Thursday, November 02, 2006

Posted by mum2twelve at 1:17 PM

2 comments:

Lorcan said...

Dear beloved friend:
I know th spirit of love which leads thee to feel protective of America's soldiers, however,
Not to get deeply into politics, but this event is an example of such a sad aspect of American politics, truth being the first and last casualty of politics and war. Both parties do not tell the truth, and twist the meanings of what is said by the otherside, this is not a way to the truth.
The deception is that the leaders, few of whom have served in the front lines, accuse John Kerry of insulting the soldiers, the sad fact is all of us called to God's peace love the soldier, and hate the lies which lead them to wars.
As I watch the manipulation of truth in looking at the politics of war and peace, I am called to remember a piece of writing from a friend of mine.
The link for the rest of this is http://www.jesusforbidswar.org/" It was written by my friend John Edminister, and I think it speaks to God's purpose in seeking the truth during times of war...

Christianity armed is Christianity falsified. The gospel that God gives to men and women through Jesus Christ is a message of peace, and a gift of the power to live in peace. What happens if we accept this gospel is not that we are intimidated, forced, or persuaded by reason into laying down our weapons, but that we are transformed into new creatures. This new creature grows increasingly like Jesus Christ,[1] of whom it is, indeed, now a “member” in the sense that an arm, a leg or an eye is a member of a human body.[2]

 

Jesus accepted torture and death at the hands of his enemies rather than defend Himself by force, and it should come as no surprise that His disciples taught their own disciples not the arts of self-defense, but a way of accepting suffering as given from the hand of God,[3] a trustworthy God who will one day “wipe away all tears from our eyes.”[4] And so the living Christ teaches us today – to accept suffering without seeking to inflict it. This is One said to be "the same yesterday, and today, and forever,"[5] so if we fancy that He’s come around to a more “realistic” view of warmaking since He walked the earth as Jesus of Nazareth, we’d better think again.

 

For Jesus Christ taught His hearers not to fight back against evil, but to love their enemies.[6] The Biblical records tell us that when two disciples urged revenge on villages that had refused them hospitality, Jesus rebuked them, saying that He had come “to save men’s lives, not to destroy them.”[7] Though He drove the money-changers from the temple like trespassing cattle, there is no indication that He injured them.[8] When a party of His enemies came to arrest Him and one of His defenders cut off an enemy’s ear, Jesus disarmed the defender and healed the ear.[9] Finally, when the combined forces of the priesthood and the occupying army had crucified Jesus, He prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[10]

 

To become a member of this Person is to become incapable of waging war. War and fighting, taught the Apostle James, come from uncontrolled desires, and the determination to snatch by force what God may not be granting because it is not in our best interests to have it.[11] Though we are admonished to show respect and obedience to the civil authorities,[12] we are also warned to take no part in the “futile works of darkness,”[13] and in all cases we must choose obedience to God over obedience to men and women.[14] This is not to pass judgment on fellow-Christians that may hear the voice of Christ and obey it, but feel they have not been told to abandon weapons. To them we say, in all love and respect: just keep listening.

 

Today a great lie is masquerading in Christ’s robes. It sits in the seats of American state power, and among many American Christians that support the United States’ wars, deliberate injustices and deceits, as if oblivious that these are the works of Antichrist. We – America’s voters, taxpayers, consumers – have all been complicit in the destruction of cities, the accidental firing on wedding parties and innocent children, the murder of detainees hung by their wrists from the ceiling, and the sending of our own young people to die in a war evidently sold to us on fraudulent claims. The more clearly we see it, the uglier it gets. But it mirrors us: our self-satisfaction, our small integrity, our heedless and self-centered everyday lifestyle choices that call for the continued binge-guzzling of Middle Eastern oil by the American economy. One might see this last item as part of a larger pattern of importing pleasure and exporting pain, whereby we in the United States also enjoy cheap consumer goods often produced by sweatshop or slave labor elsewhere. At the heart of our condition stands a willingness to say, “let us do evil, so that good can result from it.”

11/02/2006 6:02 PM
Amanda said...

I have to say I laughed at the good humour of the soldiers when I saw this photo in the paper, though Iraq is no laughing matter. I happen to believe that Kerry was trying to mock Bush and not soldiers, but either way it sucks. Those of us on the "left" side hide behind giggling at Bush's unfortunate word gaffes and are content to snigger about Bush being "Dumb" instead of taking a good hard look at the policies our governments have put into place over years and years, making a situation like "being stuck in Iraq" inevitable. I think it's disgusting that Kerry even tried to joke about Iraq, with over 2,300 dead Americans (105 in October alone) and nearly 50,000 dead Iraqis. It is sick. Iraq didn't start with Bush, nor will it end with him. I'm not laughing.

11/06/2006 5:15 PM

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