Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle has sent this note:

Witness for Peace was organized in April of 1983, when more than 150 people from the U.S. went to Nicaragua to observe the contra war. When they were in Jalapa, a town on the northern border, they noticed that the contras had withdrawn when they arrived. They got the idea of establishing a permanent presence of U.S. citizens to stand with the Nicaraguans and document human rights abuses. Ever since then there have been both long-term and short-term delegates, and Witness for Peace has established similar delegations in other Latin American countries.

In June the 25th anniversary will be celebrated, with a delegation led by Gail Phares, a former Maryknoll sister, who founded Witness for Peace and has been a major source of inspiration all these years.

This delegation should be of interest to the original delegates, of course. But it is of even more importance to newer generations, who have the chance to become part of this heritage and learn from it.

Gail Phares, one of the founders of Witness for Peace, writes:

Bridges of Hope Delegation to Nicaragua

June 12-23rd, 2008  

In April of 1983 I along with more than 20 other North Carolinians travelled to the northern border of Nicaragua to visit a tobacco farm that had been attacked by the Contras the day before. We entered a small house on the edge of the farm and saw blood on the floor and walls. A young woman told us that her baby, two toddlers and mother had all been injured in the attack and taken away in an ambulance. She didn’t know if they were dead or alive. While she was talking, the bus driver honked the horn letting us know it was time to leave because we heard gunshots. The Nicaraguans begged us to stay. We made the excruciating decision to go. However, we vowed to find a way to stop the war financed by our government. Based on that powerful experience I along with others founded WfP.

We also witnessed the amazing resilience and hope of the Nicaraguan people, determined to build their own future. We learned from them about grassroots organizing, building a new society from the bottom up. We were inspired by their resolve to provide jobs, health care and education for everyone.

Twenty-five years later Nicaraguans are still hopeful about their future, but U.S. economic policies stand in their way. Increasing poverty, high under and unemployment rates, a staggering foreign debt, a free trade agreement (Central America Free Trade Agreement) that forces many small corn and bean farmers to sell their land and move to the cities or to Costa Rica or the US in search of a job, are the dramatic results of our government’s policies. We must stop these policies that kill softly, that kill the dreams of a generation of young people.

In 2008 Witness for Peace celebrates 25 years of building bridges of hope with our friends in Latin America and the Caribbean. Please join me in a trip to Nicaragua to renew our commitment to stop policies that kill in our name. Come with me to Jalapa where WfP began. Come with me to celebrate our hope!

Information about the delegation: Witness for Peace SE 1105 Sapling Place Raleigh, NC 27615 Bridges of Hope June 12-23, 2008

Or contact:

Ken Crowley
National Delegations Organizer
Witness for Peace
3628 12th St NE
Washington, DC 20017
202-547-6112 ext 10

Latin America’s shock resistance
[11-13-07]

Naomi Klein writes in The Nation about the declaration by the president of Ecuador that he will renew the US lease on a large military base in Ecuador only if the US will let Ecuador establish a base in Miami.  She opens:

In less than two years, the lease on the largest and most important US military base in Latin America will run out. The base is in Manta, Ecuador, and Rafael Correa, the country’s leftist president, has pronounced that he will renew the lease “on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami–an Ecuadorean base. If there is no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.”

Klein sees Pres. Correa’s defiance not as anti-Americanism but as “part of a broad range of measures being taken by Latin American governments to make the continent less vulnerable to externally provoked crises and shocks.” Those shocks, she explains, have been tools of a deliberate US strategy to gain increasing control of Latin American economics. And many Latin American leaders are beginning to resist.

Christ and Empire – looking beyond Christ and Culture

a book review by Gene TeSelle    [8-23-07]

Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times by Joerg Rieger (Augsburg Fortress, x +334 pp., $20 paperback) is written by a German Methodist with a Ph.D. from Duke (where he picked up the heritage of Frederick Herzog), now teaching at Perkins.

The book is consciously modeled on H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture — but with the difference that its field of vision is broader than culture alone, involving "conglomerates of power," everything that involves control of our lives. A closer parallel might in fact be Troeltsch's Social Teachings, which surveyed the changing relations between Christian thought and its environment. Rieger is constantly asking what "comes in through the back door" of Christian thought, and his typical answer is: "not philosophy but politics" (p. 117).

Not only that. Those who think that religion and politics can be neatly differentiated are reminded, over and over, that the two are constantly intertwined. Another undercurrent throughout the book is the reminder that claims of Christian unity were, and are, usually overdrawn, often being expressed at times when Christian identity was neither monolithic or secure (p. 132); repressed conflict, as Lacan and Foucault point out, is often what shapes the agenda (p. 134). When people call for "renewal," fearing that there has been a "fall away from Christianity," they are not usually aware of the structural distortions, "deeper than the level of the 'will,'" that Christianity has absorbed from its setting (pp. 243-44).

The seven chapters look at major episodes in the relation between Christ and empire, and in all of them there is attention to the ambivalences in Christian thinking. Rieger traces how the empire model, which was always ready at hand, has influenced Christian thinking in covert ways. But even then there can be a theological and christological "surplus," transcending and challenging the model, refusing to acquiesce in "top-down" thinking. The pattern continues in our own time. "There is no alternative," said Margaret Thatcher; we are at "the end of history," said Francis Fukuyama. But there are always enough ambivalences in theology to disrupt the authority of the dominant model and show the limits of empire.

The problem is as old as the original proclamation of Jesus as "Lord" and (later in the first century) "Savior" — both of them terms that, like "gospel," were being applied to the Caesars. In setting Jesus ahead of Caesar there has always been the temptation to make Jesus fit the model of Caesar; indeed, Rieger notes the lack of sustained theological discussion of the meaning of "Lord," except in recent objections to the masculinity of the title.

The New Testament does better than the theologians. It depicts a Jesus who does not fit the pattern of Lord at any time prior to Easter, and breaks the mold after Easter; who criticizes the "rulers of the Gentiles" for lording it over them and calls on his disciples to be servants (Mk. 10:42-45; cf. Lk. 22:25-27); who is, to be sure, the one before whom all are to prostrate themselves (Phil. 2:11), but who gets to that position only through solidarity with slaves and the humiliated, outlining a different kind of "kingdom" or "empire"; a Jesus who does not work through the wise and powerful (1 Cor. 1:18-31; cf. Mt. 11:25 = Lk. 10:21) and whose cross discredits the "rulers of the present age" (1 Cor. 2:8). All of this calls for not only a new ethic but a new logic and a new ontology (p. 54).

And so it goes through Christian history. During Constantine's reign the church declared Christ "coequal with God," and later it added that he was "coequal with us." This could be one more example of the leveling and standardization that became typical of the later Roman Empire, clearly differentiating the rulers from the ruled. (After all, Constantine called himself "bishop of those outside," and the Orthodox Church later called him "equal of the apostles.") But Rieger is also aware of the strand of scholarship that arose during the Hitler years (from three or four different thinkers, quite independently) that sees Nicene doctrine as anti-hierarchical. And the doctrine of incarnation, even as it tried to set God apart from the world, also brought God into contact with the "messiness" of the world (p. 95).

What about Anselm's theory of atonement? It has been called a form of sadism or "divine child-abuse." Somewhat more dispassionately, it has been said to presuppose the imperial model of the feudal lord whose honor must be either vindicated through punishment or restored through satisfaction. Rieger goes into the details of Anselm's life, specifically his years as Archbishop of Canterbury under the "Norman Empire," and traces possible resonances. He rescues Anselm from some of the most emotive accusations; but in the process he reveals an "ontology of empire" in which order depends upon a harmonious relationship of ruler and ruled. The system is thus "set in stone," changed from a "model" to a normative description of the way things are, applicable to many settings, up to our own day, beyond the feudalism in which it first grew.

Christ and empire becomes an explicit theme during the age of exploration and colonization — not everywhere (the English and the French did not reflect much about it), but in the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the debates centering around Sepúlveda, Vitoria, and especially Bartolomé de las Casas. The Spanish court, to its credit, took these debates seriously, and in many respects Las Casas won. But the spirit of greed and the desire for domination could not be exorcised. And even Las Casas, in championing the political and religious self-determination of the Amerindians, presupposed Western Christian assumptions about reason and faith. He defended the Amerindians' natural equality, but in the sense that they were equal only in their potentialities, which still needed to be brought to fulfillment, which could happen best through persuasion that rested upon the colonial relationship — in other words, through "covert power."

That theme is continued in a chapter focusing on Schleiermacher, who wrote an early essay on the Australian aborigines (it may even have reinforced his view that religion has to be primarily feeling or intuition). If Las Casas was the first successful missiologist, Schleiermacher was the one who brought that discipline into the modern world. Once again there was an emphasis on "attraction" or "pervasive influence." The remarkable expansion of Christianity throughout the world could be seen as proof of its superiority, at the same time masking the drastic differences in power. Under these circumstances, it did not occur to most people to think of the perspectives or the sufferings of other peoples as sources for learning more about Christ.

As Catherine Keller has pointed out, "There is no pre-colonial Christianity." In answer to the question whether there is a post-colonial Christianity, she suggests that we must look to "the peripheries, diasporas, and boundary zones of empire" (quoted p. 25). Empire may be less visible in our day of global trade and investment, but it is more pervasive in its reach, for it has learned that economic power does not need a monopoly on political power and that exploitation need not be the direct exercise of cruelty.

The concluding sections are highly evocative, calling for a reversal of perspective and a new sense of shared interdependence. Since this is a book of theology, not ethics, the emphasis is on overcoming deception, not on specific programs, though that does not keep the author from frequent (perhaps too frequent) mention of the Bush administration. But critique is dished out broadly. For example, neither conservatives nor liberals truly identify with the margins, for the one group wants to teach "personal responsibility" and the other wants "social programs," in both cases trying to reintegrate those on the margins "back into the system" (p. 297).

President Bush’s post-"thumpin’" dismissal of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has received lots of attention, and many people committed to some kind of end of the US war in Iraq have reacted critically to Bush’s nomination of Robert Gates, former director of the CIA, as his replacement.

A new organization, the INTERNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (I.E.D.), announced today that it has issued an URGENT APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD to donate money to help support democracy in the country that needs it most - the USA.

The founders of this group (with such a creative name - IED!) includes a number of well-known progressive and radical scholars and activists.  We don't know how serious they are, but their website provides lots of thoughtful critiques of the realities of American democracy. 

We're not too sure of their assertion that this is the first-ever effort to get aid from other nations for the U.S.  After all, American independence was won in no small measure because of help from (of all people) the French. 

A Song of Empire

by Kent Winters-Hazelton, Witherspoon Society president 
[4-2-03]

Theologian John Cobb highlights and clarifies the crisis that is confronting the church as well as the world through the new US determination impose an "American peace" on the world - on our terms.

At a recent local meeting for clergy and laity, John Cobb spoke of the great crisis facing the church posed by the current administration's push for pro-Western, democratic Middle East. Cobb, a retired professor of Theology at the Claremont School of Theology, opened his remarks by saying, "We are facing a double crisis: one in the church and one in the world." The crisis in the world is apparent, the unjust nature of the war with Iraq and its potential to expand into other Middle East countries. The crisis in the church, however, is less evident. Cobb observed that people stopped paying attention to what the church had to say years ago. This is a new phenomenon, he suggested; it has happened in his life time. The last time the voice of the church had any significant impact on a major moral issue facing the nation was in the era of civil rights. The church has entered a state of "virtual irrelevance," according to Dr. Cobb.

This crisis in the church has come about, Cobb suggested, because pastors have stopped thinking and speaking theologically with their congregations. As a result, few local churches are in a position to act theologically or constructively when there is a significant global crisis. Pastors should be able to engage members in deeper reflection on critical issues, but that is not possible not when the issue comes out of the blue to a congregation unprepared with a foundation of Biblical, theological and historical understanding.

Professor Cobb made these reflections at a roundtable discussion among church leaders gathered together to talk about the way they have been responding, successfully or unsuccessfully, to the war in Iraq. The program was sponsored by Progressive Christians Uniting, a Los Angeles justice-reflection based organization, co-founded by Dr. Cobb; it drew 40 participants to the first of three such discussions.

The world crisis we are facing, Cobb argues, involves the fate of the earth. In drawing our attention to the current administration's proposed foreign policy, as stated in its recently released document, titled "The National Security Strategy," Cobb suggested that President Bush's advisors are proposing a divisive foreign policy that runs counter to our democratic principles, the interests of the international community, and the claims of the gospels. The National Security Strategy, developed by the New American Century Project, a neo-conservative group founded by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, and others in 1997, suggests - in Cobb's words - that the people of the world would be better off if the United States ran the show. We have a responsibility to bring peace and righteousness to the world by exercising our dominant power in international affairs, resisting terrorism and rogue states and to reshape the world according to western values. [For more information on the New American Century Project and the conclusions of the National Security Strategy, see "Power Play," by Theodore R. Weber and "Axis of One," by Gary Dorrien, in the March 8, 2003 edition of Christian Century; and "Iraq War Entrenches Policy of Pre-Emption," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, March 23, 2003, B1.]

The United States, this policy suggests, has been given an historic opportunity to mold and maintain a global peace that enhances US security and economic interest, as well as provide a stability for the Middle East, and potentially for North Africa and the Korean peninsula. Taking lessons from the Roman empire, they point out that the longest period of international peace occurred during the era of the Pax Romana. Thus, the strategy posits that a similar Pax Americana can achieve the same global stability, with undoubtedly a pro-Western spin. Of course, the detractors of this policy see it not as a Pax Americana, a welcomed blessing of Western values and edicts, but rather an uncompromising extension of an American Empire.

In order to achieve this global era of peace, the document argues, the United States must maintain its superpower status, and we can only do that if we can shape the world without competition to deter us from our course. Thus, the hard-liners in the administration do not like or give credit to the United Nations, and they downgrade the status or influence of "old Europe." Anyone who opposes the Pax Americana is labeled "evil": "Those who are not with us," the President has said, "are opposed to us." Even moderate representatives in the administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, are labeled "internationalist" - clearly not a compliment.

Cobb at this point issued a caution: most of the damage in the world has been done by the righteous. He also issued a small glimmer of hope. The reason that the Pax Americana has not completely dominated the administration is that there are still people within who believe in diplomacy and the United Nations. Even George W. Bush, Cobb suggests, has been somewhat in the dark on this. "I don't think Bush knew any of this when he was elected," Cobb said. (Which makes Dick Cheney's suggestion that he would be the best Vice President and Don Rumsfeld a great Defense Secretary all the more chilling!)

Three local pastors were asked to give responses to Dr. Cobb's remarks, and I was one of them. I pointed out that the roundtable event was taking place one day after the 23^rd anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. I recalled the various legislative efforts, protests and "witness for peace" trips that North American Christians participated in, which slowed the Reagan administration's push for expanding war in Central America. We did not stop the suffering of many families in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala at the hands of US foreign policy, but we did stop the escalation of a U.S. war in our hemisphere.

I recalled my visit to El Salvador in 1990 to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of Romero's death. Our small delegation from Washington, D.C., joined in a national forum, which included voices of the business and labor sectors, the government and the rebels, and the peasant communities' representatives. We had gathered to make a plea to end the violence brought about by the civil war in El Salvador. It was noteworthy that the U.S. government was not visibly represented. Ultimately the voices of the people, within two years, brought an end to the civil war in that country.

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

Got more blogs to recommend?

Plan now for our 2010 Ghost Ranch Seminar!

GHOST RANCH SEMINAR

July 26-August 1, 2010

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep this website going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Witherspoon Society" and marked "web site," to our Witherspoon  Bookkeeper: