An Open Letter to American Churches for Peace

I've been interacting with Norman Horn over the past several weeks. He's the owner of the site Libertarian Christians. While I don't consider myself a libertarian, I have great respect for the libertarian perspective (which I encourage you to learn more about at Norman's site). If there's one thing I appreciate the most about American libertarians, it's that they're by far the most consistently anti-war in their political philosophy. I would argue that American libertarians (a sub-group within the modern conservative movement) are more consistent in their critiques of U.S. foreign policy than their liberal counterparts. As I've been working (along with Rick Love at Peace Catalyst) to put together a network called Evangelicals for Peace, it's been a pleasure engaging with Norman. As you read Norman's open letter, whether you agree with him or not, think about the counter-cultural nature of the prophetic calling of the Church------Aaron

By Norman Horn

To Churches across America, grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ:

Without fail, churches all throughout America pray publicly about America’s troops. On any given Sunday, one can hear people pray for men and women in the military, that they receive “special measures of protection” as they fight to “protect our freedoms” and “serve our country.” While we understand the concerns of church members who have friends and family in the armed forces, and while we sincerely hope for their safe return immediately, we find that these kinds of prayers are neglectful of another group – those victims who suffer wrongfully from this war, to whom we are indeed responsible in part for their suffering. Regardless of one’s opinion of these wars, we think that all can agree upon inspection that this practice can and should change to be more inclusive.

For instance, we never hear prayers for our fellow Christians who live in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the US invasion in 2003, Christians who were tolerated in the past have been repeatedly persecuted and frequently even killed by indiscriminate warfare or surging extremist groups, and nearly half of the Christian population of 800,000 in Iraq has either fled the country or died. In March 2010 alone, over 4,000 Christians were displaced from their homes following unrest in the northern city of Mosul. Many more have confined themselves to their homes for their own safety.

Moreover, we rarely, if ever, hear prayers for the innocent people in Iraq that die on a daily basis, either from indiscriminate killing by our own military or civil unrest that results from a country torn apart by war. The lowest estimates of non-combatant deaths in Iraq number greater than 100,000. Unfortunately, over time our sensibilities and attitudes toward this war – which is now the longest prolonged conflict in American history – have become desensitized and lackadaisical, and thus we often forget these innocent people.

We appeal to churches everywhere, and especially to church leaders, to lead the way toward recognizing this issue with two simple proposals. First, we propose that if a church bulletin includes prayer request for “Family Members in the Military,” that it should also include mention of the innocent and oppressed in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially our Iraqi and Afghan brothers and sisters in Christ, and for an end to war. Second, we propose that the church leaders take the lead in consistently mentioning the same in prayer with the congregation on Sunday mornings. If the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective, then surely instituting this practice will do good both for these victims and for our own spirits.

We support this appeal with Scripture in two ways. First, if you consider these people as we do, that they are innocent victims and have been wronged by their own leaders, by extremists, and by our own military, then may we pray to God as Jesus taught his disciples: to be “delivered from evil.” If we can pray this for ourselves, surely we can do so for others. But second, if you still consider these people our enemies, then may we do as Jesus said in Matthew 5: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” May this be the beginning of understanding what Jesus said moments before, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Changing our practice to include praying for the oppressed is not a political statement. In fact, this is not a political issue in the least; on the contrary it is a moral and theological issue. If we are to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” then we should take seriously that Jesus came and died to proclaim peace on earth and to liberate the oppressed. We may expect that “wars and rumors of wars” will always exist, but this does not require a condoning or defeatist attitude of such events. Rather, this understanding should make us more sensitive and more compassionate toward those who suffer.

To conclude, war is arguably the most destructive human activity ever devised, and it is an intensely serious moral and theological issue because of its finality for those involved either directly as soldiers or indirectly as innocents. It is right to earnestly pray for our family members participating in war, but let us not become callous to the suffering of others, especially those to whom we are indirectly responsible for their suffering. Therefore, we should let our congregational prayers reflect our concern for them. In Christ,

Norman Horn

Source:LibertarianChristians.com

America’s budget-busting foreign policy disconnect

By Aaron D. Taylor

A recent Gallup poll shows that 81% of Americans want the President to be focused on domestic issues, while 9% say they want him to focus on foreign policy issues. Not too surprising….Until you consider that the fastest growing domestic priority is the deficit (69%). The lopsided number between the importance of the deficit and the importance of foreign policy is the first clue that, for most Americans, there’s a disconnect between domestic policy and foreign policy.

Clue number two is a bit more alarming.

The same poll indicates that 54% favor a “strong” stance—read: military attack—against Iran versus 39% who say that it’s more important to avoid a military conflict with Iran. Put these facts together and a disturbing picture emerges: the less Americans care about foreign policy, the more willing they are to go to war, and the less they’re able to see that war=skyrocketing deficits.


The disconnect couldn’t come at a worse time.

While the West is trying to strangle Iran into submission with sanctions, Iran has responded with threats to close off the Straight of Hormuz, and if Iran were to carry out their threat in any way, it would trigger the Carter Doctrine , which demands a military response to any hostile party that seeks to impede the free flow of oil through the Persian Gulf.

This wouldn’t be so bad if we could actually talk to Iran, but ever since the revolution in 1979, the U.S. and Iran have had no official ways of communicating with each other. Despite the pro-war rhetoric by some in the media, the idea of talking to Iran is not a concoction invented by naïve, idealistic, peace-nik appeasers in the vein of Neville Chamberlain.

Admiral Mike Mullen has this to say:

We haven’t had a connection with Iran since 1979. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right — that there will be miscalculation which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world (italics emphasis mine)

Another person that believes the U.S. should negotiate with Iran is Robert Baer , the ex-CIA agent who inspired George Clooney’s character in the movie Syriana. In his ground-breaking book, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, Baer presents three options for how the U.S. could deal with Iran: contain Iran (which would take a half a million troops and would last anywhere between 30 and 100 years), provoke a Sunni-Shia war (the Mad Max Option), or settle with Iran. Of the third option, Baer writes:

The only real option for the United States—if we admit we’re not prepared to enter a hundred-year war, with a determined enemy, on the other side of the world—is the last one.

Baer also war warns that war with Iran would “drain the treasury” and turn us into a “third world economy.”

Whether Baer’s predictions are accurate or not, at the very least America should be skeptical about its ability to contain the consequences of another military confrontation. Few predicted that invading Iraq would cost us a trillion dollars and result in strengthening Iran—but it did.

The people that are pushing for a military confrontation with Iran are walking a fine line of contradiction. On the one hand they behave as if Iran is powerful enough to be the single greatest threat to the existence of humanity. On the other hand, they behave as if we can bomb them without consequences. If only 2012 wasn't an election year!

God help us if things get out of hand.

Barack Obama's Nobel speech, what did we expect?

I didn’t get a chance to watch Barack Obama’s Nobel speech live, but I’ve read the transcript and found very little in the speech that couldn’t have been given by any number of past presidents—including George W. Bush. Granted, absent from the speech is the grandiose rhetoric of “Bring it on”, “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” and “Ridding the world of evil”, but should being less arrogant than Bush qualify someone for the Nobel Peace Prize? Probably not. On the other hand, Barack Obama’s rejection of unilateralism, his willingness to dialogue with enemies, and his understanding of the limits of power—howbeit nuanced—make him about as good of a president as we can expect on the foreign policy front given the current state of American culture and, more specifically, the American Church.

According to the CIA world fact book, roughly 77% of the American people are self-identified as Christians. From its inception, America has been a nation of people that name the name of Christ on the one hand and trust in the power of their military might on the other hand. The American civil religion of God, guns, and country has been around for a long time and it’s the height of naivety to think that a few good speeches and a teleprompter are going to change that. If Obama’s escalation of the Afghan conflict has taught us anything, it’s that liberals can be just as susceptible to the value system of might equals right as conservatives can be. Those of us that oppose the escalation can chastise the president all we want, but the fact is there was very little political wiggle room for the president to make any other decision than the one that he made. Even the “liberal” networks of NBC, CBS, and CNN are steeped in the tradition of glorifying military heroes and showing off the Pentagon’s latest weapons technology.

As much as I would love to flatter myself, I know that Barack Obama is never going to read this article, and neither is he going to read the tens of thousands of editorials and blogs calling on him to change his mind. With all of the attention going towards one man, and whether or not he deserves a peace prize, I fear that a larger point is getting lost; and that is that history is defined less by people on top and more by people on bottom. Wars are fought because cultural, religious, media, and economic establishments support them. Wars are ended when the groundswell of the population refuse to support the institutions that make them possible. Until the words “fighting for freedom” become more associated in the average American mind with strikes, boycotts, and voter registrations than with ground invasions and bombing raids, no president is going to be able to deliver on a “change we can believe in” slogan.

To borrow from Jared McKenna’s What if scenario, what if out of the 77% of the American population that self-identify as Christians, the vast majority of them became convinced that following Christ and renouncing the sword go hand in hand? What if John Howard Yoder replaced Augustine as the intellectual giant of the Western Church? For that to happen, a lot more Bible- believing Christians are going to have to be convinced that Romans 13 is not a carte blanche for Christians participating in state-sanctioned violence, that the Old Testament is a poor pretext for just war theory, and that John the Baptist wasn’t condoning violence when he didn’t tell the Roman soldiers of their day to give up their occupations. If there’s one thing to be learned from Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation, it’s that Biblical paradigm shifts can have vast political consequences. It can happen again, but it’s going to take all hands on board. Any volunteers?