Reflections on the Christian Peace Witness, Washington, DC, March 16, 2007

from Doug King, your WebWeaver  [3-18-07]

Last Thursday evening (though it seems like weeks ago) I joined about 35 others from the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta for a bus ride to Washington, DC, to join the Christian Peace Witness that you’ve been reading and hearing about for the past few weeks.

I want to share a few of my own impressions, and provide links to some of the accounts that have been printed or posted by others.

A distinctively Christian action

This event differed from most of the protests that many of us have joined over the years, because it was very explicitly Christian. The center-piece of the event was not the procession to the White House, not the arrests of the dozens who committed acts of civil disobedience (or as Rick Ufford-Chase is teaching us, acts of "divine obedience"), but the 90-minute service of worship at the National Cathedral. The reason, as the Rev. Jim Wallis explained at the end of the service, was that a number of religious leaders felt the need for a clear statement that many Christians see the war as wrong, precisely because the Administration and so many Americans, along with many Muslims and others around the world, have tended to view it as some kind of "Christian" enterprise.

Powerful witnesses

The service of witness for peace was powerful in many ways. It was powerful in the number of people who gathered there, in spite of rain and cold and travel difficulties that kept many people away. It was powerful in the wide spectrum of leaders of the service, including people from Mennonite, Pentecostal, Adventist, and Roman Catholic traditions, as well as the usual "main line" folks. It was powerful because this was not simply "our witness" as American Christians; the service gained emotional power from the words that were read from people directly affected by the war: an American soldier despairing at the kinds of actions he was being required to perform, when he could see so little good that they could possibly accomplish; a young Iraqi lamenting the fate of his people; an Iraqi woman in Baghdad, torn between hope and dread as she searched for the body of a loved one; the words of an Abu Ghraib detainee; the words of a member of a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq.

There was power in the witness of Celeste Zappala, who told of the loss of her own son, killed in Baghdad. She was speaking, she added, for countless others who have lost loved ones, against "the betrayal and madness that is the war in Iraq." Here was a "witness" grounded not just in what Christians wanted to say, but in a recognition of the terrible realities of this war.

But it was also grounded in moral imperatives. The Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, reminded us of Dr. Martin Luther King’s "eloquent moral witness against the triple evils of racism and poverty and war." "America needs a moral witness," he said, "because on both sides of the aisle [in Congress], the ruling concern is that America will lose the war. But the real danger is that American will lose its soul." Just as the mission of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, founded 50 years ago, was "to redeem the soul of America," now we must again act to redeem America’s soul. "So, Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."

There was power in the witness of the Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, President of the North American Region of the World Council of Churches. She spoke of the hope that Paul describes in Romans 5, the hope that "does not disappoint us." She contrasted this hope with the cynicism of our time, saying that "we are surrounded by cynics who do not understand that war does not bring peace, ... hate does not bring love, lies do not bring truth." Paul offers hope as "the antidote to cynicism," but for Christians, hope "can never be just a word. It must be an action – a public showing of the love of Jesus." So, she said, "tonight we march, because hope does not disappoint us."

Rick Ufford-Chase represented the PC(USA) in delivering the "call to offering." He urged the thousands present to "dig deep," knowing that after covering the expenses of the event, all the funds will go for rebuilding communities in Iraq. He concluded by saying, "Friends, as the plates are passed, I ask you to remember our hope – that even we can make a difference, even in times like these. Especially in times like these." (Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick was also expected to take part in the service, but he, like many others, was stuck somewhere else by the travel troubles caused by the winter storm.)

Jim Wallis, of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, gave the "Call to Action" at the end of the service. Referring to the birth of his son just two days before the invasion of Iraq, he said "this war is personal for me ... and for you ... and thousands who have lost loved ones. This is not just political, it’s personal. And for many of us here tonight, it’s more than personal. It’s a matter of faith." He went on: "The war in Iraq was not a mistake, or only mismanaged. This war from a Christian point of view is morally wrong, and was from the very start."

Wallis underscored a point that had been repeated through the service: "This war is based on fear, and Jesus says only perfect love casts out fear. This fear, like the demon it is, must be cast out. So we process to the White House, believing that maybe only faith can end this war."

Underlining the concern about religious claims that have been used to justify the war, Wallis acknowledged that "millions around the world believe this is a Christian war. We’re here to say that America is not the hope of the world. Jesus Christ is." He reminded us that we are in the season of Lent, a time of repentance, "and we must repent of war."

He concluded: "We believe that God will act again through us. ... Tonight we begin by faith to end the war, which will be the next faith-based initiative."

Other reports

Here are some of the helpful sources we have found;
we'll try to link to others as they are published/posted. 
And if you can suggest other resources
-- or better yet, if you can send you own report or reflections! --
please let us know. 
Just send a note, to be shared here.

National Public Radio offered a report which highlights the statements by the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (the church, as he said, which "nurtured Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."), and the Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, one of the main organizers of the whole event.

The written summary of the NPR report >>
For the NPR audio (about 4 minutes long) click on "Listen" just below the headline of story.

NOTE: The intro takes a few seconds, but you will get their report, including some of the powerful words from Dr. Warnock and the Rev. Jim Wallis.

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The Washington Post on Saturday, March 17, carried a report which was headlined "Rousing, Emotional Start for War Protest." As in many other reports, mention was made of numbers (around 3000 people, in spite of bad weather and travel problems that kept many away), arrests (some 200 people, perhaps, detained after the procession reached the White House and they stepped across Pennsylvania Avenue to underline their opposition to the war by willingly accepting arrest), weather (a shifting mix of sleet, rain, snow, cold wind), and the prophetic denunciations of the war along with calls for setting aside the fears that have been allowed to dominate us, for the sake of peace.

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The Daily Record of Wooster, Ohio, provides a glimpse into the experience of one group from a down-home community, including some of the words they heard and things they saw.

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The prepared text of Jim Wallis’ closing "call to action" is posted on Wallis’ blog on the BeliefNet website.

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"Letting Go of Fear" -- a sermon

John Shuck was one of the many Presbyterians at the service and procession, and preached about his experience on Sunday morning. Focusing on "letting go of fear," he describes nonviolent action as a loving way of acting against the fear that has ruled our nation for the past few years. This kind of action, he concludes, may hold the only real hope for peace. "It was a witness to love that is always at work to reunite that which has been torn apart. If asked if I thought standing there would do any good, that the President would suddenly change his mind and change course, I would have to say, probably not. If asked if my standing there would change the world from fear and violence to love and peace, I would have to say, probably not. But I stood there not to change the world, but so that the world would not change me."

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A blog report on the event, with photos, links, and comments by John Shuck

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The Saturday demonstration at the Pentagon

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition has posted a report on the Saturday demonstration at the Pentagon, which had some 30 to 50,000 people present.  A.N.S.W.E.R. – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism – was the main sponsor of the event.

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Do you have more to add?
Just send a note, to be shared here.

Letting Go of Fear

John Shuck
First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
March 18, 2007
Fourth Sunday of Lent

[3-18-07]

This story may be apocryphal. Even so, it is a great story. It has been one of those stories that have shaped my actions. It is a story that takes place in the early 70’s. A lone protester stands outside of the White House in the rain. She holds an umbrella that covers a candle. She faces the White House in silence.

A news reporter happens to see her alone. He walks up to her and asks here what she is doing. Startled at first that she is not alone, she regains her composure and she says, "I am here to protest the war in Vietnam, to protest injustice around the world, and to be a witness for peace.

The reporter says, "The White House is dark. The president isn’t even there. No one else is around. No one can see you except me. What good do you really think you are doing? How do you possibly think you can change the world by standing here in the night, in the rain?"

Without any hesitation, she responds, "I am not here to change the world. I am here so that the world does not change me."

*******

Six of us were in Washington D.C. over the weekend. Aubrie, Nancy, Kathe, Betsy , Nancy, and myself. To look at us, you wouldn’t think that we were a formidable bunch. We took turns wheeling Betsy in her wheelchair. We spent a lot of time laughing with each other and at ourselves. We spent time figuring out how we were going to get from one place to another. We hovered over the Metro ticket booth, pored over the train map, kept on the lookout for elevators, and always managed to find our way.

I learned a lot about life in a wheelchair. I was pleased that as a society we have learned to accommodate those in wheelchairs. We have a ways to go, but generally, we were able to manage. People are helpful. We held up the bus, asked a lot of bizarre questions of whomever we thought might know more than us, which was pretty much anyone. My goal was small. I was hoping we wouldn’t catch pneumonia. It rained hard most of the day Friday and it turned to snow by the time we went to the worship service at the National Cathedral.

We all had our roles to play. We worked together to figure out and to implement our plans, hunt for and gather food and reach our destination.

We attended the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. It was an ecumenical Christian gathering to worship together and to march peacefully, following Christ, the prince of peace, to the seat of power and through our witness reclaim our collective soul as a nation.

On Friday afternoon we participated in non-violent training. It was the briefest of briefest introductions to non-violent direct action practiced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and based upon the teachings of Jesus. Non-violent direct action is about finding and keeping one’s center and acting upon it in the face of any form of oppression and injustice. It is about training oneself to live out our deepest most divine essence, that of love for all people and all living things and of not cooperating with any form of oppression and injustice.

The way of non-violence is the way of acting from our center rather than acting out of our fear. Fear leads us to fight or flight. Non-violent direct action is neither. We neither fight nor do we run away from conflict. We instead engage it peacefully with love for all participants. The goal is not for us to win. The goal is not for the other to lose. The goal is for all to win. The goal is justice, peace, and dignity for everyone. Practicing non-violence is a way of life, more than a strategy. It is the willingness to suffer, if necessary, to raise awareness and to bring change.

To begin and to end the session, each of us was asked to describe in one sentence why we were there in Washington D.C. on that weekend. We were told to remember that sentence—to repeat it to ourselves—and no matter what happens, to act from it. It is our center.

I believe that we are entering a new consciousness as a human race. It is an awareness that we are connected and united by the force of love. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It brings together that which is constantly being divided by our prejudices, fears, and lesser identities. We are not ultimately Americans, Christians, White, Black, poor, rich, but human. Each person when she acts from her center wants to live in peace, to be able to laugh, work, and enjoy the bounty of Earth.

We read in the First Letter of John in the New Testament, chapter 4:16-18:

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 8There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Non-violent direct action reminds us that fear divides while love unites.

We made our way to the National Cathedral for the worship service. The National Cathedral is an impressive place. Great celebrations and commemorations are held there. The Dean of the Cathedral greeted us warmly and said that the Cathedral is also the place where the prophets speak when the occasion arises. This fourth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq is such an occasion. He said that the 3,000 of us were the prophets.

We heard scripture, sang hymns, and heard from a woman who lost her son in Iraq. We heard about the suffering of the Iraqi people. For me, the most important message I heard was one I tend to forget. I tend to forget it because I tend to think of strategy rather than moral principle. It was a message that I knew because I had said it myself. It was a message I knew because I have been shaped by this message by my religious tradition and from the religious and spiritual leaders throughout time. It is this message from Jesus:

"What profit is there for the person who gains the world but gives up her soul?"

I have been against this war in Iraq since its inception. I have been against it not because of my political beliefs. I have been against it not because of my knowledge of strategy or of foreign affairs. I have little knowledge in those matters. I have been against this particular war because it goes against the basic principles of Jesus and the just war tradition as outlined by Augustine. I have been against this war because I believe that America has sacrificed its soul for fear.

In response to grief of the terrorist attack in September 2001 and in response to fear, the United States attacked a sovereign nation before it attacked us. All the reasons given for the invasion – weapons of mass destruction, the evil of Saddam Hussein, and the terrorist attacks of September 11^th – were all rationalizations, and feeble ones at that. Simply put, the United States acted as an aggressor. We started a war when there were other options.

We have been in it now longer than the United States was in World War Two and nearly as long as the War Between the States. We need to change course,

not because popular opinion is changing,
not because of deaths to our soldiers and the Iraqi people,
not because we are bogged down in a situation we cannot win,
not because we spend over two hundred million dollars a day to fund it,
not for any of those reasons alone or even collectively.

We need to change course because the path we have taken is immoral and once we justify immorality, we lose our conscience and our soul. No amount of strategy can change that.

Whatever answer there is to ending this war will not be based primarily on strategy. Strategy follows principle. It is principle to which we as Americans need to remember and to remind ourselves and our leaders. It is principle for which we need to stand and for which we need to speak and to act.

It is the principle of which Jesus and Paul both spoke. Do not resist evil with evil. Do not become what you hate. I am a believer that it is never too late for repentance. Repentance is recognizing wrong and changing direction.

When we embrace our principles and speak for them…
When we act from our center, only then we can worry about strategy and politics and all of the rest.

With the principle comes the dream.
With the principle comes the promise.

I believe that a new consciousness is breaking in. The realm of God is manifesting itself. It is the realm of Love. It is the dream of a future in which we realize that Earth has a bounty of life for all. We need not to be afraid that others will get more than us. We need not to be afraid of the enemy. We need to dream of a future in which we live by sharing, by respect, by dignity. Fancy words, perhaps. But they are the words of all of our great spiritual leaders. They are the words of life and not death, of love and not fear. This is from the prophet Jeremiah (31:31-34):

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

The service at the National Cathedral lasted about 90 minutes. The six of us were not a speedy bunch. Neither formidable nor fast were we. Yet we were plucky. We were the last ones out of the cathedral. Locating and finding a wheelchair accessible restroom was the most crucial task before bringing peace and justice to Earth. Finally, the six non-violent troopers made it out into the snow. Three of us decided to go on the march, and the other three not quite up to a three-mile walk took a shuttle down to the White House.

Nancy, Aubrie and I rushed to catch up with the procession. It was almost surreal. Nearly two thousand people holding up traffic, singing off-key, talking on cell phones to folks back home. The mood was joyful. The mood was hopeful. Perhaps, perhaps, peace will come. The police kept us to the right of the yellow line. The volunteers answered questions as they could. One guy, very persistent, passed out peace cards. Everyone has a role to play.

Presbyterians and other Christians to rally against Iraq war
[3-15-07]

LOUISVILLE — March 12, 2007 -- Scores of Christians from around the country, including numerous Presbyterians, are expected to descend on Washington D.C. this week to demand an end to the war in Iraq.

The Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, to be held on Friday (March 16), will include worship, public prayer, and a candlelight vigil outside the White House that could land some demonstrators in jail.

More than 3,500 Protestants and Catholics, including clergy and other church leaders, have already registered for the one-day, nonviolent, anti-war witness. The event will begin with an ecumenical worship service at the Washington National Cathedral at 7 p.m.

The witness is partly the brainchild of Rick Ufford-Chase, executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) and moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2004.

The event is planned to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq, which was launched on March 20, 2003.

"We are trying to move Presbyterians to take definitive action to end the war," said Ufford-Chase, who is also convener of the national steering committee planning the witness. "Christians follow a God who insists that we always look for a way to love our enemy and build right relationships with one another."

Scheduled speakers at the National Cathedral will include the Rev. Jim Wallis, an activist, author and founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, a Washington-based progressive Christian network; and Celeste Zappala, a United Methodist peace activist whose 30-year-old foster son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

Also addressing the group will be Bernice Powell Jackson, president of the North American Conference of the World Council of Churches, and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.

Following worship, participants will march down Massachusetts Avenue in a peaceful candlelight procession about three miles to Lafayette Park, located directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

Speakers, music and prayer will highlight a late-night, possibly all-night, witness and vigil there.

Some turning out could face possible arrest by participating in a candlelight vigil in front of the White House, where protesters are expected to chant prayers and sing church hymns while calling on President Bush and Congress for a clear plan to end the war in Iraq.

Ufford-Chase said 700 of the 3,500 people registered for the witness have indicated that they will take part in the "act of civil disobedience" at the White House.

"They will express their conviction that the teachings of Jesus call unequivocally for an end to the war," said Ufford-Chase, who also plans to face arrest by participating in the nonviolent action.

In support of the Washington D.C. witness, additional Christian and interfaith peace vigils opposing the war are set to take place in cities across the nation on March 16, complete with acts of civil disobedience, Ufford-Chase said.

The idea for the Christian witness spawned from recent discussions that Ufford-Chase had with four Presbyterian ministers who were arrested along with him while protesting the Iraq war in Washington D.C. last September. (See related story)

"We wondered what we might do to invite other Presbyterians to take similar action," Ufford-Chase said.

He and the others brought together a range of peace fellowship groups with ties to mainline Catholic and Protestant denominations, such as the PPF, and other faith-based organizations to plan the witness.

The groups include the American Friends Service Committee; the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America; the Catholic Peace Fellowship; Christian Alliance for Progress; the Disciples Peace Fellowship; and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

Workshops and nonviolent action training for civil disobedience participants will also be offered earlier in the day.

In addition to ending the war in Iraq, the Christian peace witness will implore President Bush and lawmakers to provide adequate financial support to veterans and active-duty soldiers and their families, a plan for rebuilding Iraq, and humanitarian aid for Iraqi families.

Also that the United States government treat all enemy combatants humanely and take decisive action to ensure that the use of torture against suspects is strictly banned, and for creation of a federal budget that puts priority on meeting basic human needs.

Other organizations backing the witness include the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns; the Mennonite Church USA Peace and Justice Support Network; the Lutheran Peace Fellowship; and the United Church of Christ (Justice and Witness Ministries).

Visit the Web site for more information about the witness or to register for the event.

Editor’s note: Eva Stimson, editor of Presbyterians Today magazine, will cover the worship and vigil on Friday and the Presbyterian gathering on Saturday. — Jerry L. Van Marter

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