- The Costs of War

The AFSC has made a little video comparing the costs of one day of the Iraq war to domestic fiscal priorities (well, what should be priorities).  Now, just imagine what it would do for our country – let alone Iraq – to go one WEEK without the war….

- On “War Chaplaincy” for Peace

by Audrey deCoursey

A member of a historic peace church, the Church of the Brethren, tosses out some thoughts on Memorial Day, after reading the exciting spectrum of opinions about military chaplaincy over at the blog of the Adventist magazine, Spectrum.

Because I put my Christianity first in my ethical decision-making, I believe that we must end war. The only question is how military chaplaincy fits into ending war. I tend to like to expand these discussions to talk about not only military chaplaincy but “war chaplaincy.”

We as Christians (especially in peace churches) need to do better pastoral care to all victims of war: members of the military, military families, veterans, and civilian victims. We must not leave pastoral care only up to official military chaplains. If we are in the beginning of an endless, limitless, undefined War on Terror, then we must expand our ministry of peacemaking, to offer prophetically pastoral care.

Congregational pastors need to take on part of the responsibility of ministering to victims of war. (Likewise, seminaries ought not leave the job of training military chaplains to the military institution alone, but ought to provide comprehensive education for future pastors and chaplains who will be living in a warring world.) Families end up doing the pastoral care spiritual leaders neglect. Pastors and all who would minister (priesthood of all believers, anyone?) need to reach out to individual soldiers (and contractors and aid workers and peace volunteers), through letters and calls and counseling when they come home on leave. We need to connect them into their home communities’ lives, connect them into their global community’s news and life, so that the soldiers can remember who they are: not just members of the US military machine, but members of a global body. Most of all, we should strive to remind these soldiers that they (as well as every person they interact with) are beloved children, created by God to be good people.

Does this seem too much like appeasement, bolstering the troops so they can continue their ‘duty’ of war-making? I think it is, instead, radically subversive.

The military survives on a culture of isolation. It creates its own subculture, in which acts are moral that are unthinkable elsewhere. Children are not children; they are enemies or objects. (Too many graphic YouTube videos will reveal that sick underbelly of the war machine.) The only people who matter are the people in your unit, on your side. They are who you can trust. The limited geography of the battle is the limit of reality. By breaking into this sub-world, we throw light on the micro-cosmos in which the battles take place, and we remind soldiers of the wider implications of their daily choices. We support their own realizations that, even in war, they are humans in relationship with other humans.

As pacifist chaplains or citizens or congregations, we don’t need to pontificate to soldiers about the evils of war or the US military. We ought not excuse or ignore harm people have caused, either. We need to offer radical presence that reminds these victims of war (be they civilian or military) of their humanity. This is recognizing the times and places to preach our absolute moral values, and the different times and places to just be present with people in pain. Only when a person has (re)claimed herself, her self-esteem, her humanity, her confidence, can we engage in explicit discussions of our values. These discussions can only be had when we share the implicit value of knowing ourselves as human children in a world God created.

This is the prophetic, pacifist voice of pastoral care: it is reflecting back to a person who she is, in a way that makes her love and believe in herself more, so that she is better equipped with the confidence needed to make ethical decisions, on the battlefield or anywhere else. I believe that our world will know peace when we know who we really are. To claim the loving nature within each human is to plant peace and defy the dehumanization war sows.

- CPT hostage refuses to testify against Iraqi captors

James Loney, one of the four Christian Peacemaker Team volunteers who was kidnapped and held hostage in Iraq for four months this past winter, is refusing to testify against his kidnappers because they will not receive fair trial from the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI). Loney writes about his decision at CPTNet.

Our Lifestyles and their Complicity in Oppression

Ryan points out that simply switching to alternative energy sources to sustain our lifestyles will not solve all the problems our world is racing toward and is already in the thick of, as shown by a UN study covered in the Guardian:

The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the most comprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.

Thoughts?

Cool Free Peace Art Online

Check out these cool online resources for free anti-war, pro-peace art:

Anti-war.us

 

Another Poster for Peace

If you have more suggestions for free peace art, post a comment here and we’ll add them!