Dear Friends, there are many things that we could and should talk about - as Disciples, as Christians, as people of faith - but there is one thing that today we must talk about, and that is peace. Whatever we may think about the war against Iraq, war always represents a failure of the human community and a failure of the Church to bear witness, fervent witness, to our reconciling God. And we need to talk about it.
With that in mind, and in line with our theme for Founders' Day, "Faces of Faith," I will begin by telling you about two faces that have been very much on my mind this past week. I'm sure that you have such faces as well, perhaps of loved ones or acquaintances in the military. I do not mean to overlook them in the least; but the faces in my head remind us of the even-wider community of what we are a part.
When Katherine and I first moved to Geneva in order for me
to serve on the staff of the World Council of Churches, we took
an intensive French course. And in the class with us was a young
Muslim woman, not yet in university, from a well-to-do family
in Baghdad. I will admit that I've forgotten her name, but not
her face which I seldom, if ever, saw without a
smile. This was striking to me since the effort to conjugate
French verbs left my face in a perpetual grimace! This was 1980,
and the face I remember must now be that of a 40 year old woman,
probably with children; and it's hard today to picture that face
as anything but desperately fearful.
The second face is of a man I met at the World Council's Canberra
Assembly. Some of you may recall that the assembly took place
in February of 1991, during the first Gulf War. The face, bearded,
is that of Gewargis Sliwa, bishop of the Apostolic Catholic Assyrian
Church of the East - one of the 600,000 brothers and sisters in
Christ who live in Iraq. During the
assembly, Bishop Sliwa gave me a profound lesson in what it means
to belong to the body of Christ when he said to me, "These
American bombs are falling on you."
"Faces of Faith." I appreciate this Founders' Day
theme because it reminds us that religions are not just abstract
systems of doctrine and liturgy, but communities of persons -
with faces we can recognize because, fundamentally, they resemble
our own. I will admit that not all faces are of equal aesthetic
value, but they show our common humanness. Behind this
are two essential claims of the Christian faith: 1) that each
person, every person, as a child of God, is of infinite worth,
and 2) that all persons are related in their humanity and vulnerability.
When looking into the face of another, we see ourselves and,
in some mysterious way, the God who has given life to us all.
How do we give expression to this basic unity? Well, one way
our churches have tried to do so is through the ecumenical movement.
Living ecumenically is very difficult because it means that we
must acknowledge our oneness as Christians with some people we
otherwise would avoid like the plague! Those who are more "hawkish"
must recognize that they are related by blood to Bishop Sliwa.
But those who are more "doveish" must recognize
that they are related to those who are more hawkish.
The ecumenical movement, however, is not simply about agreeing
to disagree. It is about seeking God's will together. And over
the past 60 years, Christians involved in ecumenical dialogue
- Disciples, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists,
Catholics, Baptists - have said several things together about
war and peace that it would be good
for us to remember today. I'm going to name three points on which
there has been broad ecumenical agreement, points that might provide
a good basis for discussion in church school classes. (And in
case the Disciples don't get them written down today, they will
reappear in my DisciplesWorld column for next month.)
1) In the words of the WCC's Amsterdam Assembly (1948), "War
is contrary to the will of God" - because it destroys that
which is of infinite worth. Yes, it may be that war, is at times,
a necessary evil, but it is still, in the words of the assembly,
"inherently evil" - which means that Christians should
never identify violence against others with the will of God, or
countenance such rhetoric when used by their governments. To
put it another way, "crusade" is no longer seen as a
legitimate Christian position. God's purpose is shalom. We do
not go to war ever in the name of God.
I stress this for obvious reasons. In our era, God has been blasphemously, repeatedly invoked to justify violence in such places as Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan - and, of course, the United States. Which makes it all the more important for us to bear witness to a "more excellent way."
Let me add a parenthesis. Hand in hand with this tendency
to see God on our side of violent conflict is the tendency to
demonize the other - which, in effect, is to deny our essential
relatedness as humans. I think the wisest theologian I have ever
known is the late Joseph Sittler. Listen carefully to two sentences
from one of his books: "To postulate a dichotomy
[a split] that sees evil as primarily the character of the other
is the sly and fateful way our self-deception operates. Evil
is never more quietly powerful than in the assumption that it
resides elsewhere."
Of course, Dr. Sittler's words cut both ways. It is easy to
point a finger at the President for the way he divides the world
into opposing camps, urging us to recognize satanic enemies that
can only be destroyed as part of a divinely-ordained struggle
between good and evil. But pointing at him alone also repeats
the problem. Many of us want peace and decry this
war, but we also want things that make for conflict - including
a standard of living that contributes to the poverty of billions
of global neighbors and access to minerals and fuels no matter
where they're located. No, the world must not be divided into
us and them, because (as all the great religions have taught)
what we behold in the other is also in ourselves.
2) Along with emphasizing that war is always contrary to the
will of God, the ecumenical movement has also stressed that peace
is fundamentally inseparable from justice. The World Council's
Nairobi Assembly (1975) spoke of how peace is foundational to
justice since
militarization "distorts social and economic priorities,"
taking the greatest toll, always, on those who are poor. Conversely,
the Vancouver Assembly in 1983 insisted that "without justice
for all everywhere, we shall never have peace anywhere."
What is emerging through these ecumenical conversations is
a new paradigm beyond the old alternatives of just war and pacifism
- a new paradigm that the United Church of Christ has called "just
peacemaking." It is not enough, said Martin Luther King,
Jr., to hate war; we must also "love peace and sacrifice
for it." It is not enough to react to the threat of
war; we must be proactive in our efforts to change those conditions
that contribute to conflict.
The UCC theologian, Susan Thistlethwaite, offers a concrete
example in a recent essay of what this might mean for public policy.
Afghanistan, she points out, needed a "Marshall Plan"
after the period of Soviet occupation. But the U. S. and other
wealthy countries did not act because Afghanistan didn't then
seem important to our "national interest." "We
let
poverty and oppression rule," she writes, "and now we
are reaping the results." To put it another way, working
for peace in Iraq in 2003 has been too late. Our most effective
peacemaking will come if we envision what will make for peace
in 2010 - and work for it now. Seen in this light, the decision
to use armed force, while perhaps necessary, always represents
a failure of governments to work for justice - as well as a failure
of the
church.
I add another parenthesis: A major theme of U. S. public life
since 9-11 is "security." The ecumenical movement reminds
us, however, that true security is never won through unilateral
"defense" but through active recognition of our global
interdependence, through recognizing ourselves in the face of
the neighbor. Attentiveness to the inequities and injustices
that afflict God's other children is in our national self-interest
- as well
as faithful to the God of all creation.
3) I come now to the third broad area of ecumenical agreement,
one that is at the very center of the movement: namely, that the
unity of the church is (or, at least, should be) a crucial witness
to peace. God's gift of reconciliation is for the world; but
the church is entrusted with this message - and we deliver it
not just by what we say or do, but by what we are, by the way
we live with one another. The philosopher Nietzsche once said
that he might believe in their Redeemer if only Christ's followers
looked more redeemed! And, of course, the same is true for our
witness to God's shalom. We can proclaim the unity of the church
and the human family until we are blue in the face, but until
we stop treating each other with
neglect and in difference, until we stop refusing to break bread
together at one table, until our churches stop reinforcing the
class and racial lines of wider society, until we stop ignoring
our connection to Christians in other parts of the world, the
credibility of our message will continue to be undercut by the
non-credibility of the messengers.
I repeat: the message of peace is for all God's children. It is no more acceptable in scriptural perspective to kill Muslims or atheists than it is to kill other Christians. But the way Christians live together could be - should be - a demonstration of what God intends for the world.
There are times when this has happened, at least to some extent,
through the ecumenical movement. During World War II, the churches
that were preparing to become the WCC declared to one another
that "the fellowship of prayer must at all costs remain unbroken
though the nations wherein we are planted fight each other."
During the Cold War, churches in the WCC refused to be divided
by the Iron Curtain; and some of you may have
participated in the church-to-church visits to what was then the
Soviet Union sponsored by the National Council of Churches. One
of my most memorable moments at a WCC assembly came in 1991 when
leaders of the China Christian Council and the Presbyterian Church
in Taiwan publicly embraced.
These are times when Christians must take sides against sisters and brothers in the church. But even in such moments, our understanding of Christ must be shaped more by theology than politics. Even in such moments, we must recognize that the "them" are, in some fundamental way, "us." Nothing else can testify so powerfully that our trust is in God, and not in the communities of our own devising.
* * *
I hope this brief look at three areas of ecumenical agreement
has been useful. Together, the representatives of our churches
have affirmed
1) that war is contrary to the will of God,
2) that peacemaking is inseparable from a proactive concern for
justice, and
3) that the way we live as church is a crucial dimension of our
witness to peace.
And beneath each of these affirmations are those two essential,
scripturally-based convictions: that each person is of infinite
worth and that all persons are related as
children of the living God. I must admit that Mother Teresa said
all of this far more simply: "If there is not peace in the
world, it is because we don't realize that we belong to one another."
It is this sense of universal belonging that I try to foster
in seminary students and which I hope for in you who are students
here today. In the closing minutes of my remarks, I want to speak
directly to the students. The rest of you can listen in, but
I'm going to suggest ten
things that you who are students might do, starting now, to cultivate
a lifestyle of peace. I'm sure there are things you can teach
me, but these are my suggestions - and I ask you to take them
to heart.
First, pray - on a regular, intentional basis - for those regarded
as enemies by our nation. I'm glad, Dr. King once said, that
Jesus didn't tell us to like our enemies! There will be people
we don't much like; but we love them because God loves them.
Praying for so-called enemies is a powerful sign and instrument
of this human unity that is at the heart of the
gospel.
Second, commit yourselves to dialogue with people you can't stand right in your own congregations. It is important to pray for enemies in other places; but, to phrase I John, how can we speak of relationship to people we can't see if we can't demonstrate relationship with people we see every week? Peacemaking begins at home.
Third, study the lives of persons for whom peacemaking has been a way of life. The faces of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dorothy Day come quickly to mind, but also look for more immediate models. It will embarrass him, but T. J. Liggett (who is here today) has been such a model for me. Let the witness of such persons help shape who you are.
Fourth, dare to imagine the world other than it now is. Part
of the reason the church fails in its mission of peacemaking is
that our imaginations are so impoverished, because we simply accept
what is as "the way things are." Study, for example,
the vision of Isaiah 65 ("No more
shall there be an infant who lives but a few days"). This
isn't wishful thinking. It's imagining the world as our gracious
God would have it. Let that set your agenda.
This past week we had the communications officer at the Israeli
embassy speak at Eden Seminary in order to understand better
the situation in the Middle East. We have no choice, he said,
but to respond to violence with greater violence - and all I could
think is "what a failure of the imagination"! What
a failure to put a face on Palestinian neighbors and to
imagine the world other than it now is.
Fifth, take every opportunity to travel in other cultures (preferably not in five star hotels!), and
Sixth, if you can't travel to various countries, then read works of fiction that come from those places. The study of history and government are great, but serious literature puts a face on people from parts of the world you may never see.
Seventh, practice hospitality to strangers - which is, after
all, one of the most persistent injunctions in all of scripture.
Welcoming strangers (migrant workers, people of other faiths
...) is based on a recognition of fundamental relatedness prior
to any specific knowledge of
who they are.
Eighth, remember that lifestyle (the amount of the earth's resources we consume) is also an act of peacemaking.
Ninth, be willing to look critically at the groups you are part of - whether that be your nation or your church or your university. Always be suspicious of proposals that work to your advantage but not to the advantage of your neighbors.
And tenth, live ecumenically. Churches often act like competing corporations, but you don't have to buy into it. Wherever you are located, work for the common witness of the church in that place. It will be a profound act of peacemaking.
The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (a graduate of Eden Seminary!) once wrote that "attitudes of repentance which recognize that the evil in the foe is also in oneself, and attitudes of love which claim kinship with all people in spite of social conflict, are the peculiar gifts of religion to the human spirit. Secular imagination," Niebuhr continued, "is not capable of producing such attitudes, because they require a sublime madness which disregards immediate appearances and emphasizes profound and ultimate unities."
In a world as divided as ours, in an age as bloody as ours,
in a country as seemingly bent on hostility as ours, perhaps it
is a sign of madness (counter-cultural madness) to imagine and
work for peace. But isn't this our calling as followers of Christ?
"Do not," wrote Paul, "be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God."
Through God's grace, may it be so. Even now.
Michael Kinnamon
Eden Theological Seminary