opponent Posts

The UK News Telegraph is confirming what many of us in the peace movement have been worrying about all day: that at least some of the four westerners abducted in iraq over the weekend were members of the Christian peacemakers Teams

A British anti-war activist abducted in iraq was investigating human rights abuses with a group called the Christian peacemakers Team when he was held.

Norman Kember, 74, the only publicly-named abductee, is a former secretary of the Baptist peace Fellowship in England and a board member of the English Fellowship of Reconciliation. He's been an outspoken opponent of the war in iraq. In the April/May 2005 edition of FOR's newsletter (pdf) he talked about challenging himself to do more:

Now personally it has always worried me that I am a ‘cheap’ peacemaker (by analogy with Bonhoeffer’s
concept of ‘cheap’ grace). Being a CO in Britain,talking, writing, demonstrating about peace is in no
way taking risks like young service men in iraq. I look for excuses why I should not become involved with
CPT or EAPPI. Perhaps the readers will supply mewithwith some?

Here at Nonviolence.org, I'm occassionally chatised for being more concerned about western victims of violence (indeed, how many iraqis were abducted or killed this weekend alone?). It's a fair charge and an important reminder. But perhaps it is only human nature to worry about those you know. I've probably met Norman in passing at one or another international peace gathering; I might well know the three unidentified abductees. I suspect a peace movement veteran like Kember would be the first to tell me that pacifists shouldn't sit contentedly in middle-class comfy armchairs simply souting slogans or dashing off emails (Quaker Johan Maurer, wrote an impassioned blog post about this just last week). Part of the reason folks put themselves on the lines for organizations like Christian peacemakers Teams is that they want to do their peace witness among those facing the violence. When the victims aren't just "them, over there" but to "us, and our friends, over there" it becomes more real. This is what the families of the American military casualties have been telling us. Now, with Kember and the three others missing, our worry is made more real. For better or worse, the peace movement is scanning the headlines from iraq with even more worry tonight.

Our prayers are with Kember, as they are with all the missing and all the victims of this horrible war.

In this election, religious conservatives were able to craft a message making same-sex marriages look like an afront to apple pie and baseball and of course people voted against it. What if we could have somehow framed this election with the details of human suffering that these laws suggest?

Now available for the fashionable Bush-era bumper. Proceeds go to support the Nonviolence.org websites:
  

Over on the Evangelical side of Friends is Simple Churches, a movement of "organic" church planting. It's a project of Harold and Wendy Behr, recorded by Northwest Yearly Meeting and now working with Evangelical Friends Church Southwest. The core values are ones I could certainly sign off on: Leadership over Location, Ministry over Money, Converts over Christians, Disciples over Decisions, People over Property, Spirit over Self, His Kingdom over Ours. I particularly like their site's disclaimer:

As your peruse the links from this site please recognize that the Truth reflected in essays are often written with a "prophetic edge", that is sharp, non compromising and sometimes radical perspective. We believe Truth can be received without "cursing the darkness" and encourage you to reflect upon finding the "candle" to light, personally, as you apply what you hear the Lord speaking to you. In Body life, often the most powerful opponent of the "best" is the "good".

They're leading a conference next month in Richmond, Indiana, with members of Friends United Meeting. How tempting is this?

See also:

• Emergent Church Movement: The Younger Evangelicals and Quaker Renewal

From the NYU Center for Religion and Media, a fascinating breakdown of press coverage of the killing of Palestinian leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin

We have to turn to the foreign press to learn anything substantial about the religious views of the "spiritual leader" whose worldly terror has been a constant factor in U.S. foreign policy. . . . [W]hy has our press ignored the "spiritual" dimensions of this "spiritual leader"? Two possibilities. One is that the journalists assigned to cover the Middle East are political reporters. They approach religion as simply a veneer for political motives, and rarely bother to learn its intricacies.

The other, deeper problem, is with the narratives available for religion stories even when a reporter tries to pay attention. Most religion writing is divided between innocuous spirituality and dangerous fanaticism, with subcategories for "corruption," "traditionalism," and wacky. . . .

So what does our press do? Nothing. A major enemy of peace in the Middle East has just been killed, and yet we learn almost nothing about what made him fight or why he is mourned. Opponents and supporters of the Palestinians remain in the dark, uninformed by a press incapable of breaking the narrative to investigate -- and perhaps help eradicate -- the roots of terrorism. It's easier to stick to the "he-said/she-said"-with-guns version of events that reduces it all to retaliation, to hopeless spirals of violence and ancient ethnic hatreds, to enmity without reason.

Found via All over the map

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped lead his country out of apartheid and the Nobel peace Prize winner has been a strong opponent of the iraq War. He's to give an important speech today in which he will demand Blair and Bush apologies for the mistakes of this war. Some wonderful quotes from him:

"How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures and not God and thus by definition can make mistakes. Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness. Weak and insecure people hardly ever say 'sorry'.

"It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: 'I made a mistake'. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say: 'Yes, we made a mistake'."

See also: Desmond Tutu's Wikipedia entry

By Martin Kelley. The Bush White House is still giving a free pass to the real country behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Scratching for evidence is unnecessary for the country we all know bankrolls bin Laden and supplies his loyal footsoldiers.