Intercom of the Kentucky Council of Churches

Victories and Defeats in the 2008 Legislature

2008-04-10T15:47:00.006-04:00

Two days remain of the regular session of Kentucky's General Assembly. It has been a difficult session, and we still have time to effect change for the good in these last two days, but you'll have to read to the end of this blog to find out what you can still do!

Many of you have sent letters and made phone calls to your legislators. I hope you have been following the issues in your local news media, but in case you haven't let me take this opportunity to give you an up date on what has happened, on what still could happen, and to thank you for your participation in the legislative process. Citizens do make a difference. Your voice and opinions matter to your legislators.

THE BUDGET: The major issue facing the legislature in every even-numbered year is the state's biennial budget. Budgets, we know, are moral documents and reveal the priorities and values of a people. Unfortunately, the 2009-2010 budget for our Commonwealth will cause difficulties for many portions of our common life: students at our colleges and universities will face higher tuition rates; there will be minimal salary increases for teachers and staff at K-12 schools, and at colleges and universities. Health and human services will have no additional moneys to meet ever growing needs, and a number of programs will suffer significant cuts to their budgets.

The budget, as adopted by the House and Senate, contains no new sources of revenue. Even the minimal 25 cent increase in the cigarette tax was rejected. The KCC had supported an increase of 70 cents, which would have been a great factor in preventing teens from becoming addicted to tobacco, and in reducing the numbers of pregnant women who smoke. The tobacco tax, even at the 25 cent level as suggested by the House in its version of the budget, would have made some difference and would have generated about $50 million new dollars. A 70 cent increase would have generated about $225 million.

New dollars were needed because the current economic climate has resulted in declining revenues from the state income and sales taxes, all while costs for Medicaid, education, and prisons keep rising. Kentucky is in a real pickle for the next two years, unless the legislature is called back by the Governor for a special session (to the tune of about $65,000 per day) to review the budget and pass some new "revenue enhancements" prior to July 1st.

CASINOS: Through a combination of factors, including the effective voice of opponents such as the Kentucky Council of Churches, the Kentucky Baptist Convention, the Family Foundation, Say No to Casinos, and Kentucky Youth Advocates, and including internal political conflicts between the two political parties and internally to them, the casino issue never made it to a floor vote. The proposal that was brought forward was not what the thoroughbred industry had hoped for, either. The resulting disarray of voices for casinos and the politics of the issue mean that it is effectively dead, and cannot be passed to be included on a ballot for the people's vote until 2010.

ANTI-BULLYING BILL: HB-91 passed both the House and Senate after a conference committee ironed out some of the differences between the two chambers. We have been working for the passage of this bill for 4 years. The bill requires the development and implementation of discipline procedures around bullying. It also requires consistent reporting procedures to state authorities for all school districts.

CHILDREN'S WELFARE: Two good bills for children also passed. SB-120 requires booster seats for children under age 7 who are 40-50 inches tall, and sets a $30 penalty for noncompliance with a grace period for enforcement until 2009. HB-186 requires public school students to receive a dental examination within 90 days of first-time enrollment in Kentucky schools. This means that many children will receive dental care for the first time in their lives.

ENVIRONMENT: The "Stream-Saver" bill that would have prevented strip mining from dumping the debris from their mountaintop removal procedures into the headwaters of creeks and rivers did manage, at last, to receive a hearing, but not from the Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources, but by the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. We are hopeful that in future years the groundswell of public opinion in favor of this legislation will force it to be heard and receive a vote from each chamber.

I encourage you to read Wendell Berry's impassioned speech from the "I Love The Mountains" day, attended by approximately 2000 Kentuckians, at http://www.kftc.org/our-work/general-assembly/stream-saver-bill/Wendell%20Berry%202-14-08.pdf

ECONOMIC JUSTICE: The Pay-Day Lending bill, HB-500, is stuck currently in the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee. Sponsored by Rep. Johnny Bell, HB-500 would require the creation of a database to allow the Office of Financial Institutions to monitor compliance with state law by payday lenders and borrowers. While not nearly as strong as we would like it to be, it would at least eliminate the practice of borrowers taking out a new loan immediately after paying off a previous loan, and would require a 24 hour cooling off period. The database would make sure that people did not have more than one such loan at a time.

The Pay Day Lending bill still has a chance to be voted out of the Senate and to be delivered to the Governor before the Legislature adjourns on April 15. Please call 1-800-372-7181 to let your legislator know your opinion about Pay-Day Lending practices in Kentucky.

THANKS. Again, I thank you for your participation in our action alerts and in being involved in the legislative process as a faithful citizen. Together we can build a more perfect union.

I also want to thank the groups and churches that hosted me for a Legislative Briefing: First United Methodist Church, Frankfort; Union College, Barbourville; the Peace and Justice Committee of the Diocese of Northern Kentucky; the Kentuckiana Association, United Church of Christ; Summit Heights United Methodist Church (Louisville); Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church (Louisville) and the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky; and Grace Episcopal Church, Paducah.

Time for Divestment in the Sudan

2007-11-21T10:20:00.004-05:00

How long will decent people let the genocide in Darfur, Sudan continue? Over three years ago Congress and even President Bush named the violence in Darfur what it is: genocide. Yet it continues. After the Holocaust of the Third Reich, the world said: “Never again.” After the horror of Rwanda, the world said: “Never again.” People of conscience want to know when “never”, with regard to Darfur, will finally begin.

Since 2003, the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed (the devil on horseback), have been conducting a scorched earth campaign against targeted African communities in Darfur, an area in western Sudan the size of Texas. With extensive support from the Sudanese military, the Janjaweed have terrorized and killed civilians, raped women and girls, and burned villages to the ground. Nearly a half million people have been slaughtered.

When, please tell us, does “never again” begin? With nearly 4.2 million people in need of humanitarian aid, and more than 2 million of whom have been displaced from their homes to live in make-shift camps dispersed through out the regions, the genocide has gone on and on and on.

Despite condemnation from the international community and countless U.N Security Council resolutions, Khartoum has not taken any steps to disarm the Janjaweed, or to end attacks on civilians. Shrugging their shoulders at the U.N. arms embargo, the government continues to fly weapons into the region, and it does little to discourage the ever growing numbers of splinter rebel groups in order to keep the chaos going.

Let us remember the prophet Jeremiah who cried out against the rulers and people of his time: “For from the least to the greatest of them everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. They have acted shamefully, they have committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:13-15)

Are we not embarrassed by the outrageous acts destroying innocent people in Darfur? It is time to do more than to shake our finger and label the events for the past three years as genocide. It is time to use some muscle, and exercise the real clout that is based in economics. If we do not, we are party to the abominations and shameful acts.

The Sudanese government depends heavily on foreign investment to fund its military campaign in Darfur. For example, more than 70% of Sudan’s oil revenue is used to purchase or produce the military equipment Sudan uses against its own citizens. While U.S. sanctions currently prevent domestically-owned companies from doing business in Sudan, many U.S. companies, mutual funds and individuals are unwittingly funding the Sudanese atrocities through their investments in foreign companies operating in Sudan.

Federal divestment legislation – H.R. 180, passed in July in the House by a vote of 418 to one; and a similar Senate bill (S.2271)—the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act that was introduced in October—could go a long way to increase dramatically the economic pressure on the Sudanese government by prohibiting U.S. government contracts with all foreign companies whose business helps fund the Sudanese campaign in Darfur. These companies which engage in the oil, energy, mineral extraction and weapons industries would be forced to choose between contracts with the U.S. government and business with Khartoum.

Citizens who are bothered by the whole catastrophe in Darfur should know that the Bush administration has slowed the progress on this legislation, fearing that it might endanger some current diplomatic activities with Sudan. American people of conscience know that time has already run out for too many people. Thanks to the efforts of citizens throughout the U.S., 21 states have already enacted Sudan divestment measures.

Now it’s time for the U.S. Senate to stand up and demonstrate that the U.S. isn’t just giving lip-service to its opposition to genocide. If the Senate fails to act, a critical opportunity is lost. Call Senator McConnell and Senator Bunning and ask them: When does “never again” really begin? Now is the time to act for our brothers and sisters in Darfur. Tell them to vote for the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act.

Ten Dynamics Impacting American Denominations

2007-03-13T11:35:00.000-04:00

On March 1, 2007, I gave a lecture at the Lexington Theological Seminary's Convocation. The title was The Future of Denominations. It was a long presentation. In my blog, I'm going to post the essential ten points that I made, and in a future blog, will outline some of the places that I find hope. While the material I presented makes the future look bleak for the historic American Protestant denominations (with ramifications for the Roman Catholic Church, too), Christians are a people of hope. There are signs of hope. So don't let this blog get you down, but I do hope you will take it seriously. It is meant to provoke thought, and stir up your imaginations.

The Ten Dynamics Changing American Denominations

There are 10 critical dynamics impinging on American Christianity, forcing radical and very rapid changes:

1. A major realignment within and between American denominations moving like a tsunami across our religious landscape. Based in convictions about the authority of scripture, denominations are experiencing internal conflicts over issues related to human sexuality and human reproduction, gender roles, and the mission of the church in society.

2. Denominations are becoming increasingly post-denominational and what denominational distinctions remain are blurring. This is both a signal of our ecumenical successes over the past 60 years; and also a sign of the dying importance of ideas and systematic theological thought in favor of powerful, transformative personal religious experience. Congregations may drop a denominational label from its name, in favor of a more generic and inviting name.

a. One cannot assume that this is purely a Protestant phenomenon. Catholics, who once stayed in a neighborhood parish, are now likely to seek out a congregation and priest whose style matches their own perceptions of what it means to be a Roman Catholic parish. Moreover, parish councils in Catholic congregations have gained great power over the past 25 years. If they don't like their priest for some reason, they can usually put enough pressure on the Bishop to find them a new priest more to their liking.

b. Roman Catholics, whose liturgy has been borrowed by many Protestants in the previous era of liturgical renewal, now often borrow from Protestants, e.g., baptism by immersion is increasingly practiced in Roman Catholic churches. This is both a sign of our ecumenical successes, but such adaptations also signal less rigidity in praxis that allows for the subjective dimension to find satisfaction.

3. The post-modern intellectual attitudes cede the possibility of certitude and absolute truth to a more subjective apprehension of truth for me and a willingness to allow others to have similar or even different truths for themselves. Post-modern attitudes undermine the possibility of authority residing in an ecclesial office or in any historic documents.

4. Post-modernism, and post-denominationalism have not led to Christian unity, resulting not in creeping congregationalism, but in a more American populist syndrome that can be deemed localism. People no longer have trust in institutions that they cannot see and do not control. The absence of trust in distant hierarchical forms of institutional life pervades much of American society.

5. People are spiritually hungry, but that hunger expresses itself not so much in a desire to understand theologically or intellectually, and not in a desire to apply aspects of theological understanding to other complex areas of human life such as economics and national security, but in a desire for religious experience. Given a post-modern attitude, an individual may be able to accept a wide array of doctrines, so long as the experience meets the essential needs of the individual at a particular point in his life. When the experiences no longer feed the individual, they may move on to a new context in search of meeting their spiritual needs.

6. Denominations face declining financial support from local congregations, due to the absence of knowledge about what functions are carried out by the denomination's structures, and due to the absence of trust for institutions beyond local control.

7. Denominational life is changing so radically and so fast that denominational executives and administrators can barely handle all the changes. In the most part these institutional representatives are trying to do all that they formerly did with about half the financial resources, and half the staff. The problem is not that people are giving less money to their churches. In fact, studies show that people are giving more than ever before, but more and more of that money is staying home within the local congregation.

8. American cultural populism tends to resist long-term institutionalization of any dynamic.

9. American cultural impulses for immediate gratification may also be blamed, in part, for the attitude of keeping "money at home," rather than sending it to a collaborative organization.

10. Organizations or organizational structures whose work is not immediately visible become less attractive recipients of individual and congregational financial support, and thereby tend not to be funded, or to be understood as part of their inherent mission.

Some Potential Consequences

The consequences of these ten dynamics endangers the capacity of the local church to see the forest for the trees, to have a truly global understanding of the body of Christ, and may yield a situation in which there will no longer be adequate educational and support services necessary to allow congregations to see and minister beyond themselves. In danger of disappearing are the denominationally distinctive Sunday School curricula, the certification of clergy, and the maximized use of time, energy and money in mission work.

What denominations are in danger of losing as they become more determined to do what they always did is the insight of peers in the ecumenical community, the possibility of fresh vision and imagination, and the exponential increase in clout through joint actions in the public policy arena. If denominations continue to try to maintain all their previous programs and functions with declining financial resources, they will continue to lose congregations in to the great maw of indistinct, amorphous locally centered Christian eclecticism.

It will be crucial for denominations, perhaps working with the ecumenical bodies that they are so drastically under-funding, to work together to imagine a new future and new ways of resourcing the local church to keep it accountable to the Gospel of Jesus, to offer mutual support, mutual discernment of what, where, and how God's Holy Spirit is leading the church, and to keep each other honest. Without such imagination and prophetic leadership, eventual collapse of the historic American Protestant denominations is possible. I have a friend in the Netherlands, a theologian of some repute there, who says quite frankly, based what he has witnessed of these same dynamics over the past 40 years in western Europe, that we may be in the last century of the Christian religion.

I am not quite so pessimistic. A future blog will outline signs of hope.

Living always in hope for unity, justice, and peace, Nancy Jo

Minimum Wage: It's About Values

2007-02-14T14:06:00.000-05:00

In his State of the Commonwealth address, Governor Fletcher closed by praising legislators for hanging the banner that reads "In God We Trust" in each chamber. Then he noted that "...here in Frankfort the well-heeled voices are easy to hear, hard to ignore and inviting to heed. But if we listen carefully," he said, "we will hear the soft and timid voices of the poor, the fatherless and the downtrodden that without our special efforts will go unnoticed. It is often in the still small voice that truth resounds." His final sentence implored: "Let us listen more carefully to do justice to those that our creator called the least of these my brethren as we have done these three years."

Not to put too fine a point on it, there is a certain moral irony here, for both the governor and the legislature. The God in whom they say they trust is a God who is always on the side of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the vulnerable. The God in whom they say they trust is a God who has been scandalized throughout history by lip-service that does not follow-through with actions on behalf of the poor, who are God's beloved.

In a speech laden with ideas about how to spread moneys from the so-called "surplus" there was very little for anyone who might qualify as poor. Supplementing financial aid while raising tuitions will not provide significant help our college students. Many of them earn the tip wage ($2.13 per hour) as they work to put themselves through college, laboring 40 + hours a week at jobs whose schedule allows them to also go to school. A tax exemption for those in active military service is a temporary measure that will surely help their families here at home, but doesn't address their need for more income.

What would really help both these groups of deserving people, and the nearly 117,000 of children who live in poverty in Kentucky is the swift passage of HB-305, which would raise the minimum wage to $7.00 in July. Increasing the minimum wage would benefit as many as 275,000 of our neighbors, especially the 126,000 whose wages now fall below $7 an hour. When 83% of Kentuckians who would see wage increases with the passage of HB-305 are over age 20, we are reminded that this isn't just about first time workers. Often, it is about our college students who are working 40+ hour work weeks at restaurants earning tip wages that may bring them to slightly above the minimum wage, but certainly the wages and the long hours that they have to work in order to pay their bills and their rising tuition rates delays their graduation from college and slows their entry into a skilled knowledge based economy. It would also allow businesses to plan for future such increases by having a built-in cost of living adjustment to the minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage is not simply an issue to be debated about whether it will be passed in Washington or in Frankfort. We have been waiting for Washington act for three years, and once again, it has stalled. The minimum wage issue is not just a matter of economics, but it is a values issue. It is a religious issue about how to treat our neighbor.

There are over 2000 references to the poor in the First Testament. It is the second most prominent biblical theme, following after idolatry, with which it is often connected. The Hebrew prophets were clear: it is idolatry to give allegiance to God and then ignore the claims of the poor for justice. One of every 16 verses in Christian Scriptures has to do with the poor; in the first three Gospels, one out of every 10 verses; and in the Gospel of Luke, one of every 7 verses is concerned about the poor.

There is a floor below which it is unjust, and immoral to pay someone for their labor -- whether they are young first-time workers, or adults with minimal skills. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain..." [Isaiah 65:22-23]. The letter of James says: "Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord." [James 5:4]

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have led the way by raising their minimum wages higher than the federal wage. They knew that it was immoral to wait any longer for Washington to act. Must Kentucky be perpetually in last place? Let's join the other 29 states, and do what the people clearly support, and raise our minimum wage. Let's quit scandalizing the God we say we trust.

Statement for KY Faith United To Reduce Tobacco Use

2006-05-31T10:55:00.000-04:00

The following is the statement I delivered at a press conference on May 31, 2006. To read more about this press conference, please visit the website of the Kentucky Council of Churches. To read the statement adopted by the Executive Board of the Kentucky Council of Churches on May, 16, 2006, please visit http://www.kycouncilofchurches.org/TobaccoUse.html.

Scripture tells us that our bodies are gifts from God, and that they are to be honored and respected. Today, on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, I am pleased to announce that the Executive Board of the Kentucky Council of Churches, meeting on May 16, at Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown, Kentucky, unanimously endorsed the resolution of the Kentucky Faith United to Reduce Tobacco Use.

We in the faith community cannot stand by while tobacco use devastates so many Kentucky families. So many of our children and adults are at risk because our state has the highest smoking rate in the nation. Our community leaders have a moral obligation to address this serious problem by taking actions to protect the health of all citizens. We hope and pray that public officials will do what is right and that they will act quickly to increase the tobacco tax-a proven means of reducing teen smoking in particular-and to pass smoke-free air laws and fund tobacco prevention programs to protect all Kentuckians from the hazards of tobacco use and second hand smoke. We know these solutions work.

So far, our elected leaders have only taken baby steps towards enacting ways to change and improve the health of Kentuckians, when it comes to tobacco use. These small measures leave us with the fifth lowest tobacco taxes in the nation. Kow-towing to merchants in the name of so-called "lost revenues" does not acknowledge the profound expenses that they incur and that all of us experience because of the ill-health of our fellow citizens.

The Kentucky Council of Churches has been conducting a multi-year campaign among our member denominations to encourage congregations and pastors to understand physical health as a spiritual issue. By addressing health related behaviors such as smoking and other addictions, churches help their members grow spiritually, and contribute to changing public attitudes and public policy about tobacco use. In its first years of existence, the Kentucky Council of Churches brought churches together to address the use of tobacco and alcohol by children. We are continuing that emphasis nearly 60 years later. Moreover, in a time when the state continues to struggle to find adequate revenue to meet the growing costs of Medicaid (many of which are caused by the health damaging effects of tobacco use), the Kentucky Council of Churches has consistently endorsed tax reform measures that would include raising the tobacco taxes in our Commonwealth. Then, instead of eliminating a number of our neighbors' access to health care, we might be able to fund the system more adequately.

Finally, however, it is our clergy who can make the biggest difference in this battle. Talking with our members about their habits-from tobacco use to alcohol to eating habits--, and creating support ministries to help people address their health issues in positive ways, we can change the reality of Kentucky's embarrassing ill health, and make our beautiful state a place of healthy, bright, energetic people. The Council will continue to use its means of communicating with its 3000 congregations, who have collectively nearly one million members, to join this campaign and our campaign of Kentucky Churches Care for the Body.

Guest Editorial: Media Coverage of the Iran Threat

2006-04-25T11:32:00.000-04:00

by Geoff Young, Lexington

Just as the idea of a threat from Saddam Hussein was consciously hyped by the Bush administration in 2002 and early 2003, the idea of Iran as an existential threat to the US is being hyped today. Coverage of the Iran nuclear issue over the past 6-8 months has had an impact: approximately half of the US population now fears Iranian nuclear weapons. The mainstream media (MSM) has contributed to this climate of fear by producing a stream of articles written from within the administration's frame -- "Iran is a Threat to Us"-- and leaving out the critically important context of international law.

Key facts are being omitted from almost all MSM articles and reports:
(1) Under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants.

(2) Israel has never signed the NPT and is widely believed to possess at least 200 advanced nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them onto Iran's cities.

(3) The US and other major nuclear powers have consistently ignored the provisions of the NPT that require the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. The Pentagon is even working to develop a new generation of smaller, "more usable," mini-nukes and "bunker-busters," an advance in the arms race that contradicts the spirit of Article VI of the NPT.

(4) The US is taking hostile actions against Iran's government. Congress has appropriated millions of dollars to "promote democracy" in Iran, and the Guardian Unlimited reports that US special forces have been operating in Iran to select sites for future air strikes and help armed opposition groups http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1750678,00.html (4/10/06).

How would Americans feel about similar actions being taken by a hostile foreign government on our soil? We would surely consider it an act of war.

(5) If Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which has not been proven, it is probably for the purpose of deterring an attack by Israel or the US. Iran is aware of the different policies the US has taken toward Iraq as compared to North Korea.

(6) The current US administration has a proven track record of exaggerating threats and using fear in order to justify aggressive war. Has the MSM learned nothing from the Iraq experience?

(7) An attack by the US and/or Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities would constitute the war crime of international aggression (unless the UN Security Council had first authorized an attack, which is almost inconceivable given the position of Russia and China).

(8) Such an attack could lead to a much wider and longer war in the Middle East, and might even trigger a third world war between the US and much of the Muslim world. A typical example of the right-wing frame appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader on Sunday, April 16, pages A3 and A4. A full-page article by Andrew Maykuth of the Knight-Ridder News Service was titled, "Portentous Power Play: Tehran's insistence on enriching uranium could destabilize a volatile region, damage energy markets and bring nuclear weapons to an Islamic theocracy." We see a map showing the range of Iranian missiles that, if fitted with hypothetical nuclear weapons that do not now exist, could "put targets in the Middle East and Asia - and American troops in the region - at risk."

We are not shown a map of US military facilities that could threaten the security of Iran, even though it was the US, not Iran, that invaded a neighboring country (Iraq) in 2003 in an unprovoked act of aggression, has troops fighting in another neighboring country, Afghanistan, ensures that no serious pressure will be exerted against Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, and just agreed to accept the legitimacy of India's nuclear weapons. We also see the same kind of scary satellite photos of Iranian buildings that Colin Powell trotted out at the UN during the long campaign of deception designed to justify an invasion of Iraq.

The article quotes various foreign policy experts about what is at stake and what options the US government has. The Iranian government is described as "revolutionary" and an "Islamic theocracy." The entire discussion is firmly anchored within the Bush administration's frame, i.e., "Iran is a threat and what can we do about it." The issue is never framed as, "What can the countries of the world do to deter the theocratic US president from committing further acts of war and aggression?"

Likewise, the issue is never framed as, "What is the Bush administration up to now, and is it possible that they are cooking up an 'Iran Threat' in order to help themselves politically?"

By helping the Bush administration hype the "Iran Threat," the MSM is playing with fire. It is failing to exercise its journalistic responsibility to question the motives of powerful people, and it is behaving in a highly irresponsible manner, exactly as it performed during the buildup to the War in Iraq. A much more skeptical approach is urgently needed, or we may find ourselves discussing how the MSM helped George W Bush start World War Three.

Geoffrey M. Young, Lexington, KY
email: gyoung4@isp.com

A Tribute to Bill Coffin: Pastor, Prophet, Friend of the World

2006-04-13T11:38:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post today (April 13, 2006) headlined its obituary for Bill Coffin: William Sloane Coffin Jr; Chaplain was Lifelong 'Disturber of the Peace'. They got it wrong. Bill was a disturber of complacency, of apathy, of cynicism, of syrupy sentimentality and bland religion. If you felt comfortable in any of those ways, then he disturbed your equilibrium and upset your ways of thinking about life and the Gospel. He was, rather than a disturber of the peace, an advocate for peace, the peace that passes all understanding. He believed in the reconciliation of nations and human beings. He committed himself to right the wrongs he saw that wounded people and kept us all from the truth.

It was my privilege to know Bill Coffin for over 40 years. Although I was never part of the inner circle of students from Yale Divinity School who became his close friends in the days of his chaplaincy at Yale, I was on the fringes of his ministry for over 8 years during that time in a variety of ways. I taught his children in Sunday School, although I doubt that they remember me because their lives intersected with hundreds of seminarians and students. Later, after graduation from Yale Divinity School, I served as an associate minister of one of the three churches on the New Haven Green, and there, with other colleagues, formed the New Haven Downtown Christian Ministry, an ecumenical effort at serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and in shared religious education. In that capacity, I worked as a colleague with Bill during those days when there were demonstrations about the Vietnam War and over Civil Rights issues (the Black Panther trial in New Haven). Those days during the 1960s and 1970s were formative of my entire life and ministry. I have tried to model my own preaching, teaching, pastoral style, and work for social justice on what I learned from William Sloane Coffin.

Long years passed, until we reestablished our friendship when we brought Bill to Kentucky to be our speaker for the annual assembly of the Kentucky Council of Churches, in October of 2001. He remained in Kentucky after that assembly and preached on Sunday morning at my little country church, New Union Christian Church in Woodford County. There were people who called members of my congregation to blast them for having that "radical" speak at their church.

Wherever he went and whenever he spoke, he left the people who heard him charged with a new vision of their potential to be something better than they were, and with a knowledge that they had the capacity, as ministers-as pastors, and preachers, as leaders-to change the world. His pastoral style was so personal that he connected directly to all kinds of people who may or may not have agreed with him. And he remembered them. He would, from time to time, in these last few years ask me about John David Dyche, a Louisville conservative commentator; or about Dan Rosenberg, the CEO of Three Chimneys Farm; or about Ben Chandler; or any number of other people with whom he interacted while in Kentucky. His pastoral capacity to remember people in their particularity stands in contradiction to those who say he was just a "disturber of the peace."

In his most recent book, Letters to a Young Doubter [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005], written after the time when doctors had told him he would probably be dead, he writes to "Tom", some of my favorite words about religion: "...religious faith often goes through three stages: conscious, self-conscious, and finally unconscious. That takes time. Only when you've reached the third stage are you free, and free perhaps to be really happy. Actually I would call religious life joyful rather than happy. Happiness connotes pleasure while joy is a deeper emotion that, far from excluding, can actually include pain. Joy often points to a profound sense of self-fulfillment: 'For this I was made and meant to be'-that's a joyful experience." [pp. 73-74]

In July, 2005, I pledged myself to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament. It's a crazy dream, but it is possible, and I believe it is possible because of the life and witness of a great preacher of the Christian Gospel. His intellect, his extraordinary gifts with words, music, poetry, and his faith were gigantic. I'll miss him terribly, but I know that his life and words will continue to inspire a new generation of pastors and prophets who believe in God's cause to redeem the world.

Avoiding the Prayer Breakfast Debacles

2006-02-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

[NB: I have sent the following essay to the Lexington Herald-Leader for publication as an op-ed, but haven't heard yet whether they will be publishing it.]

In recent years the Governor's Annual Prayer Breakfast has become a political minefield that must surely leave governors scratching their heads about how to "do it right". The last administration that managed a modicum of inclusivity with the prayer breakfast was that of Governor Brereton Jones, who put people on a planning committee to plan an event that would be at least interfaith, if not interreligious.

For those who don't understand the difference, the term ecumenical refers to Christian interdenominational events. Interfaith refers to activities in which members of the three Abrahamic faiths--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-participate. Interreligious refers to activities and events that include religions other than those that understand themselves to be "faith-based" traditions: religions such as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Jainism. These religions might more aptly be described as religious practices than "faiths".

Unfortunately, even during the Jones administration, the efforts of the planning committee still resulted in a program that was predominantly Christian but with token Jewish and Muslim participation. Additional attention was needed when it came to music and menu, but we made tremendous progress towards making the prayer breakfast something that people of many religious traditions could attend with integrity, and without embarassment. During the Patton administration I was no longer asked to be on the planning committee, probably to the great relief of some of the other members of the committee. The Frankfort Ministerial Association, however, was still considered the main sponsor of the event, and they tried to continue the effort to make the event interfaith in participation. Serving sausage biscuits, however, as the main item on the menu was not perceived as an act of hospitality by those whose traditions forebade eating pork. This led to some negative press for the Patton administration. Finally, the Frankfort Ministerial Association itself withdrew from sponsoring the event, because of the contentiousness surrounding the event.

I am told that the Kentucky Council of Churches was invited to participate in the planning of the event last year, but I have no recollection of that fact. We were definitely not included in any advance publicity about this year's event, nor were groups representing Roman Catholics, the Jewish community, or the Muslim community.

If the Christian Business Men's Club of the Bluegrass wishes to have a prayer breakfast for the Governor, elected leaders, and state workers, it is perfectly legitimate for it to be an entirely Christian program. More power to them. Government needs all the prayer it can get! They should, however, pay the appropriate rental fee for the use of the Convention Center. They should not, furthermore, call it "The Governor's Prayer Breakfast."

If the event is to be called "the Governor's Prayer Breakfast", then the event must be religiously inclusive and respectful of the religious plurality of Kentucky, no matter what the religious affiliation of the sitting governor. In planning such an event, attention must be paid to everything from the structure of the program (that is, it should not follow the typical Christian order of worship) to the music (which may be inspirational or even refer to God, but should not be "Jesus" music), menu (should respect the dietary rules of all religions); and the diversity of participants.

Kentucky is not a Christian state, although a majority of religious adherents in the state would claim Christianity as their religion. The state is a secular institution that may not use its auspices to endorse any particular religion. There are many practitioners of a variety of world religions who are our neighbors. We have always had a vibrant Jewish presence in our state; and in recent years, we have an increasing population of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais, Unitarians, Sikhs, Jains and other religious adherents. These persons add rich threads to the tapestry of our shared life together in the Commonwealth.

If the Governor wishes to have the tradition of a prayer breakfast continue, it could be a splendid opportunity for us to grow in appreciation of one another's religious perspectives and practices. Prayer may be authentically offered if each religion provides a text from their own sacred writings, and the spokesperson for the particular religious tradition makes a statement such as: "I come today, as a Christian, or as a Jew, or as Hindu, to share a prayer as I would pray in my own community. I invite you to listen and, as it may be possible for you, to share in the intention of my prayer." Then, the close of the prayer, at least for Christians should be: "this I..." (never "we", because not all persons would be praying as the speaker had prayed) "pray in the name of ...."

Moreover, we need to understand that not all religions practice prayer, per se. Some have other practices such as meditation or chant. Each could share their methods. Music might be offered from a variety of these religions. And food could also be an opportunity to learn more about those who are different from the Christian majority.

A prayer breakfast as an occasion of religious sharing with a focus on those who serve us in elected and civil servant positions of this sort could be an amazing experience in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I commend it to the Governor, and commit the Council to the task of bringing together the diverse religious groups who could plan such an event.

Lobbyists vs Citizens: Danger or Opportunity

2005-12-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday of next week, Jan. 3, the 2006 session of the Kentucky General Assembly will open. We stand this year in a unique situation with special opportunities for positive government and an agenda promulgated by the citizens, or in a time of special danger when the lobbyists paid by the large corporate interests and professional groups may determine the legislation that will be passed.

Let me explain this opportunity, and the concomitant danger.

First, the status of gubernatorial power, or lack thereof: No matter how you view the on-going investigation into the hiring practices of the Fletcher administration, most people agree that our governor is badly weakened, with very little political power to move legislation or to persuade the citizenry one way or another about various issues. He has made very few public speeches in the past 6 months, and has, on several occasions, declined to take a position on important matters such as expanded gambling, increasing the cigarette tax, addressing the critical financial needs of the Medicaid program, doing something about the fact that state employee pension programs are only 75% funded, and focussing much needed attention on public education and our higher education system. Instead, in a recent letter sent to his constituents, Gov. Fletcher mentions only: "You have probably heard about some of the items we will address in the next 100 days: Ten Commandments legislation, right to work legislation and medical malpractice reform, among others. " These are not the critical issues facing Kentucky in 2006. There will be little leadership from the Executive Branch of government unless Governor Fletcher digs a little deeper.

Second, the status of the legislature: the legislature continues to face a situation in which the Democrats control the House, and the Republicans control. the Senate. Political realism says that the Democrats in either chamber are not going to make it any easier for the Governor to have any successes in generating revenue for "special projects" or for the more massive needs of education and health care. Further, they are divided amongst themselves, it seems to me, into various cliques. The Speaker of the House only barely retained his position and does not have a lot of political capital to spend. In the other chamber, the Senate Republicans will be worried about spill over from low public opinion polls of both the Bush and Fletcher administrations, at the federal and state levels, and are not going to be willing to rock the boat very much. All of the State Representatives and half of the State Senators must file for re-election by January 27. Nothing much, for sure, of any consequence will happen until legislators determine whether they will face opposition for their seat, and just who will be opposing them.

Thus, we could find ourselves in a terrible stalemate. Or...

We could also find ourselves having legislation enacted that suits the whims and power of the hundreds of lobbyists that will over-run Frankfort. Last year, someone told me that there were nearly 1000 lobbyists registered in Frankfort. There are only 138 legislator: 100 in the House, and 38 in the Senate. A ten to one (10 to 1) ratio of lobbyists to legislators does not bode well for legislation that will benefit anybody other than the "special interests".

Or...

We could find ourselves in the very unique position as citizens of being able to push forward a positive legislative agenda in education, health care reform, economic development, and tax reform that would benefit all of Kentucky, from our least and most vulnerable citizens to the strongest, and most able among us.

Now is the time for citizens to be more active than ever before. Call your Representative and Senator before the session starts. Sign up for the Kentucky Council of Churches legislative action alert network. Encourage your fellow church members to do the same. The voice of the church needs to be heard.

1. Urge them to work for legislation that will improve our schools, not take us down narrow sectarian paths and arguments about posting the Ten Commandments. Let's post the Ten Commandments in our hearts, in our homes, and in our churches. Let's not go where Dover, Pennsylvania or the state of Kansas have tried to go in micromanaging the science curriculum in our schools; let's leave those matters to scientists and educators. Let's teach our conviction that the world belongs to God, and that God is our creator in our homes, and in our churches.

2. Urge your legislator not to allow further reductions in care for our poor children, our elderly, the disabled. Tell them that it is important that they use the fiscal surplus to fully fund Medicaid. Tell them also that the crisis in Kentucky and in other states is evidence that national health care reform is essential. The concern about medical malpractice reform is a tempest in a teapot. There is solid proof that the insurance companies have raised doctor's malpractice premiums based on false reporting of what they have had to pay out. Futher there is solid proof that Kentucky has not suffered a decline in anesthesiologists, surgeons, or ob/gyns.

3. Urge your legislator not to believe all the false information and sugary temptations of "easy money" that gambling interests will promote during the upcoming session. We face the strongest push ever to allow casino gambling, or slots everywhere, in Kentucky. We have only to look to Indiana to see that it does not solve a state's fiscal problems; it does not rescue cities (like Gary) from economic decline. We have only to look to West Virginia to see the gambling interests whining that now that Pennsylvania will have slots at their race tracks (and boy you should hear all the sleazy news stories coming out of Pennsylvania), that West Virginia has to expand gambling yet again, and now allow table games...poker, etc., in addition to all of their racinos, and slots. It never ends. It eventually destroys the local economies, as well as the qualityi of life, of the communities that have casinos. More on this later.

We stand at the gate of the year and as at no other time in my 15 years of working the legislature, citizens can determine the agenda, merely by calling their legislators, by writing them, by telling them what you believe Kentucky really needs for our long-term future well-being.

Do your job! Be good citizens! Be engaged and involved. Read the newspapers, the blogs. Keep informed. We can stand together to create an even more beautiful, more healthy, and better educated Kentucky.

In hope always, for justice, peace, and unity,

Nancy Jo (a.k.a., The Church Lady)

Lexington & Other Cities: Vote NO on KEEP's Casino Plan

2005-11-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

Today's Intercom contains the letter that I sent yesterday to the Lexington City Council, who will tonight (Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005), vote to endorse the proposals of the Kentucky Equine Education Project's (KEEP) for casino gambling in Kentucky. KEEP is chaired by former Governor Brereton C. Jones. KEEP wants a constitutional amendment that will: 1) authorize full casinos at Kentucky racetracks; 2) will prohibit proliferation of casinos; 3) will designate where the tax proceeds from such operations would be expended. Jones claims he doesn't want it unless it is good for Kentucky.

As most of my readers know, the Council has been engaged in opposing expansion of gambling, at racetracks or elsewhere, since the early 1990s. I urge my Lexington readers especially to call their City Council Representative before today's meeting to urge them to vote "NO" on the resolution to endorse the KEEP casino proposal.

KEEP's new campaign, "Keep It In Kentucky", is a gross misnomer: We will experience a doubling or more of per capita participation rate in casino gambling; a doubling or more of gambling addictions with all the incumbent costs; and most of the money will still go out of state to the stockholders of the racetracks and the companies that operate the casinos, most of which are based in Nevada. What I said in my letter, below, to Lexington Council members is applicable to every other town or city in Kentucky with a racetrack.

To support casino gambling in Kentucky, and especially in Lexington, is to succumb to the lure of fool's gold. If you believe it will mean economic benefits for Lexington, then I'd like to sell you a bridge. I believe that it would be the worst mistake ever for our city. Let me enumerate several sound reasons to oppose the proposals of KEEP.

First, whenever a society decides to remove "fences" that it has previously installed around particular activities, we should think why the fences were put up in previous generations. We need also to ask ourselves, before taking such a step, what kind of society we want to endow upon our children and our children's children, what kind of world?

The reason that gambling casinos were previously restricted to places like Nevada, where there was no existing economy, is that gambling is a predatory economic enterprise: it cannibalizes discretionary dollars from consumers. Some of the states with the worst fiscal crises are those with casinos. Where is the fix? The only communities that have benefited from casinos are those communities that had no vibrant economy to begin with.

Second, do you really believe that other businesses will want to move to a casino city? It hasn't worked in any other locality in the nation. They do not want to move to casino cities because of the high degree of addiction that results, with incumbent losses to businesses ranging from lost days at work to the worst case scenario of embezzlement. In cities with casinos the only new businesses were an exponential increase in the numbers of pawn shops.

The normal rate of pathological gambling is 1-2% of the adult population. Detroit now confesses to an addiction rate of 11%. In Biloxi and Tunica, the addiction rate is 5%. Multiply the adult population of Lexington times those percentages, then multiply it times the annual average cost of a single pathological gambler (from $10,300 - $13,000), and you might begin to see that casinos are losing propositions.

Third, no U.S. city with a casino ranks high in terms of "quality of life". For me, casinos and slots parlors and cities that have them are tacky, tawdry, and without class or imagination. I was born in Lexington and have always been proud to call it my home: it is a "class-act" kind of place to live. Our city was originally called the "Athens of the West", and our institutions were equal to the Ivy League colleges. University of Kentucky President Lee Todd wants to make the university one of the top-20 public universities in the nation, but casinos are enemical to the purposes of education. Casinos argue to consumers that life is luck; and you might as well win. Of course, the house always wins.

Do you want a casino right smack next to our university? Every year, university administrators in Mississippi have to warn parents of their students not to give their children an entire semester's worth of funds, but to parcel out their financial support to their young student a week or a month at a time. Why? They discovered that the students were gambling away their money within the first month of each semester. Electronic forms of gambling are the fastest growing addiction among young adults.

Casinos constitute a cultural blight wherever they are allowed to exist and proliferate. Although KEEP says that they believe in non-proliferation, no state has ever been able to stop the proliferation once the door was opened. Just ask the people of South Carolina who finally got rid of them in their state after years of enduring their cancerous spread throughout their communities. I've heard the one-time city manager of Colorado City, Jack Hidahl, say: "I'd tell anyone who was thinking of opening their community to casino gambling to have his head examined." Why? Because, he says, "we lost our town, our community, our neighbors. It's just not the same place anymore."

Fourth, the numbers of dollars that KEEP talks about are hypothetical, while I can promise you that the social costs will keep growing. Each compulsive gambler negatively impacts 15 other people. That's 15 other people-students who will have trouble at school, family members or spouses who will worry about whether they are going to lose their house or worse. According to Harrah's own figures, the average rate of "participation in casino gambling" overall for Kentucky is only 16%, while it is closer to double that in Northern Kentucky and Louisville, cities with riverboats in their backyards. Putting casinos in Kentucky will mean that the entire state can expect a doubling of participation rates in gambling, a doubling of the current social costs of gambling.

The money does not fall out of the sky. There is only a finite sum of money in an economy at any one time. Casinos do not make money grow on trees. In order to generate the $400 million that KEEP suggests the state will receive, people will have to gamble $1.29 BILLION dollars. That means $1.29 billion will not be spent on other things in Kentucky: groceries; trips to the doctor and dentist; entertainment; education, books.

Finally, let me say that I love horses, and I love the beauty of the animal and the horse farms in our area. But here's the thing: I love the people of our state, our children, and the quality of our life far more. We can find more creative ways to support the horse industry without destroying the quality of life in our city.

Please do not vote to endorse KEEP's proposals. At least postpone your decision to investigate this matter far more closely.

Two Other Quick Notes

2005-11-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers:

Two other messages for this first week of November:

First, I hope that you will take time to listen to the Speaking of Faith radio program on your local national public radio station. In the Lexington area, it airs at 6:00 p.m., on WEKU (88.9 FM) on Sundays. Krista Tippett, the show's host, is a terrific journalist, and thoughtful commentator on religious issues in America today. She has a degree from Yale Divinity School.

The guests on the Speaking of Faith program this Sunday will be the friends of the Kentucky Council of Churches, the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and the Rev. Dr. Thomas Hoyt, Jr., bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Louisiana and Mississippi, and currently the president of the National Council of Churches.

Both have been speakers at the Annual Assemblies of the Kentucky Council of Churches, and Bishop Hoyt was here on September 12, for the Compassion Sunday Interfaith event that we held in response to the hurricane disasters.

They are worth the effort to mark your calendar so that you will remember to turn on your radio at 6:00 Sunday.

Secondly, now that I have returned from a wonderful vacation with one of my daughters (we traveled throughout Austria in mid-September), and now that the annual meeting of the Council of Churches is behind us, I wanted to let you know that I am going to try to publish a "blog" at least once every two weeks. These Intercom blogs will address some of the current political and legislative issues of our state and nation. The next blog will focus on the big push in the coming legislative session to put casinos in our cities and towns.

So, keep tuned. Your responses, by the way, to these blogs, are welcome. I look forward to hearing from you...either electronically or otherwise. You can respond here to the blogs, or you can write me directly at: njk@kycouncilofchurches.org.

Thanks for reading. In hope always for unity, justice, and peace, Nancy Jo

Hanging around the premises, or standing-and moving--with the promises?

2005-11-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

The Church as God's missionary people

The focus on mission at the 58th annual assembly of the Kentucky Council of Churches was intentional: the modern ecumenical movement began with the world missionary conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910. The International Missionary Conference brought together church leaders from around the world because, during the great 19th century expansion of Christianity into Africa, Asia, and South America, the missionaries had encountered great difficulty in communicating the gospel due to the divisions within the church: the churches were competing with one another; their competition was itself a reason for people to reject the Gospel, because clearly, if the Gospel was one of reconciliation, these missionaries were not reconciled with one another. They were not living the story they proclaimed.

In May of 2005, the WCC called together the 13th international Conference on World Mission and Evangelism. At that conference, the participants concentrated on the new challenges that come from the need for reconciliation between East and West, North and South, and between Christians and people of other faiths. They declared again their painful awareness of the mistakes of the past, and prayed that the churches may learn from them.

The Council returned to this basic concern about mission. We gathered as churches in a nation where 85% of our people say that they are Christians, and yet we are more divided than ever before. The Kentucky Council of Churches was founded in response to the great prayer of Jesus, that his followers might be one, "in order that the world might believe."

But believe what? Is the purpose of the church to save souls, converting them to accept the substitutionary atonement of Christ's death on a cross for the guilt and sins of the world? And if we save souls, what then? What does a saved soul do?

Is the Church not also called to convert people from a self-centered materialism to be followers of Jesus Christ, in this life, with implications not merely for the eternal state of their souls, but also for the state of their civic and social lives? Are we not called to testify to the love of God and our call to love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we have any responsibility to one another that would hold us to accountability to the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed, a gospel of a kingdom, a "kin_dom", the reign of God breaking into this world and all its political, economic, and social structures?

When John's disciples came to Jesus to ask him if he was the one they were to expect, Jesus didn't say: I am the one whose death will guarantee eternal life for all who believe. He said: Go and tell John what you see: the lame walk, the deaf can hear, the blind see, the hungry are fed.

I think many of us worry that too much of Christianity in our Commonwealth is portrayed as moralistic, rather than moral, as judgmental rather than transformative, as narrow and petty rather than generous of mind and heart; as only private rather than also including our public life.

We are called to be proclaimers, meaning to "claim-for". What are we to proclaim, to claim for? For the way of Jesus whom we profess to be way, and truth, and life. We are witnesses, witnesses to the way of Jesus. Witnesses do not keep silent. They speak. They act. They break noisily into deadly silences. A witness must be, in some unalterable way, always public, or it is no witness at all.

To witness is surely to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and it is to tell the story in deeds of kindness and generosity as well as in words--but not to coerce others with that story. Jesus never coerced anyone into following him, nor did he perform magic tricks to make them believe, nor did he say that following him would make life be a life without struggles, suffering, only that in that life there would be joy without measure, hope without end, and love without fail. His love was never exclusive, always inclusive, never belittling or demeaning, always transforming.

Those adjectives are important for they form the basis of what we understand to be the good and just society. To witness is to engage the loveless powers and principalities of evil with the powerful love that creates good. To witness is to DO the actions that will heal and transform a broken world, in the name of the one we follow. Our task is not just to give the poor some money and send them out of our way, as the disciples wanted to do when that crowd of 5000 had gathered. No, Jesus says, YOU feed them.

For too many people, the Church has become an end in itself, the purpose or goal of the Gospel. The Church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the Gospel, but rather its instrument and witness. Mission is not just a program of the church. Mission is what defines church as God's "sent" people. Either we are defined by mission, or we reduce the scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church. Our challenge, if we are to claim people for Christ, is to see that the issues of our time are not only matters about which we disagree, but are the frontiers for planting God's vision for creation. As one of our former Council officers, the Rev. Leticia Rouser, used to say: we've got to quit hanging around the premises, and start standing--and moving--on the promises.

Michael Kinnamon suggested at that International Conference on World Mission and Evanglism in Athens in May that "an ecumenical movement that doesn't involve conversations between people who disagree would not be an ecumenical movement." Let us be clear: we are NOT here because we agree. We disagree about methodologies, and reasons for evanglization and mission. We do not, however, disagree, about the fact that mission is essential to the very essence of what it means to be church.

From my perspective, looking at all our churches, and reflecting on our common life together as Christians in Kentucky, I see lots of evidence at the local level of people alive with and excited for mission. Sadly, I also see a lot of churches that are focusing more on serving the people in the pews, making their lives stress free, comfortable. I see our denominations distracted by moral issues that have to do with the more personal and intimate concerns of our humanity--which is not to say that doing the hard work of ethical reflection about those issues is unimportant. But it is to say that we seem to have too little to say about the major social moral issues of our time: the new growing threat of nuclear proliferation and the fact that nuclear weapons can only be understood as weapons of genocide and weapons that terrorists will one day use, unless we begin to get busy destroying them; about the use of pre-emptive warfare to intervene in some places where people are oppressed or pose a threat, but not in others; about tax cuts for the rich while services to our children, our poor, our elderly are slashed; about our profligate use of fossil fuels and what it is doing to the environment; about the unrelenting scourge of racism even as we mourn the death of one of the great icons of the civil rights movement; about the poverty that afflicts as many as 20% of our children; about the fact that Kentucky produces more marijuana, and probably has more Meth addicts than 49 other states in these United States; that the numbers of people without health insurance keeps increasing; and that the health of our people-the physical health of people who also sit in our pews-is deteriorating to the point that we are #1 in lung cancer; #4 in obesity; #2 in diabetes in this state-just to mention a few ugly statistics.

The Church is the servant of God's reign, of God's kin_dom. It exists to serve the world whom God sent Christ to save, not to be served. If we are serving only what makes us feel good, that narcissistic style of being church numbs us to the disasters taking place in world events and city streets around us. If it makes us feel self-righteous and comfortable, then the church is asking God to serve it, and it has missed its high calling.

A Sent, or a Served, Community?

2005-09-08T13:32:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I sat down to write my 15th annual report to this Council. All I can hear thundering in the silence of my heart is Jesus's plaintive lamentation:

"...for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."

and the earlier warning from the prophet Isaiah:

"Announce to my people their rebellion"...and "Is not this the fast that 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...."

This country, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, is facing the largest disaster on our shores, the largest dislocation of any of our people since the Civil War. Weather casters, like ancient prophets, warned it was coming. And when it came, it showed for all the world to see the terrible reality of poverty. Katrina displayed America's shame to the world, the shame of so many poor people in the richest nation in history. The people living in the path of Katrina were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car. Three dozen of the hardest hit neighborhoods in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were disproportionately of minority ethnicity and had incomes $10,000 below the national average. So when they started drowning, it seemed like it didn't matter enough for the swift delivery of aid.

Around the country various voices have tried to blame the victims: but if all you have is in a small rental apartment, if you don't have a credit card and you don't have any form of transport other than public transport, if you are old, or sick...why would you try to leave, or how could you even make the effort? Those who have never known grinding poverty should not be so quick to judge. And the failure of aid to be swift, was, as far as I can determine, because of racism and classism, and because our federal government has had more political objectives than practical ones.

Moreover, as we plan for a national telecast from Lexington on Sept. 11 about the response of religion to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, a telecast that will be an interfaith event, to show how compassion builds bridges to hope and bridges to understanding, forging a unity that we desperately need, and giving aid to our neighbors, I have received a sad e-mail from someone calling themselves as Christian that says about our urgent advisory, released on Sept. 2: "This makes me sick...calling Hindus and Moslems 'great faith traditions'...they are worshipping idols and false gods--pagan-- and should not be mixed in a church with followers of the Christ...who Himself, said, "No MAN COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT BY ME"... Who do you follow, anyway ??? "

Could there be any clearer evidence that Christ's anquished prayer that we all be one must have some kind of organized and ongoing response?

Who will speak for the poor, for economic justice, against racism? In a time when people bemoan the polarization in our country over such issues as religion and politics, the role of a council of churches is to signal that there can be unity amid diveristy, that there can be civility and decency and respect. These are the functions that a Council of Churches plays, and that the staff and committees and commissions try to fulfill in our work together.

Our theme for our upcoming Annual Assembly is "Mission: The Key to Unity". Our mission is the increase of the love of God and love of neighbor. If we do those things, we are first all being the Church, the body of Christ in the world, and secondly, we will know with shame that our divisions only place more stumbling blocks-and not the sort of stumbling block that Paul identified the cross of Christ to be-in the spiritual seeking and development of human beings.

We are either a "sent" community, or we will rot in our own self-centered and self-satisfying temples. So we find ourselves, as Sojourner's leader Jim Wallis puts it, "co-opted by the Right and dismissed by the left." In his book, God's Politics, Wallis asks the important questions of how it is that "the faith of Jesus came to be known as pro-rich, pro war, and only pro-American." [Wallis, Jim. God's Politics. 2004., p. 3]

Somewhere along the line, we in American churches got things turned around: rather than understanding our very essense to "be mission," we made mission a "program we have", one activity among others. We made the Church the purpose or goal of the Gospel, but the Church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the Gospel, but rather its instrument and witness. Our challenge, if we are to "re-present the kin_dom, or reign of God, on earth" in our own time, must be to see that the issues and doctrines which get us so divided, are the frontiers, the horizon for planting God's vision for creation. We made mission, something we assigned to a committee in our congregations and then hoped that they would keep quiet, and just occupy themselves with the pittance of money that they are allotted out of the church budget, rather than seeing that the church budget -the whole of it-is a sign of a congregation's commitment to witness, to justice, peace, unity, and to representing the reign of God on earth.

Unless we struggle together, unless we serve together in mission, we will continue to have no one to hold us accountable to those deeper convictions of our ecclesiastical callings. And we will grovel in our narrow perspectives.

America needs today the voice of the conscience of the churches, united in saying: it is a disgrace that we should allow the poverty rates in this country to grow; it is shameful that 30% of New Orleans' people lived in poverty. It is embarassing, and unnecessary, that Kentucky continues to fall further and further behind....educationally, economically, and in terms of opportunity. Our first mission should be a mission of prophecy to ourselves and one another about the way we use resources in our denominations. Our second mission should be the prophetic word and action that will say that we can no longer stand by while our neighbors continue, generation after generation, in poverty. Our third mission should be the mission of koinonia, of community: of building new communities of care and hope for those who are so beaten down that they had no place to turn with the winds blew and the rains fell and the waters rose. Racism and poverty are two terrible scourges that bloody the back of the Christ of the church, as well as beleaguer our neighbors and our world.

Much of our church life mirrors a consumer model, as if the church, or even a Council of Churches, is an organization that creates and markets religious products and services. We even believe that you get what you pay for, so you get better products and better services if you pay more for them, in a travesty of what ministry and being church are supposted to reflect. We think of church, or the Council of Churches, as existing for the benefit of and service to its members. No wonder the church, and its Council of Churches, is struggling. It should fail, if that is its raison d'etre. The sending and receiving mentality has got to go. We are all sent, and in that sending we find our unity, our strength, the beauty of God's delightful creative diversity in making us and using us, and we find the life abundant that Christ promised. If we gather as church, or even as an association of churches, seeking God to serve us, then we are doomed.

The Council is your servant for God's mission. We should not be perceived as something that the churches designed so that they wouldn't have to be bothered with mission, or with concern about Christian unity or our appalling disunity, or about justice and injustice. To this extent, the Council was created by your forebears in Kentucky nearly 58 years ago to be a thorn in your side, constantly pricking your conscience, and calling you out from the comfort of our air-conditioned and well-appointed sanctuaries to see the poor, the halt, the lame, the little ones who need our love, care and nurture.

The Kentucky Council of Churches does not exist to serve you, but to be your sign in the cause of unity of all humankind in God's beloved community, God's beloved household. When you ask us to provide services for your churches, the service we see ourselves called to provide is that of provocateur--those who call out those who are in a rut. Our calling is to be the means by which we may together work to create a more perfect union in this great country, and a more perfect world that belongs to God, whether other people on this planet acknowledge our God or not.

In hope always for justice, peace, and unity in the bonds of love, Nancy Jo

Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

2005-07-18T15:59:00.000-04:00

I spent Thursday, July 14, in Strafford, Vermont at the home of William Sloane Coffin, who had invited a group of us to meet with him to discuss launching a national, even international campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Twelve other individuals attended. They included Rev. Dr. Steve Sidorak, Director of the Connecticut Conference of Churches; Marilyn Mecham, Director of Nebraska Interchurch Ministries; and David Lamarre-Vincent, Director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches; Susan Schaer and Karen Jacob of Womens Action for New Directions; Duane Peterson, Director of Stuff, True Majority (who drove the Pentagon Pig mobile to Strafford); Jonathan Schell, author of The Fate of the Earth and The Unconquered World; Randy Forsberg, one of the founders of the Nuclear Freeze Movement in the 1970s; David Cortright of the Fourth Freedom Forum and professor of peace studies at Notre Dame University; John Lindner, director of development at Yale Divinity School; Jessica Wilbanks of the Fourth Freedom Forum office in Washington, DC.

What follows is a much shortened and edited portion of the sermon I gave Sunday, July 17, in response to what I had learned and decided at the meeting with Bill Coffin and the others. The title was: "The Seeker and the Sought". The texts were Genesis 28:10-19; and Psalm 139:1-12.

The story of Jacob, on the run from the consequences of his betrayal of his brother, Esau, tells of a profound spiritual experience incurred by one who wasn't looking for it, who hadn't prayed even for help.

Jacob's experience reverses everything we usually think about spirituality-that we are the seekers, and God is the one sought. This biblical story, like so many others we could tell, shows a different reality: God is the seeker and we are the ones sought. The psalmist knows this reality as well: O Lord, you have searched me and known me...You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Now it is true that dreams and spirituality often correspond. But dreams are free gifts. I don't know how to make dreams happen; they just do, and some mornings you awaken with a profound sense and clear memory of a dream. We ought to pay attention to them. But it is also true that sometimes we encounter something that seems to be an impossible dream in the midst of our waking hours. Either in the dark night when we are not seeking, but are the ones being sought, or in the bright light of day, again when we are not seeking, we become the sought, and a calling is laid on our hearts and our minds.

Such was my experience on Thursday. Here I am in my early 60s, trying my best to figure out how to deal with the things that are worrying me, how to cope with multiple demands of my job to be knowledgeable about many different things, and, moreover, trying to figure out how to respond to a world going insane with violence--as if I have any power to do that.

Just because I know a man, I get invited to a meeting. Just because I love the man, and am fed by his hopefulness, I go. The man has a dream, an impossible dream, some would say...but I don't think it is the man's dream, anymore than Jacob's dream belonged to him. In Jacob's case, it was God's dream that through Jacob, rascally scoundrel that he was, all the families of the earth would be blessed in him. And God was going to make that dream come true. In Bill Coffin's case, I have a hunch that it might be the same: it's not Bill's dream, but God's dream, that we rid the earth of nuclear weapons, weapons that are now more tools for terrorists than they are serious military options for any civilized nation on earth.

Jonathan Schell has written a less well known book, The Unconquered World, in which he compares conventional warfare as exposited by Clausewitz, the great Prussian general, and, on the other hand, what Schell calls "peoples' wars", beginning with our own Revolutionary War, which are politically and militarily unwinnable by conventional military methods. It would have been nice if someone in the defense department and in the Executive Branch of our government had read Schell's book before the US and its few allies in this matter were gotten into the war for "regime change" in Iraq. With the insurgency increasing daily, with terrorists home grown in our democratic nations, using traditional military means against what the insurgents see as a "peoples' cause", and with fissile material easily available from a weakened and corrupt former Soviet Union, unless we act now to lock down, and stop funding nuclear weapons projects, it is only a matter of months until someone unleashes a dirty bomb in one of our cities. And the annihilation of God's earth is begun.

Coffin says that "only God has the authority to end all life on the planet, all we have is the power. To live in a world within minutes of possible annihilation is clearly to oppose, not to do God's will."

Impossible, quixotic dream, you say. Maybe so. But not to do anything is more insane. And anyway, I don't think it is Bill's dream, I think it is God's dream, seeking us to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. And who are we to do it? Well, I don't think we are as awful as Jacob, and God used him, so God can use us as well. And I'm laying it on you, just as it was laid on me Thursday.

At the end of the day Thursday, Bill told the dozen of us on whom he has laid the task of starting a new movement the story of Michaelangelo's poignant painting of "...the man in the Last Judgment being dragged down to hell by demons, one hand over one eye and in the other a look of dire recognition. He understood, but too late. ...Rarely," Bill said, " do we see the truth that stares us in the face until it hits us in the face. A crisis is seldom a crisis until it is validated by disaster. Michelangelo was right: hell is truth seen too late." And then Bill said, in words that are written also in his book, Passion for the Possible, we have to avoid wishful thinking and unwarranted despair. "If we aren't optimistic, we can be hopeful, hope being a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If faith puts us on the road, hope is what keeps us there. It enables us to keep a steady eye on remote ends. It makes us persistent when we can't be optimistic, faithful when results elude us. For like nothing else in the world, hope arouses a passion for the possible, a determination that our children not be asked to shoulder burdens we let fall. Hopeful people are always critical of the present but only because they hold such a bright view of the future." (unquote) [also available in Passion for the Possible, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p.3]

And as I read Jacob's story and reflected on it this week, I believe that God continues to seek us out...not the other way around for we are far too comfortable most of the time to go searching for God...to take on this dream of God's that we save the planet, that we be new Jacobs for the blessing of all the families of the earth. This religious vision, or dream, is now a pragmatic necessity. God is the seeker, and we are the ones who are sought by the dream, the ones called to be the new Jacobs by whom all the families of the earth will be blessed.

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE:

Contact Senators McConnell and Bunning. Ask that they remove any funding for new nuclear weapons, or weapons in space from S. 1042, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (Placed on Calendar in Senate) for week of July 18.

Contact Rep. Ben Chandler, and Senators McConnell and Bunning regarding the defense appropriate bill, H.R. 2863, which will be marked up by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, on Tuesday, July 19. Again, ask that there be no funding for new nuclear weapons testing or development, and no money for weapons in space. Especially, ask funding for bunker busters to be eliminated.

Over 68% of the American population believe (according to recent poll by True Majority) that nuclear weapons should be abolished. It can be done!

Because of the anthrax scare several years ago, it is better to call, fax, or e-mail members of congress.

Below are addresses:
Senator Jim Bunning
316 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Ph. 202.224.4343
e-mail: bunning.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Email

Senator Mitch McConnell
361-A Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510
Ph. 202.224.2541
e-mail: mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm

Rep. Ben Chandler
1504 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 10515-1706
Ph. 202-225-4706
to send e-mail go to: http//www.house.gov/writerep/ and enter Chandler's name

Speech at the Break the Silence Rally

2005-06-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

June 13, 2005 - Break the Silence

Good evening beautiful people! Thank you for coming to this bus tour event that has such importance for our civic life together. I am honored to be one of the speakers tonight.

This morning, when dressing, I started to put on black clothes, symbolic of the sorrow I feel for the way in which my beloved country's honor is being daily besmirched. But then I thought, Nope-I'm going to wear red, white and blue because I love America, and because I know that all the people who come to this rally to break the silence about what the war in Iraq is doing to our national character and our life together are people who love America too.

We love America because of the decency and integrity of its people, people who are honest and forthright, people who care about their neighbors, people who are absolutely sickened and appalled by the reports of torture and abuse at Guantanomo and in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are people who will sacrifice for the sake of the honor of our country, and who will do everything in our power to reclaim our damaged world prestige.

You and I are Americans, exercising our rights of free speech, and the right to assemble, and the right to dissent, from those who were elected to power in 2000 and 2004. We are committed to the formation of a more perfect union, the establishment of real justice. We are they who have, in many of your cases, been those who enlisted to provide for the common defense of this nation in past times of national peril. We are also those who work day in and day out for the general welfare of our cities, towns, our farms and villages, our schools and our children. We are patriots, and don't let anybody tell you, in double-speak, that we are not.

We have come because we believe that this war in Iraq was wrong from the beginning, and that we must pressure our government with our speeches, our letters to the editor, and even if it must be, civil disobedience, to begin planning the withdrawal of our troops and the end of our occupation of that sovereign nation immediately. We are willing to work that something good may yet be redeemed from what was foisted upon us, as the British memos reveal, by manipulated intelligence.

Our nation is sick, sin-sick with greed, with the will to dominate the world, with a self-righteous arrogance that defies those who hold a differing opinion. When, I ask you, in the history of this nation, have we had a president who refused to meet, or allow in to places where he was speaking, people who disagreed with him? When? Never. Say it with me: NEVER!

When have we had an administration so gifted at dissembling, and a president who doesn't know the difference between dissembling and dis-assembling. While he dissembles about no child left behind, our education system, once the finest in the world, is gradually being disassembled. They dissemble about the Clean Air Act, when in fact they are disassembling the environmental protections that we have worked so hard to develop and are doing nothing to develop a sane energy policy. While this president dissembles to the body politic about being a compassionate conservative, this administration is ripping out the fabric of the social safety nets that have protected the dignity of our elderly and our poor. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the top 1/10 of one percent of the rich get massive tax relief while tax reform for the rest of us means that we pay more.

Meanwhile, the National Priorities Project estimates that the Iraq war has cost Kentuckians 1.7 billion dollars. Just imagine, Rep. Stein, what the Commonwealth of Kentucky could have done with that kind of money. And who can put a value on the lives of our Kentucky soldiers who have given their lives, their arms and legs, their faces and eyes, their goodness to this travesty of a war that we now know, from the British memos, whose genesis was manufactured and manipulated in order to make it seem legal and justified to a gullible public.

While this administration dissembles about supporting a culture of life, they dis-assemble the armed forces of this nation with inadequate armor and stop-loss measures to keep people from going home after doing their duty. While they dissemble about Terry Schiavo and always coming down on the side of life, they refuse to count the lives lost by Iraqis during this pre-emptive war, and worse, they have blocked pictures of our own honored dead as their caskets are sadly delivered back to the land of the free and the home of the brave. What kind of culture of life is that?

And here's the final straw for me: we have never had a president who so ardently claimed Jesus as an ally, who does not appear to have even a smidgen of concern about whether, as Lincoln worried, he might be, more importantly, on God's side.

The Bush administration's best skill is "shift and shaft": shift attention away from the things that we should really be upset about, and shaft the poor, the enlisted people in the military, the workers who won't get their pensions, the children, the people losing their health insurance, and even the earth itself.

Well, my friends: I have reached my limit. I will not be quiet. I will not stop protesting. This is the real American Patriot Act.

I think millions of Americans are fed up with this basic violation of our understanding of ourselves as "the good guys". Good guys don't torture prisoners. Good guys don't blame the little soldiers without holding some higher-ups really accountable. A nation of honor does not lie to a family like Pat Tillman's family about how a hero died. We don't have merely an education deficit, a health care deficit, environmental degradation, we have what is absolutely worse: an honesty deficit. This dishonors everything that has been great and good about America.

Tonight, here in this city, we break the silence, for silence is a betrayal of all that is great and good and honest and moral about our beloved country. Here we stand to assemble, not dissemble or disassemble, to ASSEMBLE real morality, real justice, real commitment to values that go beyond what people do in their bedrooms or what happens in private rooms of dying, to what they do on Wall Street, in executive board rooms, in the Pentagon, and in the Oval Office. And you know what? We are good Americans. We are CAN DO people, and we can do redeem the soul of our nation from this dissembling crowd of new robber barons now occupying the White House and the majority side in Congress.
--Nancy Jo Kemper

2005-05-25T14:23:00.000-04:00

An AM radio talk show host this morning (5/25/05) asked why listeners thought the President's ratings, and those of Congress also, had fallen so much in recent weeks. Here's my thinking on that question.

Historically, when gasoline prices at the pump rise, the occupant of the White House finds his ratings going down. Apart from that fairly constant political reality, I quote Thomas Friedman's column in the May 25 edition of the New York Times, to wit: "As a nation, we have a mounting education deficit, energy deficit, budget deficit, health care deficit and ambition deficit. The administration is in denial on this, and Congress is off on Mars." ["C.E.O.'s, M.I.A.", Thomas L. Friedman, published May 25, 2005, New York Times]

To Friedman's list of deficits, I would add, also, a soldier deficit. Since we turned over sovereignty to Iraq on June 29, 2004, an action that was supposed to solve so many things, there have been at least 750 more US troop deaths, and the Army can't recruit enough people to join them to fill up their ranks.

The Administration's charade about the Newsweek article as the cause of rioting in Afghanistan may have had a smidgeon of truth, while ignoring the far larger truth that we have, from the beginning of the Afghanistan war, and then the Iraq war, been disrespectful of prisoners' rights under the Geneva Convention. Detainees have been whisked away to U.S.-friendly foreign nations for interrogation under who knows what kinds of conditions, because the Red Cross has been denied access to these prisoners. Nor does the Administration acknowledge the horrifying reality of so many deaths (at least 21,725 civilians, cf. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/) resulting from our preemptive attack on a nation that did not, it turns out--as most of the U.N. inspectors insisted prior to our invasion--have any WMDs.

The American people are fed up with this basic violation of our understanding of ourselves as "the good guys". Good guys don't torture prisoners. Good guys don't blame the little soldiers without holding some higher-ups really accountable. Should Lyndie England go to jail? After reading her story, I don't think many Americans believe she should be punished with anything more than a dishonorable discharge.

What about the pro-war spin that the administration put on professional football player Pat Tillman's death, a hero in my book no matter how he died, by hiding the facts about how he really died from his family as well as the nation? What did lying about Tillman's death really accomplish except to further tarnish our national reputation?

With the rich getting richer while the deficits that Friedman lists are getting bigger and deeper, I think Americans are becoming more and more aware, even those who don't read newspapers and magazines, that the Bush administration's best skill is "shift and shaft": shift attention away from the things that we should really be upset about, and shaft the poor, the enlisted people in the military, the workers who won't get their pensions, the children, the people losing their health insurance, and even the earth itself.

These are all good and solid reasons for the decline approval ratings for President Bush, as well as for Congress.

If President Bush and his administration will not undertake these tasks, it is time for Congress to address and develop a sane energy policy; universal health care; and ways of solving world problems that don't include pre-emptive attacks. It's time to start figuring out, how we are going to extricate ourselves from Iraq and Afghanistan and acknowledging the irresponsibility of the failure to do any post-war thinking at all before we attacked Iraq. It's time for citizens to start making our voices heard about shift and shaft economics, shift and shaft politics, and shift and shaft morality.

I, for one, have reached my limit of what I can stomach. My heart and head ache for my country. It is time for a true Jeremiad: a witness for real morality, real justice, real commitment to values that go beyond what people do in their bedrooms to what they do on Wall Street, in executive board rooms, in the Pentagon, and in the Oval Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's time to re-read the book of Jeremiah.

Life Together: How many? How long? Why?

2005-05-24T14:13:00.000-04:00

Eight more of America's courageous soldiers died today in Iraq. Untold (literally) hundreds more Iraqis have died this week. Children have lost parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Parents have lost children forever, without, in most cases, even a body to bury..or anything recognizable as the person that was loved. How many more people have to die?

Over 1600 American soldiers have lost their lives in the name of "fighting terrorism", but we have to ask if the world is a safer place since this war began?

In addition to the nearly 3000 lives lost in the World Trade Center, we keep adding to a list of the killed, and the insurgency just seems to gain strength. Osama Ben Laden, whom we originally set out to capture, is rarely even on the radar screen either of the citizens of this nation, or of the media. We are not defeating terrorism, but making more terrorists whose perceived only avenue of resistance is the terrible evil of suicide bombings. Iraq, under Saddam, suffered from terrible oppression, but the killing and loss of life goes on and on and on, with more lives lost than under Saddam Hussein's terrible dictatorship. Meanwhile, we have not been seen as the liberators of the Iraqi people but as the cause of the on-going violence in their nation. We were told that with the election, things would begin to calm down and the insurgency would lose its will to fight. The contrary seems more accurate.

Moreover, we discover, in the most under-reported, and most under-discussed news of the year, that months before the President argued that Saddam had refused to obey the UN resolution, that the President of a land committed to the supposed religious principles of honesty and truth telling, justice and liberty, was having intelligence reports shaped in such a way as to justify a pre-emptive attack on a nation that really was no threat at all to our country long before he had the so-called legal justification. How much dishonesty does it take to start an impeachment hearing? The President of the United States, George W. Bush, lied to the American people, and he used people such as his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, mercilessly, in the deception. He used our military. He abused the American people's trust.

And we wonder why citizens of many other countries in the middle east, and elsewhere, despise this Administration, and by association, all Americans? Do we remember how long it has taken some of our parents and grandparents to come to terms with modern-day Germans or Japanese? It will take two to three generations before many people in the middle-east will ever be able to see the United States as anything other than an imperialist aggrandizer.

How long? we ask, wondering if we will ever be able to bring our military home. We wonder if the people of Iraq are not now set upon a path to an ongoing civil insurgency, if not outright civil war. There still seems to be no plan to extricate ourselves from Iraq. I have to guess that the reason there is no plan is that the present U.S. Administration does not plan to ever leave, that we invaded a country that was not a threat to us for the sake of their oil, and the sake of saying "we're bigger than you are." Many of the U.N inspectors tried to tell us that Iraq was no threat, but these world-approved inspectors were scorned for the sake of what?

How many more must die? How long will we go without honesty? How long must the people of both America and Iraq wait until there is a plan for the departure of the "coalition of the willing", who more accurately should be called the coalition of the gullible?

Why are the people of this country accepting all this so passively? Why are we willing to swallow untruths about Abu Graib, about the treatment of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq? Why are falsehoods presented as if they are in our best interests? Why are truths, such as the British memo that reveals that the U.S. President was planning war, and shaping the facts to suit his intentions, far earlier than Bush will admit, hidden, undiscussed, left to molder in small print in the middle pages of newspapers that aren't even read by the majority of our U.S. citizens? When will we say, "Enough!" This is our country, and we are better people than this.

Lord, make us instruments of thy peace...

In hope of unity, justice, and peace, Nancy Jo