War, Huh, good God y’all, what is it good for? Absolutely noting, say it again.
Edwin Starr (Bruce Springsteen, too)

Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.
Jesus

I found myself at a peace rally on Friday. O.K. I didn’t just stumble into it, I went intentionally, but also ambivalently. I went, in part, because I am concerned about the direction of the war in Iraq and our continuation of current policy. I opposed the war at its beginning, not because I am a Christian pacifist, but because I did not think it met the classic criteria Christian ethicists have developed that justifies going to war. These “just war” criteria include having a justifiable cause, war being a last resort, having legitimate and public aims for going to war, war as a proportional response to the threat posed, having a reasonable chance of success, and having an appropriate intention when going to war (for a good resource on Christian perspectives on war, see Joseph L Allen, War: a Primer for Christians. Dr. Allen was my doctoral dissertation advisor). Of course, Christians debate these criteria, and some argue that they are no longer valid or relevant. Does it make sense anymore to discuss war as a “proportional response” to any threat? I hold that these criteria remain relevant and consider myself a just-war Christian ethicist, but one haunted by pacifism. I am haunted by pacifism because I take seriously the words of Jesus which seem directed much more toward peacemaking than to thinking about what justifies war. I take seriously the strong anti-imperial implications of his message about God’s kingdom, and war is so often little more than an imperial tool. I am deeply disappointed by the ease with which people use the just war criteria to justify war quickly. It should not be so, and I remain haunted by pacifism.

Nevertheless, I also remain committed to using the just war criteria in my thinking about war (I still sing Edwin Starr’s song, and find it often true, but it does not exhaust my thinking about war), and in doing so, I do not believe the current war in Iraq met these criteria. Our cause was never very clear, and, in fact, we were deceived about it. There were people in our own State Department who warned about our slim chances for success in establishing a stable and more democratic Iraq after an invasion – our chances for success were not what some promised they would be. I don’t think we reached the “last resort” phase when we decided to launch “shock and awe.”

Beyond thinking that the war was morally unjustifiable from the beginning, I am troubled by our current policy which essentially stays the course, promising some small draw down of troops but without any change in mission or direction. Are our chances of establishing a more stable and democratic Iraq under a unified government really any better than they were six months ago? Is it time to think about other long-term strategies, such as a confederate Iraq with semi-autonomous regions that might quell the sectarian violence? No doubt there are other ideas that need to be pondered and I am disappointed that such options are not under active consideration by the current administration.

These are all pretty good reasons for attending a peace rally. So why was I ambivalent? Well, I had been asked to speak at a press conference promoting the rally, and had to say “no.” I had already committed myself to a meeting of some community groups looking at ways to help provide some transportation funding for Head Start families who might not otherwise be able to afford to get their children to the Head Start sites. Transportation funding for Head Start was eliminated in our community this year. Beyond the scheduling conflict, though, I was concerned about where this particular group was coming from. There are anti-war positions and then there are anti-war positions. Earlier in the summer I had been contacted by one group looking for my support and the support of my church. As I asked some questions it turned out that a major goal of the group was to organize a rally at the office of the Republican senator from Minnesota. As a citizen, I may feel free to participate in such an event, but as a pastor, I feel it important to limit “partisan” political activity. I will speak as a pastor about the moral issues involved in politics, but decline to publicly act in a partisan manner. It is a choice I have made. It is not always an easy choice to implement, and I am becoming concerned that every issue is now taking on a partisan tone, leaving little room for trying to say something about the deep moral issues involved without seeing to support one side or the other. I am constantly reexamining this part of my life an ministry. Anyway, I was concerned about the potential partisan nature of this event.

I was also concerned about the position that might be advocated by the primary speakers at the rally. I don’t believe this was a just war. I question our current conduct of the war. But I struggle with the idea that we should simply pull out our troops without some longer-term plan to work with Iraq and others in the region in hopes of securing a more stable and just peace. Will leaving tomorrow (were that even possible) really make things better, or will we watch a conflagration, a blood bath develop? I wonder if simply leaving is a little like a man telling a woman, “I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have had sex, but I recognize I was wrong so I’m leaving now even though you’re pregnant.” It seems to me we have entered into the life of this nation in a profound way, and while I question staying the course, I also question leaving without any other plan being in place.

Finally, the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by the fact that this group had been planning this rally for a long time without asking for the involvement of my church or any other church for that matter, but now two weeks before the rally, they wanted me to “bless it.”

My ambivalence did not keep me from the peace rally, and I appreciated much of what I heard. An Iraqi-American who I know from the community spoke eloquently about the devastation and destruction wrought on his country by the war. It was obvious to me that his family had done fairly well under the prior regime, and he said little about the dark underside of Iraq under Sadaam. He wants the war to end immediately. His voice needs to be heard. The speaker from Veterans for Peace also spoke movingly about how she is not against all war, but this one was not a war defending our country, that preemptive war was not what she signed up for when she joined the military. Another eloquent perspective. I left before the end of the rally, and that was probably a good thing. In the next day’s newspaper, I read that ten people were arrested for blocking the door to the Federal Building in town. Civil disobedience has its place in a democracy, but I believe its place is rather narrow, and that such disobedience is best directed toward laws that are themselves unjust. Breaking the law by sitting down at a segregated lunch counter with people of varying races makes some sense to me. Violating trespass laws does not. One great irony is that one of the rally speakers spoke about our need to defend civil liberties. Isn’t one of the precious rights and liberties guaranteed by our constitution the right to petition the courts for redress of our grievances? By blocking the way to the Federal Building which house the U.S. District courts, these protestors were denying people access to those courts. It is our right and responsibility to speak out as citizens in our democracy when we disagree with policies being propagated in our name. But we should do so in such a way that we appreciate the genuine achievements of our democracy. We may not think it is working very well sometimes, but when you consider the history of humankind, democratic governments are a rather rare and all too fragile achievement. Our protesting should be wise and prudent, and our rhetoric measured.

Somehow, my complicated thinking and concern for humility, gentleness, prudence, and measured rhetoric was not represented very thoroughly by any of the speakers I heard at the rally. Maybe this kind of thinking doesn’t make for great rally speeches. Such speeches have their place, but I will probably always listen with a concern for what shade may be left out, what angle of view might be missed, what nuance might be disregarded. And still, I may just go again sometime.

Peace.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David