Study War No More
Today, in honor of Veterans Day, President Bush attended what the Associated Press calls a “tearful ceremony” for four dead Texan soldiers who died in the military conflict in Iraq.
“In their sorrow, these families need to know — and families all across our nation of the fallen — need to know that your loved ones served a cause that is good and just and noble,” Bush said. “And as their commander in chief, I make you this promise: Their sacrifice will not be in vain.”
A cause that good and just and noble? How is this war good? Good for whom? Where is the justice? War is never noble — war is death and pain and misery. How can a promise be made that our young people, beautiful people my age, will not have died in vain? Any death for an unjust cause is a death in vain.
Christ taught his followers to love our neighbors as ourselves, and even to pray for our enemies. And as a popular bumper sticker says, “When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies,’ I think he meant ‘Don’t kill them.’” What does your faith tell you, Mr. Bush, about this? For God’s sake, how do you sleep at night?
If soldiers are lucky enough to survive the actual, fighting, how do you ignore them once they return? Where is the prompt, effective, federally supported medical care to patch them back up, to provide mental healthcare so that veterans might survive the emotional damage from your war? There are more than a quarter million Vietnam War vets with stress disorders, and more than 200,000 Gulf War vets who suffer Gulf War syndrome. How many more soldiers will be added to these numbers? How is this “supporting the troops”? Where is the just and noble cause then?
Where are your tears, President Bush, for the people you, as “the decider,” have killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where are your tears for the Iraqi and Afghan survivors, the parents, siblings, cousins, and friends who grieve the loss of their loved ones and who must struggle daily to get even the basic necessities for life because of you? Where are your tears for the “enemy combatants” who have been tortured and humiliated, with your consent? Your brief words at a ceremony don’t ease the anguish felt by thousands of people around the world.
I propose a new kind of Veterans Day. What if we declared instead a moratorium on war? I can’t think of a better way to honor vets.
Study War No More
I’m going to lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Going to lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
Ain’t going to study war no more
I’m going to put on my long white robe
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I’m going to put on my long white robe
Down by the riverside
Ain’t going to study war no more
I’m going to talk with the Prince of Peace…
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Tags: justice, War
Ideological Idolatry
This week, the Senate of the United States will be taking up the issue of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which just passed in the House of Representatives this past week. The bill is likely to meet with a veto from President Bush, the same fate it met at the beginning of October when it first found its way onto the President’s desk. The response from the White House towards the bill–which would provide health care for children of low-income families who earn too much to qualify for Medicare but not enough to afford private health insurance–is supported by a bi-partisan majority and is seen as a compassionate and necessary bill.
Why the apparently cold opposition? An insightful article from a high school newspaper offers a clue. The Bush administration has become entangled in the quagmire of ideological rigidness. Through a combination of unwavering support of privatization, moral opposition to welfare, political entrenchment against taxes, and a sheer pig-headed adherence to ideology that has been the hallmark of his administration, President Bush cannot see, much less act, outside of his self-imposed boundaries.
While it is easy to stand on the outside and criticize President Bush for his failure of vision and compassion, it is much harder to recognize the same ideological traps when you are caught in them yourself. As a religious person and a seminarian, I frequently encounter such ideological blindness. Perhaps the biggest example of the same phenomenon is the issue of homosexuality in the Episcopal Church.
As I have written previously, the House of Bishops called for the Bishops of the Episcopal Church to show restraint in the consecration of openly homosexual Bishops. It just so happens that the Diocese of Chicago is in the process of choosing a new Bishop, and this weekend I had the opportunity to meet the candidates. A few of the 8 individuals strike be as potentially making wonderful Bishops for our Diocese. Unfortunately, one of the high quality candidates is a lesbian in a committed and loving relationship with her partner.
As a result, it is unlikely that she will be allowed to bring her ministry and talent to our Diocese, even we were to determine that she is the best qualified to fill the position. The Episcopal Church has acquiesced the Anglican Communion and in doing so has allowed itself to become bound by an ideology that prevents us from doing what is right and compassionate.
Bondage to ideology is nothing less than idolatry–by binding ourselves we deny our ability to follow the movement of the Spirit, thereby placing our own beliefs above God. Rigidness in belief places the idea of God before God. How can it be overcome? By accepting the unknowability of God and walking humbly on the path of God.
Filed under: Anglicans, Ethics, LGBT | 0 Comments
Since Sunday, the nation’s attention has been focused on the wildfires encroaching upon Southern California. More than a quarter of a million acres have burned, and almost a million residents have evacuated. Today, President Bush sent a message to let residents of Southern California know that “Americans all across this land care deeply about them. We’re concerned about their safety. We’re concerned about their property.”
Yesterday, Bush declared a federal emergency for seven California counties, and has already made plans to visit the area Thursday. Washington has also contributed 32 firefighting crews and dozens of fire engines from the Agriculture Department, in addition to 25,000 cots and 280,000 bottles of water. More than 100 workers from t he Federal Emergency Management Agency are in San Diego County alone.
The Bush administration’s response to natural disaster shows a marked change from its reaction to Hurricane Katrina two years ago. In comparison to the wildfires’ current death toll of fewer than 10, more than 1,800 people died as a result of the hurricane and its aftereffects.
After Katrina, relief personnel didn’t reach the disaster’s epicenter, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, until days afterward. Broken levees in New Orleans led to flooding in most of the city and in surrounding parishes for weeks. Survivors struggled to find food and water. Those survivors who found shelter in New Orleans’ Superdome were subject to unsanitary conditions, insufficient food and medications and possibly even sexual assault.
Today, areas hit by Katrina still have not recovered. One-third of New Orleans’ population has not yet returned to the area, either because they have begun new lives elsewhere, or because they cannot afford to return. Schools, homes and businesses have not yet been rebuilt, leading to dying neighborhoods and communities, a concern exacerbated by unemployment rates.
Survivors who have turned to FEMA for assistance are still living in trailers, two years later. In contrast, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has promised that housing authorities will work with displaced California residents to provide housing—there will be no Hurricane Katrina-style trailers for wildfire evacuees.
What message does this lack of aid in for Katrina victims, especially in light of the rapid response to California wildfires, send to the hurricane survivors? Bush might as well say, “Americans don’t care about you. We don’t care about your safety, and we certainly don’t care about your property or your livelihood.” In his silence and with his inaction for further support for those still affected by Hurricane Katrina, Bush may as well shout that message on national television.
What has prompted such a strong response to the wildfires? President Bush didn’t seem nearly as concerned about the people affected by Katrina, and he certainly didn’t make many proactive efforts before the hurricane destroyed everything in its wake. In fact, he barely surveyed the area from the air days after the fact, on his way back to Washington after a vacation at his ranch.
Part of it has to do with the public outcry after Katrina; the Bush administration and FEMA were widely criticized for their sluggish, inadequate responses to the situation. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more to it. California places eleventh in the nation in terms of median household income; Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama all rank within the poorest five states. The seven counties declared in a state of emergency all have, at most, one-third of the African-American populations of the states hit by Katrina.
Bush claims he is a Christian, but he seems to have forgotten Christ’s message to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. At the very least, Bush should care for his poor, predominately African-American neighbors in the Gulf Coast as much as he cares for his rich, mostly white neighbors in Southern California. Maybe on his way home from California, Bush should stop by Louisiana and remind himself of that fact.
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Tags: justice
Liberating Leviticus
Ask and ye shall receive…
I asked a blogger on this thread to offer me some specific scriptural citations that indicate that homosexuality is a sin. So, somebody pointed out that in Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13, two men having sex “as with a woman” is clearly condemned.
This got me thinking, because it is also true that Leviticus is full of mandates, rituals, and practices that, for a variety of reasons, are no longer considered to be instructive for how we ought to live our daily lives today. (See Lev 11, 12, 15, 19.20-28 for particularly choice examples.) I frankly don’t see any standard by which Lev 18.22 and 20.13 should be literally applied in lieu of these others, per se.
Furthermore, I don’t agree that Lev 18.22 and 20.13 necessarily represent God’s final word for gay and lesbian people. To the contrary, according to Jesus, the social relevance of Levitican law actually suggests the exact opposite.
Filed under: Faith, Hebrew Bible, Jesus, LGBT | 4 Comments
Today, the U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives in passing the Matthew Shepard Act and sent it to President Bush.
The Matthew Shepard Act provides an opportunity for communities to receive federal resources in the prosecution of crimes based on the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity.
This can make a huge difference in the manner in which local law enforcement are able to prosecute crimes in their community. In 1998, both James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard were savagely murdered due to race (Byrd was an African American man) and sexual orientation (Shepard was a gay man). In prosecuting the murderers of James Byrd, Jr., the local law authorities were able to use the existing federal hate crimes legislation to pull in federal assistance in financial resources and human-power. With the Matthew Shepard prosecution however, the county could barely afford the costs of the trial, and had to furlough five law enforcement employees (.doc) in order to pay the bills. That’s completely crazy.
As a Christian who strives to follow Jesus’ mandate to love my neighbor as myself, I see no less of a mandate to do so based on someone’s sexual orientation, gender, disability, or gender identity. This legislation is long overdue, and yet it remains under the threat of an impending presidential veto. May God truly speak to this leader, and may Mr. Bush truly have ears to hear God’s mandate to love others just as we love ourselves.
Filed under: Faith, Jesus, violence | 0 Comments
Right Action
Today marks the 11th day of protests in Burma, where a popular uprising led by Buddhist monks is challenging the military government on issues of economic hardships and political freedom. While at first treating the protests peacefully, the government has now turned to violence to bring the demonstrations down. As a result, at least 13 people have lost their lives and many more have been injured.
As the intensity rises, the number of monks at the protest has begun to decline, not for lack of support, but because the government has begun rounding up monks from their monasteries and arresting them for inciting dissidence. The Burmese government has rightly identified the monks as bearing a great deal of moral power within their society, a power which they are not afraid to use.
This raises the question, are we as people of faith–as leaders in our community–fulfilling our responsibility to the moral power that we bear? Is it enough to join a Facebook group that supports our cause? When Christ called us to drop everything and follow him, what did he mean? Was it to live comfortably and do what we can or did he mean for us to submit ourselves completely to the will of God, to abandon our pursuits and focus our being on serving the work of the Lord?
The more I read, the more I learn, and the more I experience life and the world, the more I think that Christ intended the latter. It is terrifying and we are so good at justifying why it is not what Christ really wanted. Yet the monks went to lead the people, the monks went to stand up against power, the monks went to provide courage for the people in the face of terror, and the monks went and gave up their safety and their lives.
–
Cross Posted from Hellish Truth
Filed under: Ethics, Faith, Jesus, violence | 2 Comments
The March Goes On
The Bishops of the Episcopal Church concluded its talks yesterday in New Orleans where they met to discuss their position on homosexuality in light of pressures placed upon them by the greater Anglican Communion. In order to provide a brief background, members of the Anglican Communion, lead by the African Church, have been threatening a schism with the Episcopal Church if it did not address their demands regarding the practice of consecrating openly gay bishops and blessing same-sex unions. To complicate matters, a few individual dioceses of the Episcopal Church have begun the process of schism with the Episcopal Church over the same issue.
At the end of the talks, the response of the Episcopal Church was to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion and cave on its open and affirming practice of consecration of openly gay bishops and blessing of same-sex unions. There were a few other clauses in their statement, including a demand for the immediate cessation of interference in local diocese by African Bishops and a strongly worded statement outlining the church’s stance on homosexual rights.
“…we also be clear and outspoken in our shared commitment to establish and protect the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons, and to name and oppose at every turn any action or policy that does violence to them, encourages violence toward them, or violates their dignity as children of God.”
As a person of faith and more specifically, as a person aspiring to ordination in the Episcopal Church, I am greatly saddened by our Bishops’ decision. While I understand the importance of unity in the Anglican tradition, I have to ask at times like this, “at what cost?” In the words of Isaiah, “A highway shall be there, and it will be called the Holy Way.” We were on the path of the Holy, but we have left it in order to appease the greater church. While some may point with hope to the statement of dedication to the rights of homosexuals, the hypocrisy that we would claim to uphold their dignity as children of God and deny their ability to be consecrated as Bishops or have their union blessed is almost to great to bear.
So what now? We cannot lose hope–the path of righteousness is long and demanding. We must strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees, because the march must go on. When we choose to be in communion with Christ, then we must always stand by the oppressed and the suffering.
–
Cross Posted from Hellish Truth
Filed under: Anglicans, Ethics, Faith | 0 Comments
What’s your Christology?
Today, I’ve been pondering some tough Jesus questions. Knowing that you, intrepid reader, may have an interesting perspective of your own to share, I pose them to you now. Please feel free to respond to any one of the questions, all of them, or something else entirely.
- Do you think Jesus is fully human, fully divine, half human and half divine, or fully human AND fully divine? Or something else?
- If Jesus is part or fully divine, what did it mean for him to die?
- If Jesus is part or fully human, what would it mean for him to rise from the dead?
- If resurrection is primarily a function of the human body, what differentiates the miracle of Christ’s resurrection from those he caused to rise from the dead (i.e. Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, the son of the widow at Nain)?
Filed under: Faith, Jesus | 1 Comment
Rev. Otis Moss III
This guy is the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ. I stumbled upon a video of him speaking at the Day of Outrage last year, which calls for an end to the use of racist and sexist terms in commodified hip-hop.
Rev. Moss is quite the orator. Go check him out.
Filed under: Chicago | 5 Comments
Shifting Sands
Today’s news broke the story concerning the cancellation of the operating license of Blackwater, a private security firm based in the United States, by the Iraqi Minister of the Interior following a Sunday shootout that killed 8 and wounded 10 people. Blackwater has been a fixture of the United States’ efforts in Iraq throughout the war, although their presence has not been without controversy–including the mounting disfavor in which Blackwater is held by the Iraqi people.
Whatever your concern is about Blackwater–whether it be a lack of accountability to the law, inequality of pay when compared to soldiers, greater availability of protective gear for mercenaries, or lack of benefits for Blackstone veterans–I think that it is important to step back and consider the big picture.
Our society has been in a trend towards privatization of government programs in recent years. While this has been a trend over a period of time, it has become pronounced in the Iraqi war. Whether it be food services, technical support, nation building, or in the case of Blackwater, mercenaries, we have seen a large effort to commercialize the process of war.
This raises a number of troubling questions. When war becomes a for-profit venture, is it still possible to make a claim for just war? When war becomes a for-profit venture, what code of ethics guides our actions? When war becomes a for-profit venture, what impetus is there to stop?
For people of faith, the question must also be, “When the economy guides some of the most profound decisions of humanity, where is God?” Have we become like the foolish man who built his foundation upon the shifting sands? Who is our God?
Filed under: Ethics, War | 1 Comment
