War and peace: The road less traveled
Back(Written before the invasion of Iraq.)
The United States stands on the cusp of warfare - indeed, it seems likely. Before us we have the result of a sort of domino effect - a cascade of events and circumstances.
The attacks of 9/11 led to a declaration of war on terrorism which, in turn, led to military action to drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.
That done, the United States government has turned its military focus to unfinished business, which it claims is directly connected to the effort to keep American citizens safe from terrorist plots - namely, conclusive disarmament of Iraq.
By now, time is very short for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein either to declare his capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction or face punitive measures. American and coalition troops are massed at Saddam's border and planes are armed and ready to take flight.
Concurrently, parallel and yet divergent movements have taken place among those who claim to follow Christ here in the United States.
On the one hand are many mainstream churches that adopt what they may define as a conservative interpretation of Scripture.
From the beginning - almost immediately after the authors of the mayhem in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were identified - several of these churches heard messages which ultimately seemed to characterize Muslims as unknowable and perhaps treacherous others.
For these churches and many of their members, the battle lines were effectively drawn in the soil of faith. On this side is us: Christians, the followers of the Way, veteran defenders of freedom. On the other side is them: the radical Muslims, who hate us implacably and that, apparently, because of who we are.
The lengths to which many (though, we stress, not all) evangelical ministers and evangelists went to discover and accentuate some apparently negative teachings of or within Islam was as interesting as it was unsettling and at times only led to confusion. But apart from any contradictions and ironies, there was a point and that was to identify the enemy.
On the other hand are the Christian pacifists and they certainly are not among the majority. They also claim a history, although not as much popularity.
Much of the influence or notoriety they may have is largely traceable to pacifist activities during the Vietnam War. It was during that time, in 1971, that two brothers - one a Jesuit priest, the other a Josephite priest and World War II veteran - joined a group that broke into a Selective Service office in Catonsville, Md., and poured blood all over draft board records.
Philip Berrigan, the veteran and elder of the two, reasoned that the blood signified the sacrifice of Jesus. His brother, Daniel, only had begun on the road that would take him to the ragged edge of radical faith.
Daniel Berrigan would become a contemporary of pacifist theologians like John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas. The difference, for Berrigan, is that he is a priest - a man surrendered to a definite claim of service God has put on his life.
As a Jesuit, Berrigan once had been directed to exist in a cloistered "life of the mind," but his experiences and discoveries led him deeper into a familiarity with a God who seems a great deal more concerned with life than with intellect.
He found scholarship may enrich, but it does not inform faith. As the prophet Habakkuk, the apostle Paul and Martin Luther had it, "the just shall live by faith" - and Berrigan came to realize it did not seem wrong to put the accent on "live."
To so live, Berrigan reasoned, was to submit to the "God of history" - that is, the God who God had proven himself to be. That God, he determined, was not a God of oppression or warfare or distance from the oppressed.
Realizing this did not make Berrigan's life more simple in any way. The Catholic Church, to which he once wrote lyrical paeans, now batted him back and forth in displeasure over his countercultural demonstrations of peace witness - gentle as they may have been.
But in the meantime, a subtle revolution had germinated and taken root among Catholics. The Second Vatican Council had begun in 1962 under Pope John XXIII and would adjourn under Pope Paul VI in 1965.
One of its latest written sections squarely placed the church in a global leadership position against war. In its spirit, Pope John Paul II has been a staunch opponent of the very situation we face in Iraq.
Did articulate, activist priests like Philip and Daniel Berrigan serve as consciences to the church - and to Christianity itself - by their risky insistence on a gospel of peace?
The point can be argued, even if it does not address the hard issues of pacifism. Even many pacifists would agree their way is full of obstacles and problems and usually is not nearly as easy as committing to war, as terribly difficult as anyone must admit war can be.
But the point never has been about the easiest path to peace. Were that so, Daniel Berrigan may have been cheered and congratulated all the way to a triumphal audience with Paul VI. Instead he spent months in exile, in hiding and in prison.
The issue, instead, concerns the most difficult, demanding and unpopular thing to do: denial of what appear to be our personal and national interests - in other words, everything we have been taught and even urged to hold dear - in favor of peace, the global interest.
To do this, one must realize a God who insists on mercy and not sacrifice, who counts the merciful and the peacemakers among the exemplars of his kingdom and yet warns that the way is narrow and that misunderstanding and persecution are certain.
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