Statement By The Ukranian Pacifist Movement

The following statement was adopted by the General Assembly of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement on the International Day of Peace 21 September 21, 2024, and posted on their website yesterday.

 Clean skies are proudly azure,

When bloodshed of inhuman war is ceased,

And peace endure.

So says the last poem written by Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko; he desired to end the first world war, but didn’t lived to see the Peace of Versailles. If he would, he might be disappointed by short-sighted plans of peaceful life written by victors who never seriously considered life without wars and because of that failed to build sustainable peace.

Of course, in most places, most of the time, people always live in peace, because peace is the need and natural right of every person and every community, including the people of Ukraine. Restraint, truth and love, good trusting relations for centuries and millennia allowed people to live peacefully on the common planet Earth and in each of its countries, including Ukraine.

Peace, rooted in every particle of existence, always surrounds us. Even when we don’t notice it. Even when injustice and evil far or near disturb us, cause pain and loss.

Faith, care and knowledge allow us to find and strengthen peace within and around us. If it is not strengthened, if past traumas are not healed, the fragile peace can suffer from intentional or unintentional harm to people and nature, from violence against oneself and others.

“How countries, burdened by war, desperately want peace! And ignorance learns true values only when they are lost: suffers getting them, doesn’t enjoy having them, and is tormented by losing them,” wrote Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda, a self-described “lover and son of peace”.

At the demands of peace congresses of the world civil society, where Ukraine was also represented, pacifism became the norm of international relations. International organizations were created where you can assemble to council, find help, settle disputes with assistance of objective arbitrators, and find common ground with assistance of benevolent mediators instead of the senseless mass killing that is war.

The League of Nations, and then the United Nations, became the foundation of a new world peaceful governance, the leaders of which promised, according to the UN Charter, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and to resolve international disputes by peaceful means, or, according to the Constitution of Ukraine, to maintain a peaceful and mutually beneficial cooperation with members of the international community according to generally recognized principles and norms of international law.

Unfortunately, this architecture of the universal peace of mankind on the common planet Earth was perceived by the victors of wars as a scenery behind which they continued to drill their armies and arm themselves. Instead of preparing for peace, the winners of wars prepared for new wars and set a bad example for other such “heroes”. Peaceful promises were therefore broken, and anyone who breaks them portrays himself as a hero and victim of oppression, even if he is a villain and oppressor.

The problem is not that demonic enemies oppose angelic heroes, but that all humans on the common planet suffering from unnecessary wars are victims of a flawed, outdated political system where far more effort and resources are spent to prepare and wage wars rather than to stop and avoid wars.

Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous part of this vicious system that threatens to kill all life on the planet. To prevent this from happening, we demand general and complete disarmament in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three non-nuclear principles: not to accept, not to produce, and not to acquire nuclear weapons. We remember this historical fact, we take care of the realization of these peaceful aspirations of the Ukrainian people and call to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and implement its requirements in every country of the world.

Today, Ukrainians are victims of brutal Russian aggression and have the right to fair compensation for the suffering and return of what was conquered by war criminals. Without restoration of justice, there can be no true, honest reconciliation.

The victim’s desire to have victory over the attacker is natural. One must have courage and make reasonable efforts to defend one’s rights in a peaceful way, overcoming fear and anger and deceptive temptations to take cruel revenge or surrender to the mercy of a stronger one.

A truly strong one has a conscience not to do evil and does not need anyone’s destruction or enslavement. And the one who does not have a conscience is deprived of conscious and effective unity and peace with all humanity and nature, and this is one’s weakness.

No victory will be fair if it is not mutual. Common victory, when everyone is satisfied and no one is offended, has a name: peace.

If you want peace, you must prepare for peace.

The aggressor state is preparing for a long-term war against the West. With blunt brutality, the Kremlin is trying to force Ukrainians in the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to hate Ukraine and fight in the Russian army, which destroys cities and kills people with barbaric bombings.

This wild and outdated policy, like the general increase in militaristic arbitrariness, is a challenge that cannot be feared.

Rejecting the myopic temptations of the outdated policies of opportunism and surrenderism, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement remains faithful to principles of the “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World” and the statement on the development of unarmed forces of pacifists to resist Russian aggression and implement the Ukrainian vision of world peace, common peace for all humans.

We will continue consistently to move forward on the path of unarmed protection of civilians, nonviolent resistance to aggression and tyranny. We will make every effort to direct as many people as possible to this peaceful path: by personal example, enlightenment, information, etc.

We firmly believe that peace, not war, is the norm of human life, as we stated in the “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World.” Peace≠war: peace is not war, this is the pacifist formula of peace. We consider it an axiom that peace is not equal to war, we support and implement the values of peace, democracy and justice in our activities.

We form and implement a long-term vision of a world without wars and demand that everyone who proposes peace plans must necessarily include in these plans a long-term vision of a peaceful future without wars (a realistic path to eternal peace) and take into account the fair restoration of the rights of Ukrainians as victims of aggression (dignity of victim, so that the power of justice, with support of entire peaceful world, restores and reinvigorates the strength and resilience of Ukraine as a victim of Putin’s genocidal war of aggression).

We support the United Nations in initiatives to build peace through peaceful means and have high hopes for the Summit Of The Future. We hope that world leaders will seize the opportunity to adopt a universal pact for a peaceful future, so that politics, economics, science and technology will work for peace, not war, to liberate future generations from the yoke of war.

We will inspire peaceful people to be strong and courageous in their desire to remain civilians, to protect peaceful life in a peaceful way, to uphold human rights to peace and conscientious objection to military service.

We need global peaceful transformations and more effective global nonviolent governance, involving the efforts of world peace movements into successful activities of the United Nations and achieving such a power of nonviolent actions that will be able to stop Russian aggression.

We, the pacifists, know that the highest law of life is “Thou shalt not kill!”, therefore we cannot become soldiers, murderers and executioners. This is a key point in our strategy to approach peace.

Our vision of the future is eternal peace. And by demanding that all peace plans must include real paths to this desired future, we resist militaristic madness, the desire to fight endlessly. Justice should be brought peacefully, not by war. Highest justice is a world without wars.

War is a crime against humanity, therefore we are determined not to support any kind of war and will strive for the removal of all causes of war.

UKRAINIAN PACIFIST MOVEMENT

Ten Terrible Years of a War on Terror

The following is a condensation of material put together from a variety of sources by Nicholas Detweiler-Stoddard, Peace Committee Co-chair of Virginia Mennonite Conference, posted here with his permission:

Friday, October 7, 2011, marked 10 years since the United States invaded Afghanistan in the name of the “War on Terror”—our response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks—the longest war in US history.

First, let me name a few sorrowful realities:

• The human cost is vast, with seven Afghan civilians killed every day in 2010.
• Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed since 2001, including women and children (Afghanistan is considered to be one of the worst places to be a child or a female).
• 2,754 US and coalition troops have been killed since our invasion (icasualties.org), plus tens of thousands suffering from post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders, with shocking numbers committing suicide.
• One in three recent US military veterans believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting (the disapproval is nearly fifty percent among wounded vets).
• Americans have chosen  to respond in fear and xenophobia (especially of Muslims) instead of unity within our own country and neighborhoods.
• The wars in Afghanistan & Iraq now cost more than $100 billion per year.
• Over $1 trillion dollars have already been spent in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars together and will approach $4 trillion dollars when all costs are considered – such as interest on the debt incurred and the lifetime care of wounded veterans.
• Almost no money went to addressing true human need and development or diplomacy approaches to human security in Afghanistan.
• “[A]fter a decade, Afghanistan still remains the most uncivil, most corrupt, and most war torn country in the world. The consequences of the so-called war on terror has only been more bloodshed, crimes, barbarism, human rights, and women’s rights violations, which has doubled the miseries and sorrows of our people.” - Malalai Joya, former Afghan parliamentarian and female-rights activist
• President Obama recently announced US military presence will continue in Afghanistan until 2014 (with talks of thousands of special troops and aircraft staying until 2024!), and Congress has agreed to follow his lead. Many analysts believe the American military is trying to retain a based-presence close to Pakistan, Iran and China.

So what are peaceful Jesus-followers to do after an anniversary like this where one in four (75%) of Americans no longer follow what’s happening in our wars (especially when we, too, are tired after 10 years and overwhelmed by the needs)?

(1) First, let us remember our primary calling to be Christian communities of God’s peace. Let us worship together with lamentation, confession and prayer. In the next Sundays, I encourage you to share from the sad realities above and offer prayers, confessions and song in your congregations:

Prayers  ( from Words for Worship 2, by Diane Zaerr Brenneman)

Disarm our hearts

God of mercy and grace:

We mourn the lives of those around the world

                who are daily affected by terrorism and violence

We acknowledge that violence is a web that traps us all.

We confess our own complicity

                when our government feeds terrorism and violence

                to protect our interests and lifestyles.

Forgive us our thoughts and acts

that dehumanize those we consider enemies

We look into our own hearts and confess our own desires

                for vengeance and retaliation against those who have harmed us

Forgives us our violence

                as we forgive those who commit violence against us.

Disarm our hearts as well as our hands

                through the transforming power of the Spirit of Jesus. Amen

Bless our enemies

God of all people and nations,

                we don’t know how to act when what we love is threatened

                when our beautiful, fragile, diverse world is endangered

by terrorism, by wars, by wars on terror

We want Justice! We want it now!

We wish you would forget mercy for awhile, God,

                until you help us get this mess cleaned up.

But then we realize that we too are complicit

in things that harm your hopes for us—

                and mercy suddenly looks better.

Help us realize that in your cosmic economy

there is no “other” at all, no “them,”

                there is only “us.”

Bless our enemies; 

                bless those who terrorize us and those terrorized in our name

in their genuine well-being we all find well-being.

In Jesus’ name may it be so. Amen

A sample worship service, sermon and children’s story ideas, and other seeds of inspiration are all available online at peace.mennolink.org/resources/psunday11.  Or use MCC's resources http://us.mcc.org/peace-sunday-2011

(2) Secondly, let us recommit to solidarity with those who suffer. We have much to learn from and about those in Afghanistan (not to mention our Muslim neighbors in our own towns). Start by getting to know the refugees, immigrants, or Islamic community in your neighborhood.

•  Consider studying together resources on Afghanistan and militarism (see especially pages 14ff in the attached Bombs and Budgets study guide or at www.militaryfamiliesspeakout.com/oct7/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/BombsandBudgets3.pdf)
• Participate in conversation with Dave Powell and international guests at http://shalomsalam.wordpress.com/
•  Watch the four-minute War No More video clip from Sojourners based on Isaiah 2:4, (http://go.sojo.net/site/R?i=O9qoyXEGgR4wdbra58fv6g )

 "He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore."

• Tune into PBS’s October series on Women, War & Peace: (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/women-war-and-peace/) On five consecutive Tuesdays beginning October 11, PBS will air nationwide Women, War & Peace (WWP), a five-part investigation of the effects of war on women and the power of women to broker peace in areas in conflict. The series, produced by Abigail E. Disney, Pamela Hogan, and Gini Reticker, comprises five films about the experience of women in the war-torn countries of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, and Liberia, as well as an overview contextualizing the series as a whole. The award-winning film Pray the Devil Back to Hell, focusing on the extraordinary story of women activists in Liberia who brought an end to that nation's bloody civil war and the despotic presidency of Charles Taylor, will receive its U.S. broadcast premiere as the episode of Women, War & Peace devoted to Liberia.

 

(3) Continue to call on democratically elected representatives to craft a national budget prioritizing international and domestic human need over military business (see the attached 2012 budget pie chart)

•  Call in to the Subercommittee on the budget: “The Friends Committee on National Legislation has set up a toll-free number for us to call Congress: 1-877-429-0678. A Congressional ‘Supercommittee’ is charged with coming up with $1.5 trillion in reduced debt over ten years, and the wars and the bloated Pentagon budget dangle before the Supercommittee like overripe fruit.”
• Use some suggested legislative responses from American Friends Service Committee AFSC (www.afsc.org/resource/move-money-action-toolkit):
  

Just as peace is more than the absence of war, national security is more than planes and bombs; it includes jobs, schools, housing, and healthcare.

American Friends Service Committee is calling for:

·         Deep cuts in the Pentagon budget

·         Raising revenues through taxes on the wealthy and corporations

·         Continuing protection for programs that aid the most vulnerable

·         Short-run investments to stimulate job creation

Use this toolkit to help support our call and help keep these resources in your community.

 
This is an quick, incomplete list of responses, so I encourage you to pass along ideas for lamenting and seeking an end to the suffering in Afghanistan and the US.

Peace be with you,
Nicholas Detweiler-Stoddard
--
Peace Committee co-chair
in Virginia Mennonite Conference
stoddard.nicholas@gmail.com
540.435.0240

2 attachments — Download all attachments  

War Resisters 2012 money pie chart.pdf 234K   View   Download

Bombs and Budgets 2011.pdf 430K   View   Download

A Persistent Voice For Peace

This woman, like the widow in one
of Jesus's parables, is not about to 
give up.

Katherine Temple, a local mother and grandmother, is not only passionate about promoting peace and condemning war, but is willing to actually do something about it. Every day.

Every day she posts a "Peace Bit" on her blog and sends emails to an international group of folks who have signed up for them. And each day she contacts her legislators with another message of appeal and warning, and urges others to do the same. 

Here's an example of one of her recent "Peace Bits," edited for brevity and posted with her permission:

Hello lovers of peace, justice, and hope,

When Donald Trump was president, it was  hard to get through when we called our legislators’ offices. The lines were constantly busy. Lots of us were that alarmed about what would happen, and knew our legislators were often corrupt, weak, and ineffectual, but we never let up; we were that concerned. 

Now, I usually get through on the first try. I’m hardly ever even put on hold. So I know very few people ever contact legislators. Why?

It can't be that people don’t know that humanity is in an emergency situation. Everyone here in North America at least is breathing wildfire smoke, for one thing. And people know the Doomsday Clock is ticking with only a few seconds to nuclear “midnight”.

Why is it so difficult to get some of our friends and loved ones —maybe ourselves as well— to “lobby" those individuals who could possibly significantly alleviate the dangers? Why are our legislators not inundated?

We can email or hard-copy-mail those legislators Just go to their websites for the info you need. They DO have power to gum up the systems that press toward Armageddon. Use this or any peace message to tell them what you want:

“[Legislator],

You may not hear from many of your constituents about the extreme peril our world is in due to climate catastrophe and impending nuclear Armageddon. 

But you do hear from me and I’m sure at least a few others, so you cannot be unaware that our world is not going to survive unless people everywhere come TOGETHER to work for peace and healing. And you know that our current use of fossil fuel as well as our war making must end post haste. 

I implore you to speak out. I urge you to call for peace, global cooperation and negotiation, and healing for our planet. Take assertive leadership to condemn war, domination, competition, and exploitation. Please do not let "warists" and exploiters silence your voice.

Your constituent,

[Name]”

Please ask your friends whether they would be willing to tell legislators how worried we are. If they need prompts, please invite them to receive my Peace Bits. There are over 140 of us around the WORLD who use them in one form or another every day:

1. Sign up on the Experiential Peace site: www.epaxoc.org/stay-updated

2. Email KathleenTempleTailor@gmail.com 

3. Subscribe to my blog: KathleenTemple.wordpress.com 

For survival, peace, and healing,

❤️  - Kathleen

*****************************************

   (But) Love compels us to respectfully and humbly show all high officials what the Word of God commands them, how they should rightfully execute their office to the glory and praise of God... to punish the transgressors and protect the good; to judge rightly between a man and his fellows; to do justice to the widows and orphans and to the poor, to rule cities and countries justly by a good policy and administration, not contrary to God’s Word but to the benefit of the common people.

The regenerated do not go to war, or engage in strife. They are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and they know no war. Since we are conformed to the image of Christ, how then can we kill our enemies with the sword? Spears and swords made of iron we leave to those, alas, who consider human blood and swine’s blood as having well nigh equal value.

- Menno Simons, 16th century reformer

Saying No to War

There were 51,000 Civil War casualties at Gettysburg
alone.

“As disciples of Christ, we do not prepare for war, or participate in war or military service.”
       
This succinct statement taken from Article 22 of my church's "Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective"  sets us apart from all but a small fraction of other Christians around the world, although I am heartened by more and more individuals and denominations, notably Quakers and the Church of the Brethren, supporting this position.  Yet the above was embraced universally by believers in the first and second centuries, and by most Anabaptist-minded (later Mennonite) Christians since the 16th century.

To cite two of many examples, Tertullian, a leader and theologian in the early church expressed this vision when he spoke of the church as a people who “join to beat their swords into plows, and their lances into sickles.”  Origin of Egypt, a contemporary of Tertullian’s said, “Nor do we ‘learn war any more,’ having become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus, our leader.”  

To them, Jesus spoke the final word from God on issues of war and peace.  War was simply over for Christians, a thing of the past. Menno Simons and other outspoken leaders and martyrs in Anabaptist and other renewal movements simply helped revive this conviction. Menno himself wrote, "True Christians do not know vengeance... their hearts overflow with peace... The regenerate do not go to war, or engage in strife...  they are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares."

Sadly, few followers of Christ over the centuries have maintained such positions, which has resulted in Inquisitions, Crusades, multiple wars among so-called Christian nations in Europe and elsewhere, and Christians defending and participating in every kind of military adventure imaginable, all in the name of God and country, and each case defended as a "just war." And there has been a gradual erosion of anti-war conviction among Mennonites as well, members of a small “peace church” that has maintained for most of 500 years that military membership and church membership are incompatible.

To me, a weakening of any church’s position on this kind of witness represents a crying shame.  Surely there is a need for at least a remnant of people somewhere who consistently teach and demonstrate that Christians, by definition, are people who will not harm or kill under any circumstances, not even in a time of war, not even their enemies (and certainly not their fellow believers) anywhere in the world.

I see this as not about some sectarian “peace position,” but about an “agape position,” about Jesus's followers being a people defined by their passionate love for God above every other love or allegiance, and by a compassionate love for neighbor--friend, foe and foreigner alike. 

And lest we reduce agape to being a mere sentiment, an attitude of niceness, or as simply a benevolent feeling toward others (one that still allows us to engage in their destruction under certain circumstances), the New Testament makes clear that God's kind of unconditional love is defined by its actions, not merely its motives or emotions.  Thus Jesus, in explaining what loving ones neighbor actually means, tells the story of a Samaritan binding up the wounds of his mortal enemy, a Jew.  And Paul, in Romans 13 (the very passage that urges respect, rather than armed resistance, toward even the occupying, crucifying, terrorist Caesars) makes it clear that love will "do no harm to a neighbor." Period.

As Ghandi once observed, Christians seem to be the only ones who believe Jesus and the New Testament are not absolutely clear on these points: Do no harm.  Return good for evil.  Take up the cross, not the sword.  Follow Jesus’s personal example of a completely nonresistant life, who taught, "My kingdom (government) is not like those of this world. If that were so my servants would fight."

If, in our baptism, we receive a missionary commission to evangelize and reconcile God’s enemies to God and to each other, how can we accept a military commission to harm them?  And if we are convinced that in Jesus God’s future kingdom has already been inaugurated, how can we also pledge, under oath, to become a part of an enterprise committed to harming or coercing others “in the national interest”?

Clearly, most decent people, Christian or not, would renounce the following as immoral and unacceptable:

breaking and entering
lying and other forms of deception
physical, psychological, or other forms of torture and abuse
armed robbery
malicious wounding
organized acts of terrorism
using racial or other demeaning slurs
using explosives to destroy people or property
destroying land or other natural resources
stabbing or strangling
forcing people from their homes or communities
committing mass murder

Without question, most believers would speak out against members of churches engaging in such behaviors--and would disapprove of their supporting or belonging to any groups or organizations that do--yet raise no objections when military forces routinely encourage, train and/or command people to do all of the above and more.  Thus we are in danger of accepting, on a mass and organized scale, what we could not accept or allow on any other basis. Unlike legitimate police force, necessary in human societies to maintain order within national boundaries (and intended to preserve life and bring individuals to justice under laws designed to protect individual rights), military forces have a long history of plundering and destroying without benefit of such civilized restraints.

True, we pacifist Christians must repent of the many "beams" of self righteousness, materialism, and cowardly indifference that interfere with our moral vision. Because of these we may not always “see clearly” to lovingly help remove any specks of militarism from another’s eye.

But remove them we must, all of us, lest history write off the church as having been irrelevant and mute in one of the most pressing moral issues of all time.

I like this piece by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself; I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his payroll.
I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

Why Christians Should Still Refuse To Fight

“As disciples of Christ, we do not prepare for war, or participate in war or military service.”

        

This succinct statement taken from Article 22 of my church's "Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective"  sets us apart from all but a small fraction of other Christians around the world, although I am heartened by more and more individuals and denominations supporting this position.  

Yet the above was embraced universally by believers in the first and second centuries, and by most Anabaptist-minded (later Mennonite) Christians since the 16th century.

To cite two of many examples, Tertullian, a prominent leader and theologian in the early church expressed this vision when he described the church as a people who “join to beat their swords into plows, and their lances into sickles.”  Origin of Egypt, a contemporary of Tertullian’s said, “Nor do we ‘learn war any more,’ having become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus, our leader.” The best known example of a first century believer who refused to fight is Maxillian, who was martyred for not joining the Roman army and later canonized as a saint.

To early Christians, Jesus represented the final word from God on issues of war and peace.  War was simply over for them, a relic of the past. Menno Simons and other outspoken leaders and martyrs in Anabaptist and other renewal movements simply helped revive this conviction. Menno wrote, "True Christians do not know vengeance... their hearts overflow with peace... The regenerate do not go to war, or engage in strife...  they are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares."

Sadly, few followers of Christ over the centuries have maintained such positions, which has resulted in Inquisitions, Crusades, multiple wars among so-called Christian nations in Europe and elsewhere, and Christians defending and participating in every kind of military adventure imaginable, all in the name of God and country, and each case defended as a "just war." 

There has been a gradual erosion of anti-war conviction among Mennonites as well, members of a small “peace church” that has maintained for most of 500 years that military membership and church membership are incompatible.

To me, a weakening of any church’s position on this kind of witness represents a crying shame.  Surely there is a need for at least a remnant of people in our blood-stained world who consistently teach and demonstrate that Christians, by definition, are people who will not harm or kill under any circumstances. Not even in a time of war, not even their enemies (and certainly not their fellow believers), anywhere in the world.

I see this as not about some sectarian “peace position,” but about an “agape position,” about Jesus's followers being a people defined by their passionate love for God above every other love or allegiance, and by a compassionate love for neighbor--friend, foe and foreigner alike.  

And lest we reduce agape to being a mere sentiment, an attitude of niceness, or as simply a benevolent feeling toward others, the New Testament makes clear that God's kind of unconditional love is defined by its actions, not merely its motives or emotions.  Thus Jesus, in explaining what loving ones neighbor actually means, tells the story of a Samaritan binding up the wounds of his mortal enemy, a Jew.  And Paul, in Romans 13 (the very passage that urges respect, rather than armed resistance, toward even the occupying, crucifying, terrorist Caesars) makes it clear that love will "do no harm to a neighbor." Period. 

As Ghandi once observed, Christians seem to be the only ones who believe Jesus and the New Testament are not absolutely clear on these points: Do no harm.  Return good for evil.  Take up the cross, not the sword.  Follow Jesus’s personal example of a completely nonresistant life, who taught, "My kingdom (government) is not like those of this world. If that were so my servants would fight."

If in our baptism we receive a missionary commission to evangelize and reconcile God’s enemies to God and to each other, how can we accept a military commission to harm them?  And if we are convinced that in Jesus God’s future kingdom has already been inaugurated, how can we also pledge, under oath, to become a part of an enterprise committed to harming or coercing others “in the national interest”?

Clearly, most decent people, Christian or not, would renounce the following as immoral and unacceptable:

breaking and entering

lying and other forms of deception

physical, psychological, or other forms of torture and abuse

armed robbery

malicious wounding

organized acts of terrorism

using racial or other demeaning slurs 

using explosives to destroy people or property

destroying land or other natural resources

stabbing or strangling 

forcing people from their homes or communities

committing mass murder

Without question, most believers would speak out against members of churches engaging in such behaviors--and would disapprove of their supporting or belonging to any groups or organizations that do so. Yet we tend to raise no objections when military forces routinely encourage, train and/or command people to do all of the above and more.  

Thus we are in danger of accepting, on a mass and organized scale, what we could not accept or allow on any other basis. Unlike legitimate police force, necessary in human societies to maintain order within national boundaries (and intended to preserve life and bring individuals to justice under laws designed to protect individual rights), military forces have a long history of plundering and destroying without benefit of such civilized restraints.

True, we pacifist Christians must repent of the many "beams" of self righteousness, materialism, and cowardly indifference that are inconsistent with our moral vision. Because of these we may not always “see clearly” to lovingly help remove any specks of militarism from another’s eye. 

But remove them we must, all of us, lest history write off the church as having been irrelevant and mute in one of the most pressing moral issues of all time.

This is an edited repost from January 21, 2011.

Will More War Help Bring About More Peace?

This AP photo by Natacha Pisarenko and others can be seen on
Outlook India's website.

I'm sure many will see the following op ed piece in today's paper as hopelessly naive and impractical. But what are realistic and humane alternatives to today's horrific wars? 

I welcome your comments.

The late M. R. Ziegler, local Church of the Brethren leader, once wryly observed that world peace could be achieved if all Christians (and people of every faith) simply “agreed not to kill each other.” 

Following the 1892 meeting of the World Peace Conference in Bern, Alfred Nobel, a pioneer manufacturer of munitions and explosives, suggested another way to world peace: “Perhaps my factories will put an end to war even sooner than your congresses. On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.”

The 1914-18 World War that followed, hailed as “the war to end all wars,” proved Nobel wrong. Massive use of his munitions resulted in the greatest bloodbath the world had ever witnessed. An added escalation involved the use of planes, first for reconnaissance, then to drop deadly explosives on factories, enemy positions and other targets. 

WW I created conditions that led to a far more devastating genocide, World War II. In that war massive bombardments of civilians became the norm from the very start. Near its end the first nuclear bombs completely obliterated two Japanese cities.  

Since then the world has endured a prolonged Cold War and countless other failed conflicts, including the war in Vietnam. According to analyst Cooper Thomas, “Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—double the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II. Pound for pound, it remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history."

Like Russia’s current assaults, this failed to create any enduring peace.

In the latter part of the 20th century,  many saw the prospect of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) by nuclear weapons as being the ultimate deterrence to war. But given the trajectory of modern history, it may well be how World War III begins. And ends.

Tragically, humanity seems unable to see any viable alternative to using brutal force to resist an invading nation. We continue to resort to ever more devastating means of fighting fire with fire, responding with an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for a tooth” that results in unimaginable loss and destruction.

Some two thousand years ago a revolutionary movement of Jesus followers under Roman occupation practiced and preached a radically new message. They insisted that the only way to ultimately resist evil doers was by non-violent means, and by countering evil with good.

Drawing on Hebrew texts like Proverbs 25:21-22 and the teachings of Jesus, they responded to Roman oppression by praying for their enemies, feeding them if they were hungry, carrying a burden a second mile if coerced to carry it for one, and by turning the other cheek when wrongfully struck.

This was directly counter to those who advocated throwing off the Roman yoke by violent means. In the first several centuries of the Christian movement there is not a single record of a church leader justifying any killing by a follower of Jesus, either as a soldier or an executioner.

One wonders what would have happened if Christians, now with more adherents than any other world religion, had continued to promote and live by their original convictions, Never do harm, never resist evil by evil means, never take up arms against your enemies.

Mahatma Gandhi, profoundly influenced by the teachings of Jesus, successfully led thousands of his nonviolent followers in overthrowing British rule at a cost of only one death per 400,000 of India’s citizens (Algeria, by comparison, won its independence using weapons, at a cost of one in every ten Algerians). The Catholic-affiliated and non-violent Solidarity movement in Poland successfully overcame Soviet rule, and the Berlin Wall eventually came down without the use of military force. 

In a July 3, 1940, letter to citizens in England Gandhi wrote,

Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans. I want you to fight Nazism without arms. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these, but neither your souls nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them. 

This way of overcoming evil with good, and without resorting to violent and evil means, has not been tried and found wanting, but simply been found costly and seldom tried.

If civilization is to survive, good people everywhere must declare the barbaric practice of war obsolete, as they have cannibalism, slavery, religious persecution and human sacrifice.

On The First Day Of Christmas: Caroling Peace

Our carols celebrate God's peace 'on earth as it is in heaven.'

For two millennia Christians have celebrated the advent of Peace on earth and goodwill to men, women, children, neighbors and strangers alike with carols proclaiming an end to war-making.

Yet only a small fraction of professed Christians ever question the path to utter destruction and carnage preparations for war are taking us. In a nation in which millions claim allegiance to the Prince of Peace, we are seeing ever more headlines such as the following:

"9,000-11,000 Civilians Killed in Retaking Mosul, at Least a Third by Allied Bombs"

"President Promotes Largest Ever $700 Billion Defense Budget"

"Commitment to Negotiation Limited--America's New Strategy is 'Peace Through Strength'"

"US Prepared to Utterly Destroy North Korea, Threatening Nuclear Holocaust"

By contrast, here are some direct references to peace on earth in our Christmas hymns and carols:

O come, O come, Immanuel  -  anonymous, 6th and 7th century (v.1-4), Henry Sloane Coffin, 1916 (during WW I) v.5-6

     "Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease, fill the whole with heaven's peace"

Comfort, comfort O my people  -  Johannes Olearius, 1671

     "Speak unto Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them,

     Tell of all the sins I cover, and that warfare now is over"

To us a child of hope is born  -  Isaac Watts, 1719

     "His name shall be the Prince of Peace...

     Justice shall guard his throne above, and peace abound below"

It came upon a midnight clear  - Edmund H. Sears, 1849

     "Peace on the earth, goodwill to all from heavens all gracious king...

     ...Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long...

     ...warring humankind hears not the tidings which they bring,

     O hush the noise and cease your strife and hear the angels sing."

    "For lo the days are hastening on by prophet bards foretold

     when with the everlasting years comes round the age of gold

     when peace shall over all the earth ts ancient splendors fling

     and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing."

Joy to the world  -  Isaac Watts, 1719

     "He rules the world with truth and grace, 
     and makes the nations prove 
     the glories of his righteousness 
     and wonders of his love."

Hark! the herald angels sing  -  Charles Wesley, 1739

     "Peace on the earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled…

    Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace..."

O holy night  -  Adolphe Adam, 1874

    "Truly He taught us to love one another;

      His law is love and His gospel is peace.

     Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

     And in His name all oppression shall cease."

I heard the bells on Christmas day - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1863 (during the Civil War)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Bless'd be the God of Israel  -  Michael Perry, 1973

     "...to guide the feet of pilgrims along the path of peace."

This Is My Story, Part I

Harold S. Bender made the point that love
for enemies and returning good for evil were
an integral part of the church's mission.

Regina Harlow, an ordained member of the Church of the Brethren, and I were recently asked by the Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center to share our stories around four themes, peace, covenant community, alienation from our surrounding culture and being a neighbor in a world of need. She grew up Old Order Mennonite and I was raised in an Amish community. This is the first of my four short presentations at the Sunrise Church of the Brethren October 17.

I was born in a very rural northeastern part of Oklahoma in 1939, just two months before the German invasion of Poland that set off WWII in Europe. When I was four my family moved to Anderson County in eastern Kansas, after years of Depression and dustbowl drought. My father, then in his late 30’s and with 8 children—me being the youngest—avoided the draft with a farm deferment, and the tragedy of a world at war seemed really remote and distant, even though I remember times when an airplane flying overhead triggered fears of an invasion by Japanese or German bombers!

But I don’t remember hearing much talk about the war back then, but do remember some of the excitement about it finally being over six years later. And I don’t remember hearing much about pacifism or about our Amish church’s stance on loving our enemies based on the Sermon on the Mount and demonstrated by Jesus’s response to evil and violence, but there was never any doubt in my mind growing up that followers of Jesus should never, ever, take part in training for, or engaging in, the killing of fellow human beings or destroying their land and property. 

My father subscribed to publications like the Herald der Wahrheit, (Herald of Truth) published by and for Amish communities, as well as Mennonite papers like the Gospel Herald and the Youth Christian Companion, which supported pacifism and occasionally ran articles about Christians taking up the cross rather than taking up arms. And I also heard stories about the horrors of war through some veterans who had experienced it first hand, and who became friends with us while wiring our house and farm buildings for electricity when we moved to Virginia in 1946. One of them loaned us a set of books that were an illustrated history of WWII. I was horrified.

As a teen I ran across H. S. Bender’s the Anabaptist Vision, in which he made the case that for our Anabaptist forebears, loving our enemies and refusing to resort to violence in the face of attacks, was a central part of our faith, and represented a kind of witness the whole world needed to hear and heed. I was greatly inspired by that vision. 

When I left my Amish community and went to school at EMU, then EMC, and became a part of Virginia conference Mennonites, I thought I was joining the church of peace advocates like Harold Bender and John Howard Yoder back in the day. It took me awhile to realize how much Anabaptists of all shades, across the board, including the Amish in my own community, had been influenced by a kind of Pietism in which a primary focus was being prepared to escape earth and get to heaven, rather than praying for heaven to come down to earth to recreate the peace and shalom God intended, and in which Christians were to be about peacemaking and justice-promoting. 

I realized that even so-called peace churches had become more focused on experiencing an inner, personal peace rather than about practicing the kind of restoration and reconciliation represented by Jubilee justice--and on the kind of shalom in which nothing is marred and nothing is missing, and in which peace is far more than just the absence of war.

Today I grieve over the hostility and polarization in our world and in our nation, more than I’ve never witnessed before, and over the many church divisions I’ve seen in my lifetime right here in our community. And I agonize over our silent support of the US spending more on our military budgets than all of the next ten top spending nations in the world, and where most of us have more of our money going to support military budgets than missionary budgets.

But my prayer remains, with all of God’s people, “Let there be peace (with justice) here on earth, and let it begin with me, and with all of us together, Mennonites, Brethren, Protestants,  Catholics, all of Jesus’s followers and people of goodwill everywhere.” 

This is a part of my peace story.

9/11--A Missed Opportunity For World Peace?

Wikipedia photo by Andrea Booher/ FEMA News Photo

Following the September 11, 2001 attack by Saudi terrorists, there was an unprecedented outpouring of expressions of support and goodwill from individuals and nations from every corner of the globe. Occurring as it did at the dawn of the 21st century, what if the United States had used this pivotal event as an opportunity to help launch a century of peace rather than having it become another century of ever escalating warfare?

Sadly, an official summary of President George Bush’s presidency 2001-2009 states, 

In Afghanistan, the United States and our allies removed the regime that harbored the terrorists who plotted the 9/11 attacks. As a result, more than 25 million Afghans are free; the terrorist training camps have been shut down; and Afghanistan has become an ally in the war on terror. Today Afghanistan has a democratically elected President, a national assembly, and a market economy. Women are voting and starting their own businesses. Millions more children are in school, including girls who were once banned from the classroom… In Iraq, the United States led a coalition to remove a dictator who murdered his own people, invaded his neighbors, and threatened the United States. Because our coalition acted to remove Saddam Hussein, 25 million Iraqis are free; the Iraqi people have the most progressive constitution in the Arab world; and Iraq has become an ally in the war on terror. With Saddam Hussein gone from power, the coalition’s mission turned to helping the Iraqi people defend their freedom against violent extremists. When the battle in Iraq reached a pivotal point, the President rejected calls for retreat. Instead, in January 2007, he ordered a new strategy supported by a surge in forces.This historic decision dramatically reduced violence and created the conditions for political and economic progress to take place.

That was America’s Plan A, which in hindsight has proved to be a tragic failure. What if we had launched a bold new Plan B, representing neither isolationism nor attempting to punish Afghanistan militarily for harboring Taliban terrorists, and had chosen an entirely new approach to world peace?

For example: 

• To redirect a large part of our current military budget—currently larger than that of the combined military spending of the next nine highest spending nations, including Russia and China,—toward funding a Department of World Peace and Justice, and to call on all other nations to join in funding a new kind of "Marshall Plan" for helping needy populations around the globe.

• To turn the Pentagon into an International Peace and Justice Research Center, focused on aggressive and persistent conflict negotiations in current and potential stress points around the world.

• To partner with host nations to turn our existing 750 military bases in 80 countries around the world into rapid response centers for peace negotiations and as stations for providing aid in natural disasters and ongoing help for nations experiencing the ravages of hunger, disease and forced migration.

• To maintain a well regulated and justly operated border patrol while investing billions in helping impoverished and oppressive countries from which so many of our migrants come. 

• To maintain a Coast Guard (and, in the short term, anti-ballistic missiles?) in the defense of our nation, but to phase out offensive weapons aimed at other nations.

• To become a leader among nations of all ideologies, ethnicities and religions “who do not lift up sword against nation, nor learn war any more,” and where “integrity and justice prosper, and justice produces lasting peace and security.” (Isaiah 2:4, 32:17)

In the words of the late Christian peace advocate A.J. Muste, "There is no way to peace, Peace is the way."

Guest Post: Our Terrorist War On Afghanistan

A "war on terror" waged 7000 miles from the Pentagon left an already impoverished nation even more destitute.

The November/December issue of Hospitality published the following by one of my distant cousins, Weldon Nisly, a Washington state-based Mennonite minister who devotes himself to the work of Contemplative JustPeace and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). According to the Hospitality editor, "His life is dedicated to the abolition of war. Weldon serves half time on the CPT Iraqi Kurdistan team and was on the CPT Palestine team in Hebron in September-October 2017 and August-September 2018."

I post the following excerpts of the article with his kind permission, including three of his seven laments in a "Litany of Lament for the Lies of War":

"... August saw an ignominious end to U.S. occupation. But it is no end to the war on terror, which by definition and design is forever war. Drone strikes, sanctions, arming other countries and political threats ensure forever war. It is delusional to believe that continuing military intervention for another year or ten years will achieve a different result.

"... I offer this litany of lament for the terror and trauma America's endless war inflicts on people of color, people who are poor, people of other faiths, people speaking other languages, people who are innocent.

"... I Lament that America, in its war on Afghanistan, hailed as the 'good war' to defeat terrorism,  refuses to see that terrorism cannot be defeated by military might any more than hate can be defeated by vengeance. 'Good war' blindness scorns comparisons between the U.S. war in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Now the Afghanistan Papers, like the Pentagon Papers a half-century ago, document 'good war' lies.  Will I see that lies of war never build peace?

    Jesus said, 'Blessed are your eyes, for they see.'

"... I Lament the monetary cost of war stealing trillions of dollars from taxpayers to pay for the war on Afghanistan and trillions more dollars wasted on the war on terror plus the incalculable cost of destroyed homes and homeland, farms and forests, polluting and exploiting God's creation. The real 'winners' of war are weapons makers and dealers who make a killing sacrificing human life for personal profit. Will I dare to see and imagine the good that could be done by spending millions of dollars on peace rather than war, human security rather than national security?

    Jesus said, 'Blessed are your eyes, for they see.'

"... I Lament that whistleblowers who tell the truth about the lies of war are persecuted and prosecuted as war criminals while political leaders who spout lies and commit war crimes are heroized and not held accountable. Colleen Rowley, former FBI agent and 9/11 whistleblower, recently said, 'When telling the truth to divulge lies of war becomes a crime, you know the criminals are in charge.' 

    Jesus said, 'Blessed are your eyes, for they see.'

"... Each lament sees the sacredness of all God's people and creation with the eyes of our heart."

Either We Outlaw War Or We Will Perish By It

Some 70% of Gaza, smaller than Rockingham County, has been reduced to rubble, and an astounding number of men, women and children have lost their lives, many of their bodies unrecognizable and/or unrecoverable.

There is a widespread belief that human beings have gradually become more civilized over time, eventually passing laws against things like cannibalism, human trafficking, dueling, torturing, and other practices finally seen as barbaric.

Actually, the opposite appears to be true. In the past century we have become ever more sophisticated in our means of killing, maiming and dismembering people, along with inventing ever more efficient ways of destroying their habitat and the very earth on which we all depend.

Among the books I've read recently are Killing Crazy Horse--The Merciless Indian Wars in America, by Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard and A Long Way Gone--Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ismael Beah. Each details recent examples in history of barbaric cruelty we tend to think humans are no longer capable of. But we are.

And we now have weapons that are infinitely more lethal than could have ever been imagined in the past. One small atomic or hydrogen bomb alone is capable of creating the kind of instant devastation pictured above, as demonstrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. 

That war resulted in an estimated total of 50-85 million deaths, including millions of innocent civilians who died from starvation, disease, massive bombings and in extermination camps.

Most of us North Americans were spared this level of suffering. But World War III would be far worse for all the earth's inhabitants, and would undoubtedly result in the end of civilization as we know it. Thus there is no way for the world to survive other than through our beating our swords into plowshares and banning war forever as immoral, uncivilized and unthinkable. 

The 16th century reformer Menno Simons wrote, "All Christians are commanded to love their enemies; to do good to those who abuse and persecute them... Tell me, how can a Christian defend scripturally retaliation, rebellion, war, striking, slaying, torturing, stealing, robbing and plundering and burning cities and conquering countries? ...They (Christians) are the children of peace. their hearts overflow with peace; their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace... They seek, desire and know nothing but peace; and are prepared to forsake country, goods, life, and all for the sake of peace." 

Day Eight Of Christmas--Pray For An End To The Insanity Of War Making

"God will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

Isaiah 2:4 (NIV)

Swords to Plowshares

The author of the "War is hell" quote, General William Tecumseh Sherman, wrote the following in 1865, "I confess without shame that I am sick and tired of war. It's glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant, is over dead and mangled bodies... It is only those who have not heard a shot, nor heard the shrills and groans of the wounded and lacerated (friend or foe) that cry aloud for more blood and vengeance, more desolation..."

Today we witness this horror in far more devastating and barbaric ways than on the slaughterfields of the Civil War (for example, Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest battles of all time, resulted in only one (accidental) civilian casualty). Now as in Yemen and  in Syria,thousands of  innocent men, women and children are mercilessly and indiscriminately bombed and buried under rubble--or maimed and rendered homeless--by the use of ever more efficient means of destruction- and death-inflicting terror.

It's hard to imagine a world without weapons. But imagine it we must, if we are to survive on an earth with just enough resources for all, but not enough to waste on ever more efficient instruments of death.

Throughout history people and nations have tried to maintain peace through every means except to follow the example and teachings of the Prince of Peace. We have dismissed as naive Jesus's commands to "love our enemies, pray for them, and do good to them," especially when we realize that kind of response may result in suffering and even crucifixion. We have refused to believe that the only way to peace is through the costly practice of it.

People of faith envision a God-ruled world that will one day result in wolf and lamb lying down together, and have begun to eagerly demonstrate that new way now, just as Jesus and other prophets of peace have done. 

So join me in praying on this Eighth Day of Christmas, and on the first day of a new year, for a forever end to the insanity, horror and brutality of armed conflict. From God's perspective, war is over, a thing of the past. God's forever future is all about shalom, harmony and enduring peace.

On this eighth day of Christmas, we invite all people of faith and goodwill to become living demonstrations of that reality. It begins wherever, whenever and in whomever God is sovereign.

This New Year's is the time to begin. 

For more posts on this topic check this link.