Advent is stirring me more than usual this year- and not in a good way. Maybe its the fact that as I sit here writing this post, there are church family members off in Iraq fighting a war. Maybe its the story I heard on the news about 3 children who are left at home with grandmas as both of their parents, who are in the reserve, are being shipped out to Iraq for Christmas. I'm sad. I am waiting this year... really waiting... for something to change.
(GOD, PLEASE, CHANGE OUR DIRECTION, CALL US TO RENEWAL)
I've been going back and forth on Doug Paggitt's blog this week in talking about a Christian's role in being nonviolent. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that many have no problem following a Savior who went all the way to the cross rather than calling up an army when faced with conflict, and supporting the resolving of conflict among nations with violence.I have no neat and insightful answers except that I follow a God that chose to come to show us a better way to live, and I choose that way- LIFE not DEATH.
So I pray- for peace.
So I pray- for friends I know and those I dont' who are away from home and serving their country.
So I pray- for our leaders: that they will make decisions that reflect "True" Christian Principles. So I pray- for not my will, nor yours, but God's will be done ON EARTH.
In times such as this my patron saint theologian Stanley Hauerwas brings me words of wisdom:
"For Christians, the proper home for the language of evil is the liturgy: it is God who deals with evil, and it's presumptuous for humans to assume that our task is to do what only God can do... Does that mean there is nothing we can do? No, I think that a lot can be done — once we free our imaginations from the presumption that the only alternative is capitulation or war. Nonviolence means finding alternatives to the notion that it is ultimately a matter of kill or be killed... "
SHALOM ALL
2 comments:
i'm a lover not a fighter! i had to choose love, cause i never was any good at fighting. in all seriousness, in an effort to hash my thoughts out with you, "give unto ceasar what is ceasars," was always my call that there is a difference between church and state. i agree that praying for those who are leadership, we are called to do, praying for those in harms way, we need to do. i can break apart that war, as we know it today, is not a part of my church. however, if this looked more like the crusades, i'd have to take issue with what we were looking at. war in any phase, is not an answer spiritually (i won't even touch spiritual warfare) speaking, but as the earth moves it's a part of the life.
potential tangent: can i put it in a biblical context to chew on. the other day i was talking about behavior and disciplining children. since we live in the bible belt everyone likes to bring up biblical teachings towards working with children. however, this had to do with families, and issues of depression, alcoholism, etc... my cohort had mentioned from the old testament that sins of a family member plague seven generations.. and from our perspective today, that seems dog out weird. but if you think of how, people get raised and that the core of them is installed (look at erickson & skinner for social and behavioral) they learn that these are ways to live life. as our postmodern friends will say, this upcoming generation will be more global. but they still are paying the sins of the generations before because of their teachings & ways of doing things.
war needs to root itself out of the generations of people that learn this as a viable option to get what they want. Chist's teaching & example, i agree, lean on this. i am still thinking, something to definitely ponder.. i hold hope, because in star trek world (i am a next generation folk) there became peace on the world & universe, just not the borge & romulans(?)
See my comment on my blog. It's a shame blogger doesn't have trackback.
http://kevinrector.com/default.aspx#a9df28473-02a5-41c0-a111-28e554931813
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