I just found out about this today, but I am going to scramble to put together an event at HPU. First, watch the video. Please go to the Peace One Day website to make a commitment to work for peace, and plan to join us on the bell tower lawn for a Pot Luck picnic Sunday afternoon from 2-4pm.

For a few years now I have been trying to articulate my feelings about non-violence. Oddly enough I woke up this morning got dressed and went down to the litchen to prepare my lunch and suddenly- I don't know where I started- found myself giving an internal monologue of where I am at this point.

I guess it started the other night when we were watching the Saddleback Civil Forum. Rick Warren, whose mission program is called PEACE, asked both candidates "What is worth American Citizens dying for?" and after all of these months of inability to express how I feel about war, as a christian, it suddenly struck me that this is the wrong question. This is the usual way we frame the question, "What is worth dying for?", but it is a false question. The loss of American lives or any lives in a war does not get us what we wanted when we went to war. The question they are really asking is "What is worth killing for?"

As someone who claims and strives to follow Christ, this is the question I have to ask, and I have to wonder what Jesus would have answered, and is his answer for me, a christian individual, different from the one he would give to a nation whom the rest of the world views as the governmental representation of Christianity, whether they are wrong or right to do so, or to a president who claims to follow Christ? It seems like a government which is not necessarily Christian would have different responsibilities than an individual who is following Christ, but what happened then to the idea that it is incorrect to seperate the sacred from the secular.

This is where it would be easier to be a monarchy or dictatorship. If someone else makes the decision we can blame it on him, but living in a democracy where we the people supposedly rule, I feel that the blood is on my hands as well.

So what has America decided is worth killing for? Some say we went just to protect our oil resources, I'm not sure anyone would say that that is worth killing for.

Most conservatives, and our current administration are most likely to say that we went in to remove Sadaam Hussein from power, and establish a democratic government. The ludicrousy of trying to force our form of government on a people whose world view is not consistent with it's presuppositions aside, I would like to say that God is okay with us killing people who are bad and trying to kill other people. That he would want us to kill a few to protect more, but at it's best and cleanest I can't feel peace with this statement, and it is certainly not at it's best or cleanest.

There are several major problems with this justification. First, Sadaam was in power because we helped to put him there last time we thought they had a nasty dictator and it was our resonsibility oust him.  There is no resaon to believe that this won't happen again. In fact the reason we are still over there is because of the number of violent redicals just waiting to take over. Second, is the colateral damage inflicted by the U.S. "Shock and Awe" strategy any better than the lives that were already being lost? Check out www.nomorevictims.org. While our friends at BuyShoes.SaveLives. and the Preemptive Love Coaltion are fighting to save the lives of children who have various heart defects due the the chemical warfare inflicted by Sadaam, this organization is doing the same for those who have received injuries from U.S. bombs. Third, we wtill have no plan to get out of this, no way to stabilize this, no idea how to fix this mess. So have we really fixed anything at all?

The third reason I have been given for us being in Iraq is as follows: "The Muslims want to kill all Christians, and they attacked us on our own soil. If we don't go and kill them there, they will kill us all here and then there will be no more Christians to spread the gospel. Is that what you want?" First of all there is a lot of confusion here between the U.S. and Christianity. I am afraid to say, in case you are suffering from this confusion as well, that they are not the same thing. Secondly it is absolutely absurd to believe that God needs any of us to stay alive to continue the spread of the gospel. He started it without us, and he can certainly finish it as well. Third throughout history it is not the times where Christianity has been represented or monopolized by some Empire, as if this were even possible, that it has flourished. In fact during these times the movement has gone stagnant. It has been when Christians were willing to lay down their lives, the times they have refused to live by the sword, that the Kingdom of God, the Body of Christ, has flourished and grown, beyond what any man can comprehend. Truly the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.

So I guess this is my real question: Is there any problem or any threat that can be solved or made better by death, hate, violence, attack, killing, murder, or war? Or are we only making it worse, breaking it more?