returning home from a year of study in
Argentina told me that he had heard about our witness in Buenos Aires.
Many of wondered - both those who are for and against the war - what
difference our witness really made. The simple answer is that no one can
know the answer to that question. Still, as followers of Jesus Christ, the
Prince of Peace, we are called to acts of faithfulness that defy our own
need for quick and easy answers and even for our need to feel hope. God's
promise is that those acts of faithfulness do indeed lead to surprising
moments in which we glimpse the reign of God.
So where do we go from here? I expect that thousands of us who
participated in the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq are all asking that
question right now. As leaders of the various partner organizations and
peace fellowships that organized the witness, we are clear that this was a
new beginning. There is no doubt that we will continue to build on this
witness, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, we hope that someday, when the history of the peace
movement of the early twenty-first century is written, that many of you will
find the Christian Peace Witness in March of '07 creeping into your own
stories of the ways in which you participated. Our prayer is that all of us
will be inspired by the lessons relearned as we came together a few weeks
ago: we must stay positive as disciples of Jesus, remain clear and bold
about the demands of the Gospel, and ground our actions in worship.
Together, grounded in the deepest and most foundational beliefs of each
of our traditions, we can change the world because of who God calls us to
be!
Let the journey continue.
Rick Ufford-Chase
To view the Cathedral Worship Service:
(from the God’s Politics Blog)
We've received many requests from people wanting copies of
the National Cathedral worship service. Currently, there are a couple of
options for viewing and/or purchasing copies. To view the service online,
visit the God's Politics Blog (http://go.sojo.net/ct/57zCeyd1QRQJ/)
and search the March archives (it's posted around March 20th). You'll also
be able to view the transcripts of three out of the four speakers at the
Cathedral on this blog. You'll want a fairly fast internet connection to
view the service online.
You may also opt to purchase a copy of the service on DVD for $19.95
directly from the Washington National Cathedral Web site (
http://go.sojo.net/ct/5pzCeyd1QRQD/. Click on the link "Buy DVD" just
above the pictures of the event. Then, using the drop-down menu on the order
form, select "Christian Peace Witness for Iraq" and complete your order.
Pictures of the worship service are available on the Washington National
Cathedral Web site. You may also visit the Sojourners Gallery (
http://go.sojo.net/ct/tdzCeyd1QRQZ/) for pictures of the service at the
Cathedral, the march and the vigil at the White House.
Host Your Own Peace Vigil
It's not too late to host your own local Christian Peace
Witness for Iraq. In March, over 200 local communities joined together in
prophetic witnesses for peace. As the war continues, it's important to
continue our prayers and strengthen our resolve. Please visit (
http://go.sojo.net/ct/t1zCeyd1QRQK/) for the worship resources used at
the March 16th worship service in the Washington National Cathedral. The
order of service has been slightly altered to make it appropriate for local
services. |
We are Marching in the
Light of God
by David McPhail
March 24, 2007
[posted here 4-7-07]
This past weekend I participated in the "Christian Peace Witness for Iraq."
For me the defining moment came in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
Raphael Warnock, pastor of Martin Luther King’s home church in Atlanta,
Ebenezer Baptist Church, told us that the issue that drew us there is not
about opposing the surge or "not losing the war," as the administration
would have it. The real threat is that we are in danger of losing our soul
as a nation. At that statement three thousand people rose with a roar.
Though everyone was aware that there are tough political questions to be
dealt with, this gathering was not really about politics. Or as Jim Wallis
of Sojourner’s put it – this is not about politics; it’s personal.
I could not help but be reminded of Molly Ivins’ last column where she
pleaded with her readers to keep disturbing the world’s peace to stop this
war. If we can’t think of anything else to do, then go out in the streets as
the women in Eastern Europe did, banging their pots and pans. They didn’t
have to say anything because everyone knew what it was about. It's not
politics, it's personal indeed, was the testimony of Ms. Celeste Zappala,
whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004. As she told us about her son and as we
came to know him we also came to know how great was his loss. There were not
many dry eyes at the end of this straightforward account of one life lost. I
thought at times we were going to lift the Cathedral’s ceiling with our
singing. Yet, after all the words and music were over, we walked quietly
outside holding our battery-powered candles singing, "We are Marching in the
Light of God."
This was not a march for the fainthearted. The District of Columbia was
in the grip of a late cold snap that sent temperatures plunging from the 80s
two days before, to below freezing. Snow was falling, and between the wind
and the wet we began our 3.3-mile hike to the White House. However, about a
half an hour later, the wind died down, the temperature seemed to rise a few
degrees, and the snow stopped. Everything was quiet except for our singing
and trudging feet. It was so peaceful I thought of the Christmas song, "O
Holy Night."
You can be lonely even if you are walking with 3000 others. I used my
cell phone to call my wife, Irene, to tell her what was happening. She
reminded me that I should walk with a friend. I had hoped to walk with Carol
Wickersham, former Pastor of Northminster, who, with God, had brought me
back into the fellowship of faith fifteen years ago. However, Carol, who was
to speak at Lafayette Park, had been sent at the last moment to New York
Ave. Presbyterian Church, where an overflow crowd of more than 600 was
watching and participating in the service via a big screen. She would speak
there. So I introduced myself to the woman I happened to be walking beside
and found that her name was Carol. I took that to be a good sign. She had
grown up in Hollister, California, but now lived in Chicago, from where she
flew to Central and South America leading and administering Christian
Peacemaker teams. This had also taken her to Palestine. We had friends in
common.
As we arrived at the White House I swear the wind picked up and the
weather grew bitter. Here we faced a different reality. While 222 folks
engaged in civil disobedience, crossing the police line and being arrested,
the rest of us went two by two on a long walk around the perimeter of the
grounds of the White House, singing "Dona Nobis Pacem." At this point I had
another partner, also named Carol, now on her first peace walk. We blended
our voices and stayed close as we made the final leg of our journey
together. At all times I was also being accompanied by the 121 friends,
family members, fellow church folks, fellow activists and even a few
strangers I had met at Kaiser – all people who had promised to pray or at
least remember me and what we were about this evening. I was not alone, but
in the midst of a great cloud of witnesses.
The march was not the only time I experienced the broader church, as the
faithful remnant. On the afternoon of the march there were workshops all
over DC. One was entitled The Bible, The President, and Walter Brueggemann.
Brueggemann is one of the preeminent Old Testament scholars of his
generation. I was intrigued by the title and did not know the instructor,
Ray McGovern, who had been a CIA analyst for 27 years – from Kennedy until
the first Bush, but now was a founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity! What interesting times we live in. He asked us to introduce
ourselves sharing a recent challenge or grace. Soon our original group of a
dozen or so had more than doubled and I confess that I groaned as I saw our
one-hour slipping away with introductions, but then I relaxed and began to
listen. What I heard were inspirational stories of local action for peace
and justice all over the country. In this group of mostly Presbyterians,
Catholics and Mennonites, clearly a faithful remnant had come together. One
of the participants was Father Louie Vitale, activist priest of San
Francisco, who seems to have taken over from the late Fr. Bill O’Donnell in
spending most of his days in prison as a result of civil disobedience aimed
at exposing some part of the hidden tentacles of our empire’s violent
activity. How long will he be able to keep it up? Have all the saints,
marching in the light of God, marched into prison yet?
And what about Brueggemann? The reading from II Kings is the story of the
prophet Elisha warning the King of Israel so that he can avoid the various
traps set by the King of Syria. When the King of Syria finds out about
Elisha he sends an army to surround and capture him. So when Elisha’s
servant staggers out into the morning light and sees all these Syrian
chariots he cries out, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" Elisha says to
his servant, "Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who
are with them." Before asking Yahweh to take care of the Syrian menace
Elisha prays "O Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see." So the
Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw: and behold, the mountain
was full of the horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. So
Brueggemann asks "If we are unable to see the horses and chariots of Yahweh
that outnumber the enemy, then we abandon the subversive dream, nullify our
baptism, and settle for a royal reading of reality. That leaves the king and
his army finally in charge. How do you extricate yourself from the
conventional wisdom, from a royal reading of reality?" 1
I know many of you are familiar with the royal reading of reality in El
Salvador these last three decades. The second workshop I attended was about
the current situation in El Salvador. Maria Silvia Guillen, Human Rights
Advocate, led it. I was happy to learn from this middle-aged lawyer that
some good things had come out of the deeply flawed "Peace and
Reconciliation" agreement. Perhaps the most important was the transition of
the FMLN from a guerrilla fighting force to a civilian political party. Also
very encouraging was news that a whole new generation of energetic young
judges of integrity were working to build a non-corrupt legal system. Less
happy was news that the Human Rights Ombudsman who was to oversee the whole
peace and reconciliation process has had its budget cut every year.
You’ve probably read about recent assassinations in El Salvador. I don’t
need to tell you about what happened in the 80s and our country’s
involvement there. Clearly it was painful still for our speaker to talk
about – it was personal, not just political. For me the most disturbing news
was not new – that the USA was establishing in El Salvador a police training
academy to serve Latin America. You may not know that the parliament of El
Salvador in a rare act of independence at first turned down this
opportunity. After the school was also turned down by Costa Rica, the USA
returned to El Salvador again, and this time it agreed to be the site of the
school. What carrots and sticks were used to gain this change of heart I
didn’t get to ask. Clearly there has not been a ground swell of demand for
such a school. Having the school "off shore" is perhaps a result of the
opposition to the School of the Americas. Now that 35 of the congress people
who supported the SOA went down in defeat last year, perhaps this will be
the year when this symbol of our military’s penetration and control of the
militaries of Latin America, our foreign legions, is closed. May it be so,
and may it also lead to real changes in how my country relates to Latin
America and the rest of the world. 2
Though most of us got "home" in the wee hours of Saturday, by 11 AM 75
Presbyterians were meeting again to see how we could address some of the
myriad of issues raised by this action. I came to be part of a group that
included Carol Wickersham, Kirsten Klepfer and 6-8 others talking about
Carol’s work with No2torture. We all expressed frustration with how
difficult it is to address a subject no one wants to hear about – and yet we
must! Why? Because everyday your tax dollars are paying for this stuff
happening in your name even if hidden from the light of day. Once we realize
this is not just some "bad actors," but policy winked at by our highest
government officials despite the opposition of many military and civilian
leaders, then we know we must organize to say NO 2 TORTURE. Not that this is
a subject that is ethically complex, though now it is being "normalized" by
TV shows where the "good guys" are using torture to save the world. I like
the poster they have developed that goes like this:
People are being tortured:
Why should you care?
Torture is a sin.
Torture doesn’t work.
Torture hurts everyone.
All who torture,
All who order torture,
All who let torture happen,
Must be held accountable.
As followers of the tortured
And risen
Jesus,
We must stop torture.
Together we can.
Know. Care. Act.
On Sunday I returned to the same church, two blocks from the White House,
for services. It was thanks to churches all over the city that this event
without a budget happened. I can’t count how many times the hat was passed.
Rick Ufford-Chase, Executive for Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, preached
that Sunday telling stories of what had happened – like the four college
students from Spokane who drove all the way, but got caught in a snow storm
on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, slid under a semi and had their car totaled.
They got out and hitchhiked the rest of the way. There were folks there from
48 states. Rick also told stories about what will happen as he painted a
picture where this event became a tipping point for a church relearning to
save its soul by risking it for peace and justice. 3
After Church I went for a walk on the mall, as I wanted to see the
Vietnam Memorial. I also saw the Korean War Memorial. I was reminded of the
many nations that had joined in this UN police action to repulse the
invasion of South Korea by the North. No such justification was given for
all the deaths on the sheer wall of names at the Vietnam Memorial. Why?
Because there was none? We still have not come to terms with the fact that
we lost that war, a war we could never have "won" short of total destruction
of the country. I read that half the men who served in that war feel
betrayed by their government because we should have "won." Then I walked up
some stairs and as I looked out on that magnificent mall the thought
occurred to me, Where will we plant the Memorial to all the thousands of
Americans killed and wounded in Iraq, in this war begun as a preemptive
strike with no true justification and scant international support?
I turned and walked up the rest of the steps to the Lincoln Memorial to
see and read again the Gettysburg address and the Second Inaugural, and
could not help but think how different in tone and substance the words Bush
uttered nearly four years ago – "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" – were from those of
Lincoln. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall
have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with
all nations." I am told we get the leaders we deserve, but there are days
when I would get on my knees and pray not for what we deserve, but for what
we need. Join me if you can and then get those pots and pans.
David McPhail
Kensington, CA
irenendavid@yahoo.com
1. II Kings 6: 8-23
2. Ephesians 6: 10-20
3. Luke 6: 27-31
The author,
David McPhail, is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary and served two
parishes in Texas during the 1960s. He left the ministry in 1970 as (he
says) "one of the lesser losses in the civil rights struggle." He has been
involved in various businesses since then, and for the past 12 years has
been a member of Northminster Presbyterian Church in El Cerrito, CA (a more
light church), where he serves on the Session. His wife, Irene, is a member
of Kehilla Synagogue. |
|
No Pollyanna He:
Following Jesus in a Time of Fear
New York Ave. Presbyterian Church: March 18th,
2007
Rick Ufford-Chase
Executive Director,
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
[3-27-07]
Isaiah 58: 6-9
Luke 6: 27-31
Everything I am going to share with you this morning is true, except for the
part that hasn’t happened yet . . .
Once upon a time, not so very long ago,
The people of our churches across the United States were
afraid. No one knew exactly where the fear had come from, for they knew that
their churches had not always been held captive by their fear, but somehow
they had grown more and more comfortable, and from comfort it had been a
short jump to the sin of worshiping false gods - mostly the false gods of
wealth and materialism and the capitulation to the seductions of
over-consumption. As they grew increasingly attached to their belongings and
to the illusion that they themselves had created their own good fortune,
their comfort led them surely and inexorably down the slippery path to fear,
for when we believe that our good fortune has been the result of our own
efforts, when we slowly lose the certain knowledge that our help and our
hope comes only in the Lord, the pressure to maintain our good fortune
becomes almost unbearable, and we eventually dig ourselves into a pit of
fear so deep that it is impossible to see God and longer.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that our people intentionally
turned away from God. It’s more that the foundation of our faith changed in
subtle and largely unnoticed ways. We still, many of us, anyway, went to
church each week, but our services of worship in too many places became
empty platitudes about our dependence on God that few of us actually
believed.
As our worship and our preaching and our prayers became
more and more disconnected from the growing reality that our lives were now
dedicated to false gods and to the security offered by other gods, it became
harder and harder to convince our children and our grandchildren that there
was any need to go to church at all. "Of what use is a community of
believers that lives in denial," the next generations asked?
No one smells hypocrisy faster than a teenager or young
adult, and in our most honest moments, most of us had to admit that our
sanctuary had become havens of hypocrisy. Whatever the message about the
foundations of our faith that we espoused from our pulpits, it had become
clear that we were a people living far from the gospel values we espoused
and that we had little intention of questioning our growing independence
from God or challenging our obsession with securing our own safety.
Then, on September 11, 2001, the narcissism of our
individual races to the illusion of security, and the empty promises of
churches that no longer were filled with a people who needed God, were
transformed into a national obsession with security for a people who lived
in fear. Almost overnight, our fear as a people became our defining
characteristic, and as it did so, we lost all sense of reason. Though our
nation was, by any reasonable measure, the most powerful of power brokers in
the world, our entire country fell captive to the most potent and
frightening of combinations – we became a superpower that understood itself
to be the victim.
Though I’m not trained as an historian, it does seem to me
that such a combination has inevitably marked the beginning of the end for
the great nations of the world throughout history. In the same way that a
playground bully inevitably finds himself isolated, alone and spiraling into
a life of self-destruction, a nation whose churches have lost the ability to
correct the bullying characteristics of their own people also will
eventually fall.
But then, one bitterly cold, rainy and snowy day in
Washington, D.C. in the late winter of 2007, something happened that
suggested to a few careful observers that things were beginning to change.
It wasn’t a lone event, and those who had the good fortune to participate
were not particularly special. It was more like a tipping point that U.S.
Christians of future generations would look back on as a moment that marked
a new day – a Boston Tea Party kind of moment whose very inevitableness gave
it a special, maybe even an overblown kind of deeper meaning. Individual
Christians had already been experiencing similar epiphanies for some time.
What made this moment special was that it was such a powerful sign to the
participants and to the world that this was a collective "gathering up" of
the vision of the people of God.
That night – March 16th, 2007, in defiance of a
valiant attempt by the weather to keep it from happening (some reflected
that perhaps it was God’s way of trying to test the resolve of God’s
people), almost four thousand Christians from across the United States
gathered at the National Cathedral and New York Ave. Presbyterian Church in
Washington D.C. Simultaneously, thousands of others gathered at more than
two hundred churches in communities across the country.
 | They heard the voice of a mother who had lost her son,
a fallen soldier who was a member of the National Guard, and many wept as
she expressed the anguish of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of
mothers who have wept for the sons they have lost throughout the foolish
course of the countless wars of human history. |
| Rev. Raphael Warnock rose that night to beg his church
and his nation to give up their meaningless arguments about winning or
losing the war on terror and instead to embrace the far more critical
challenge of avoiding the loss of our nation’s soul. |
| Many other wonderful words were spoken that night as
the National Cathedral was filled with candles and the congregation sang
as if they genuinely believed that their song had the power to move the
entire country to reclaim its foundational values. |
I had the good fortune to be there that night. As I
participated in that worship to reverse the Church’s obsession with fear –
as I listened to the Rev. Jim Wallis shake the very walls of the Cathedral
with his insistence that this worship would mark the beginning of the end of
the war in Iraq – I had an overwhelming sense that we were reclaiming our
very souls.
Later that night as the worship came to an end, three
thousand people spilled out into the snow and the bitter wind to carry their
candles – the light of the nonviolent Jesus – to the White House. And then,
there was a small miracle – the sort of little miracle that has always
appeared at critical moments to give hope to the people of God. Almost in a
single instant, the wind ceased and the snow stopped falling and there was a
dead calm. It reminded me of the story of the stormy sea crossing in the
fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
Together, the three thousand people walked through the
cold with their candles. They sang and they prayed and they held hands and
the children ran on ahead and they lifted their candles high and they
continued to reclaim their souls. When they arrived at the White House, they
were met by more than six hundred sisters and brothers who had walked from
New York Ave. Presbyterian Church and whose candles welcomed them to
Lafayette Park.
A short time later, most of those assembled carried their
candles around the White House to encircle our President with light and to
pray for a new kind of courage – the courage to stand against fear. Two
hundred and twenty-two people crossed a police line that night and were
arrested as they closed the circle of light around the White House, praying
on the sidewalk in front of the White House until the last of them was
arrested and taken away at about 2:30 in the morning on that bitterly cold
night.
What took place that night as our people stood against our
obsession with fear and reclaimed our souls reminded me of the words of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., forty years and three weeks earlier, as he stood
against the fear and the violence of war of his own time. Dr. King said
that:
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that
wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must
come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a
means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends
through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games
before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of
past wars? Why can’t we at long last grow up, and take off our blindfolds,
chart new courses, put our hands to the rudder, and set sail for the
distant destination, the port of peace?"
Dr. King went on to say:
We will not build a peaceful world by following a
negative path. It is not enough to say ‘we must not wage war.’ It is
necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not only
on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of
peace.
My friends, what took place on that night was critically
important as a collective sign that the participants made that things were
beginning to change, but what mattered far, far more was what happened next
. . .
As those Christians left that night and returned to their
communities, they discovered many others like them who were on fire with the
possibility of reclaiming their own biblical traditions and the words of the
earliest prophets of the Old Testament, who called their people to account
in similar moments of fear in their own time. They recalled the words of the
prophet Isaiah, recorded in the 58th chapter of the book of
Isaiah, in which he said:
Is not this the fast (the kind of sacrifice) I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice,
To undo the thongs of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And bring the homeless poor into your house;
When you see the naked, to cover them,
And not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
And your healing shall spring up quickly;
Your vindicator shall go before you,
The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call and the Lord will answer;
You shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.
Together, Christians across the United States began
opening their eyes to Isaiah’s call for justice for the poorest among us,
and little by little, their churches and their communities were transformed
as they recognized the fundamental truth of Isaiah’s words – that all people
– all over the world – are in fact our family, and that any attempt to hide
from them, or to abuse that core conviction, is deeply displeasing to our
God.
They began re-reading the stories and the words of Jesus,
among them those we read from the 6th chapter of the book of Luke
this morning:
But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good
to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse
you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from
anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt. Give to
everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not
ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Together, in small groups at first – and then in larger
and larger communities – they reclaimed the gospel and committed to stand
against fear, to eschew the glittering illusions of security promised by the
war on terror, to end the war in Iraq, and to stand firmly once again as
communities of faith that functioned as resistance to the empty promises of
the powers and the principalities of their time. Instead, they opted for the
harder work - but surer bet - of safety that is built on community, on
reaching out to those of whom we are most afraid, of following Jesus’ clear
command to love our enemies and of building the real safety that is found
only in the Isaiah notion of justice and in Jesus consistent insistence that
our security is found only in right relationship.
You see, many in the church of that time still believed
that Jesus was kind of a little bit Pollyanna – that he didn’t really mean
what he said, or that his words were no longer really relevant. But let me
share what took place because of that wonderful witness on a cold March
night in Washington:
| A reporter from Al Jazeera was present in the Cathedral
that night, and the following day, a newspaper in Tehran picked up his
story and ran a picture on the front page of the Tehran paper that showed
Christians who were willing to risk arrest to stand against the war. A
seed was planted among some Muslims in the Middle East who began to
believe that there might be potential Christian partners with whom they
could build relationships. Together, in the months that followed, Muslim
and Christian moderates committed to stand together against the extremists
in their own traditions who cloaked their violence in religious language.
Their efforts eventually led to a global, interfaith movement to create a
world of genuine security – a global community that would overcome the
vagaries and abuses experienced by so many who were on the underside of
the global economy. |
| A group of students had traveled by car from Whitworth
College in Spokane, WA. When their car slid on the icy roads of the
Pennsylvania turnpike and they collided with a tractor trailer and ended
up unscathed but in a totaled car in the median, they left the car behind
and hitchhiked the rest of the way to Washington to be at the Cathedral.
Later that night they were arrested as they prayed and witnessed to their
faith in front of the White House. Deeply moved by their experience, the
students returned to their campus committed to creating a new definition
of family – an "Isaiah 58" notion of family. The students created
alternative housing at Whitworth called an Isaiah 58 house in which the
students committed to simple living and to specific peace and justice
projects. When other students heard about it, they copied the model and
the movement began to spread like wildfire to campuses all across the
country. By March of 2012, there were tens of thousands of students on
campuses across the United States and they were transforming the
neighborhoods in which they lived. Few people realized that it had all
started on that night in Washington with the Christian Peace Witness for
Iraq, but God knew. |
| There was a chaplain there that night who was deeply
moved and inspired by Rev. Warnock’s call for a surge in God’s nonviolent
army, and by the deep pastoral concern that the participants lifted up for
U.S. soldiers and their families. On that night, he committed to work with
groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams, Nonviolent Peaceforce, and the
Presbyterian Church’s Colombia Accompaniment program to build what
eventually became, by the year 2025, an international movement of more
than 250,000 Christians deployed as nonviolent peacemakers in situations
of conflict all over the world. Though it is clear in looking back that
the movement took off as a direct result of that chaplain’s experience on
the cold night, no one at that time would have guessed that God could make
such a think happen. |
| In the months that followed the witness, a group of
seminary students and faculty created a new religious order in an effort
to hold themselves accountable to the transformation they experienced at
that worship at the National Cathedral. They took vows to live lives of
simplicity and to devote themselves in their ministry to the end of war,
the creation of a just global community, and the deepest care for all of
God’s creation. Eventually, that religious order, which crossed all
denominational boundaries, grew to include more than 50,000 pastors, nuns,
priests and lay people across the country and around the world, and it all
started on March 16th, 2007. |
| The people of New York Ave. Presbyterian Church, having
been inspired as they played host to thousands of Christians who came from
across the country to witness to their faith, rededicated themselves to
recovering their long history of being the voice for the voiceless, the
strong prophetic voice calling for justice two blocks from the White
House. Coming out of that weekend, a small group of members of the church
dubbed themselves the "no more business as usual" committee and vowed that
they would dedicate themselves to leading the way among historic, inner
city churches were transformed to the work of peacemaking and justice
across the country. |
| And what happened to the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
and some thirty other partners who had come together to plan the Christian
Peace Witness for Iraq during that amazing weekend in March of 07? They
were transformed also, by the power of what had happened to them when they
committed together to boldly and unapologetically proclaim the gospel of
the Prince of Peace. They became the primary protagonists – the "outside
agitators" - in a faith-based peace movement that swept across the
country. Historians later looked back on that time as the next great
awakening – a revival and renewal of faith that opened the path to genuine
security that defined the global community by the end of the twenty-first
century. |
My friends, everything in this story is true, except for the part that
hasn’t happened yet.
We have a choice. We can opt – on this morning – to
continue to live into the bland and uninspiring work of institutional
maintenance that characterizes so many of our churches today. We can choose
to continue our commitment to place a theological veneer over a culture of
emptiness, unfulfilled promises, and fear. We can choose, if we wish, to
continue to create churches that bless our affluence and our power based on
a corrupted reading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Or . . .
We can choose on this day to dedicate all of our lives to
the creation of a new movement of followers of Jesus Christ who know that we
are called to transform the world. Someday, this weekend could be understood
to have been the tipping point. The choice is ours.
Amen.
I am indebted to peacemaker and storyteller John Paul Lederach for the
central idea of the power of imagination in this sermon. All of the
conjecture is entirely my own. I expect that God is capable of far more
creative imagination than I am able to fathom.
Biblical references are from the New Revised Standard
Version.
Dr. King’s words are taken from his speech against the
War in Vietnam on February 25th, 1967. I encourage you to read
the entire speech, which can easily be found by typing his name and the
date into an internet search engine.
Rick Ufford-Chase
|
|
The Presbyterian presence at the Peace Witness
in Washington Eva Gray Stimson has provided
two excellent reports on the event, for Presbyterian News Service
[3-21-07]
Thousands gather in Washington for ecumenical war protest
Six former GA moderators among Presbyterian contingent
Calling the war in Iraq "an offense against God" and
warning that America is in danger of losing its soul, speakers at an
ecumenical "Christian Peace Witness for Iraq" in Washington, D.C., March 16
drew thunderous applause.
Some 4,000 people from 48 states braved rain, sleet, snow
and bitter cold to participate in the event — a prayer service in the
National Cathedral marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq
war, followed by a candlelight procession to the White House.
Among those participating in the ecumenical event were six
former General Assembly moderators of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
General Assembly. Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 2004 Assembly, helped
organize the event and was one of those arrested. The Rev. Susan Andrews,
moderator of the 2003 Assembly, replaced Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick
for the Bible readings, when he was unable to get out of Louisville because
of travel problems caused by bad weather. The other former moderators in
attendance were Harriet Nelson (1984), the Rev. Herbert Valentine (1991),
the Rev. Douglas Oldenburg (1998) and the Rev. Syngman Rhee (2000). Also
present was Arline Taylor, whose late husband J. Randolph Taylor was
moderator of the 1983 Assembly.
The full story and photos >>
What church should be
Presbyterians of all ages connect faith and action in peace witness
Among the many Presbyterian college students and other
young people participating in the Peace Witness were four students from
Whitworth College in Spokane, WA. They almost didn’t make it, when their
drive across the country ended in a potentially fatal accident on the icy
Pennsylvania Turnpike. They survived, and hitch-hiked the rest of the way to
Washington.
They were among the 222 people arrested in front of the
White House later that evening.
Two ministers who recently fled Colombia because of death threats were
impressed by the peacefulness of the Washington events. The Rev. Milton
Mejia, former executive secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia,
and his wife, the Rev. Adelaida Jimenez, flew up from San Angelo, TX, where
they are now living, to attend the service and march. Mejia said he hopes
Christians who oppose the war in Iraq will also oppose the civil war that is
ripping apart Colombia. "That is why we wanted to be here," he explained.
The story and photos >> |
|
Christian Peace Witness – in Colombia too
[3-21-07]
This is Bob Leslie writing from Barranquilla, Colombia.
I am here as an Accompanier with the Presbyterian Church
(USA) through the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. I just wanted to add a
special note to Witherspoon website about an event that occurred here at the
IPC (Presby. Church of Colombia) Seminary in Barranquilla last Friday night.
Knowing that many Christians would be gathering in DC on
Friday night past to protest the US sponsored war in Iraq, leaders here
organized a parallel vigil and service emphasizing the ending of violence in
Iraq and in Colombia.
It lasted for three hours+ and included a convergence of 3
groups carrying banners: one for Colombia, another for the US and a third
for Iraq. The banners exhibited calls for an end to violence in all three
places in all its forms. For example, "My Peace I leave you, my peace I give
you," "Say Yes to Justice and Say No to Torture," and "May there be Peace
with Us."
There was much music and singing as well as a wonderful
sermon, testimonies and prayer concerns. It was an ecumenical service which
drew about 150 people from around Barranquilla and entitled, "Christian
Testimony for Peace in Irak."
At the end we heard sung a beautiful lament entitled, "Violencia"
which spoke of the falling tears of God caused by so much violence in this
world.
For me it is very encouraging to see the concern of those
here and their commitment to peace with justice and to know that they stand
with us in the US in opposing the violence in Iraq, just as we North
Americans here are opposing the violence present every day in Colombia.
|
Ending the
war is a moral, not a political issue
Thousands of
FaithfulAmericans urge lawmakers to end war now
[3-21-07]
Thousands of members of
FaithfulAmerica.org, the online community of the National Council of
Churches USA, are urging their Members of Congress to take the moral step to
end the war in Iraq. "The moral imperative to end this horrendous war should
far outweigh any political compromise," says the
FaithfulAmerica.org letter to
Representatives.
Send a
letter to your congressional representatives >> |
From the Pentagon to
California,
antiwar protests sweep across the country
[3-21-07]ANSWER - Act Now to Stop
War and End Racism – reports on the "March on the Pentagon" protest on
Saturday, March 17th and on related protests held around the
country.
Their report on demonstrations around the nation begins:
Thirty-seven years ago when anti-war protests began to
engulf the United States the Nixon administration adopted a public posture
of utter indifference. Nixon went out of his way to claim that he didn't
notice massive anti-war demonstrations in Washington because he was
watching a football game on TV. We learned later from the memoirs of high
government officials that the rising tide of anti-war protests between
1968 and 1970 constituted one of the greatest fears for the war makers.
The movement spread deep into the rank-and-file of the U.S. military as
well, as soldiers, marines and sailors carried out their own protests and
acts of resistance. Sometimes the people underestimate their own power,
but the ruling establishment knows all too well the consequences of a
politicized and mobilized people.
For their report on the March 17 "March on the Pentagon" >>
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An index of
our reports
from
BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation
to Global Discipleship
A Witherspoon conference
on global mission and justice
September 16 - 19, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky |
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Check out our report from the
Conference
on
Terror, Torture,
and Security |
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