Christians Stand for Peace while Other Christians Promote War
On Friday, March 16th, over 3000 Christians kicked off the weekend long protests in Washington DC, with a service at the National Cathedral. The event was organized by Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and included many mainstream Christian denominations.
Rick Ufford Chase, the organizer of the event told me that it is a specifically Christian event because Christians need to take ownership of a self-professedly Christian President who has taken us to war. 3210 US soldiers have so far died in that war, over 23,000 US soldiers have been injured and according to conservative estimates over 100,000 Iraqis have died so far.
As I said at the lecture at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis yesterday, we have to ask some hard theological questions about what in our faith makes Christianity a violent religion.
Rick Ufford Chase, the organizer of the event told me that it is a specifically Christian event because Christians need to take ownership of a self-professedly Christian President who has taken us to war. 3210 US soldiers have so far died in that war, over 23,000 US soldiers have been injured and according to conservative estimates over 100,000 Iraqis have died so far.
As I said at the lecture at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis yesterday, we have to ask some hard theological questions about what in our faith makes Christianity a violent religion.
Interestingly, at the same time as Christians mobilize for peace commemorating the sad fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, other Christians namely John Hagee of Christians United for Israel are actively promoting war. I give you a link to a news report of an address Hagee made to AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee).
Hagee warned the crowd that "Iran poses a nuclear threat to the State of Israel that promises nothing less than a nuclear Holocaust." Hagee claimed that the situation is like 1938, only "Iran is Germany and [President Mahmoud] Ahmedinejad is the new Hitler."
Peace loving Christians must mobilize to actively challenge people like John Hagee. I would love to hear your suggestions about how we might effectively do this.
Click here to read Bill Berkowitz' opinion column entitled: Iran: The Religious Right's New Bugbear
posted by Shanta Premawardhana @ 11:48 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Easy, just prove that comparison false. Let me help you.
Ahmadinejad is the head of state in a parliamentary system, which means he has nearly no power at all (the Prime Minister is the one in charge). It's like the Queen of England trying to declare war, impossible for a figurehead.
Second, tell people to go and read his letters, he's not a crazy person. Sure, I disagree with plenty of what he says, but he's not crazy nor genocidal.
If I could, I would like to ask what your solution would have been had you been alive during Hitler's rise to power. Do you ever believe that violence is necessary to fight evil? Do you support for instance law enforcement using weapons of physical force if say you were being beaten to death by a group of thugs?
As for the notion that Ahmainejad is not genocidal, have you not herd him incite a crowd into chanting "Death to Israel"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FckLO8HcNyo
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