John, thanks for your recent mailings. I totally agree with your accusations of "Outrageous" when you speak about what the US is perpetrating on Colombia. (Of course we can't forget that there are innumerable other geographic hotspots of more secretive US imperialist oppression world-wide, and those of us who are outside of the National Security Council and its CIA, FBI, Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALS and other Special Forces assassination squads rarely find out about them, until it's too late.) In that context, I want to respond with some thoughts.

You asked the question in regard to Plan Colombia: "What are we (US citizens) thinking?" The obvious answer to that question is: the average US citizen has been programmed to be apathetic, and therefore doesn't think (or vote) about much of anything that isn't 1) directly related to personal financial gain; 2) summarized into white-washed (or shall I say red, white and blue-washed) misleading 20 second sound-bites on the headline news; 3) on MTV or the sports channels or talk shows or David Letterman; or 4) fed to us, propaganda-style, smartly dressed up by seductive Madison Avenue advertising techniques, and all of it delivered again and again through the decades with the emphatic blessings of the conservative/neo-liberal military, industrial, congressional, judicial and economic elites who now have control of virtually everything, particularly the media.

How Would Jesus Vote? (HWJV)

A corollary question for the Christian component of your faith-based organization (and others) to ask Christian America (preferably at a high decibel level) would be: "What are we (Christian citizens of the US) thinking (and doing)?" when the representatives we vote for (also virtually all professed Christians except for the few Jewish congresspersons who at least occasionally seem to vote as Jesus would vote) actively endorse (or are silent about) the demonic (can you think of a better adjective?) policies they are perpetrating on God's non-white children in foreign lands who may not happen to be Christian, privileged or tall like us.

Of course Colombia is only the latest in a long string of victims of US imperialism (or friendly fascism, whatever you want to call it). And for Sermon on the Mount-type Christians whose faith requires social/political action in support of Jesus' clear command to love our enemies, there is a deeper obligation to courageously resist our military's (and its compliant lapdog, the US Congress) actions whenever and wherever they happen to pop up.

The Great Commandment, Part B

But of course we must do more for the long-term than just keep on mobilizing endless defensive weekend resistance actions (as necessary as that is), so that our progeny and successors aren't also obliged to keep up the constant struggle with the same White House/State Dept/Pentagon policies we're mired in now. We must also challenge the church's leadership to assume their proper, radically prophetic peacemaker roles in every church and, as Jesus taught in Matthew 28:20, "teach them to observe everything I have commanded you." And of course, we laypeople must commit to openly and actively support those prophets.

That Great Commandment order presumably includes (besides baptizing everybody, Part A) all of Jesus' radical love commandments which, if the church was properly obedient to the commandment, should make every church automatically become a true peace church (rather than a justified war church, which is where all the mainline and conservative churches are now). And the church's great sin is its silence about our nation's ongoing military, economic and environmental atrocities, where active and courageous and unrelenting resistance is required.

Do Christian Ethics Mean Anything in Mainline Christianity?

Part of that prophetic role of the church has to be this: emphatically teaching her Sunday School children and confirmands about the Christian ethical principle of conscientious objection to killing or support for killing, in or out of war, and refuting the notion that Jesus can be followed at the same time one is training to become a "killing soldier for Christ" (or a pro-military Christian congressman or president or general or ambassador or military chaplain).

The last five categories of people may only have figurative blood on their hands, but it is blood nonetheless. But in the Christianity of Constantine, Augustine, Luther and Calvin, most of them think they can be washed clean of their sins at their regular worship service where the pastor may say, "by the authority vested in me, I grant you the entire forgiveness of all your sins." But is it true?

Psychologically and spiritually speaking, it can't be true, for true forgiveness has to involve being truly contrite; asking one's victims, face to face if possible, for forgiveness; earnestly trying to "sin no more"; and working towards true (restorative) reconciliation with (and justice for) one's victims. And that can't happen at your average 11 o'clock Sunday worship service.

Martin Luther King once said, as he observed the elaborate church sanctuaries and educational facilities of the violent, pro-slavery, Apartheid Christianity of the Bible-belt, "What kind of people worship here; and who is their god?" That question must also be asked of each and every Christian church, each and every Christian clergyperson and each and every Christian layperson as we go about our daily lives.

We need to keep those questions in mind also as we vote for our presidents and representatives, many of whom may become, not only the oppressors of others outside our borders, but the future oppressors of our own children and grandchildren and neighbor children and foreign "enemy" children of God. We need to ask the questions also when our public and personal lives impact on the health and sustainability of the creation, including the economic, environmental, spiritual, physical and psychological spheres.

Agape

Jesus' multiple love commandments (i.e. "agape" love = unconditional, Christ-like love) include: "Love one another as I have loved you," "love your neighbor as yourself," "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "be merciful/compassionate as Abba is merciful/compassionate," "forgive 70x7," and "love your enemies" (plural). Those commands can't be disputed as being other than the authentic and original teachings of Jesus. They were not throwaway lines. But the reality is that over the last 1700 years Christianity has become a pro-violence religion, its members killing more people in wartime that any other sociologically identifiable group over that period of time. And we all know that that pace is continuing on at this very hour. Considering that reality and the fact that the church universal is unrepentant, outside observers must struggle to find much of value in the religion. And, sadly, that is an undeniable and, for me, a painful truth. And so our Christian nation, the "Great Satan" to many, continues to accumulate enemies.

Why Faith-based NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) Struggle So
(Charity? Yes, But Not Enough Justice)

I apologize for allowing this note turning into an essay. But I have a deep love (and also a deep grieving) for the church of my birth. I have also been doing a lot of thinking lately about the roots of the violence in our so-called Christian nation. And I have, as have you, been thinking about the massive indifference of the average Christian to your NGO's important mission. But all the other non-violence peace and justice groups are having similar problems. 150 years ago, Karl Marx exposed one of Christianity's most serious spiritual problems when he said, "you Christians have vested interests in unjust structures, which produce victims, to whom you then can pour out your hearts in charity."

In other words, we over-privileged American Christians keep silent about (or try to claim ignorance about) our oppressive American institutions (military, economic, etc) which we may secretly hope will sustain our comfort for another year or so or perhaps another decade or so. And we salve our consciences and delude ourselves into thinking we are doing God's will by metering out mercy from time to time, in an "hour of sharing" or in a "day of caring" or delegating mercy to a committee or approving 10% of a church's budget to charity or flying a delegation of Christians in a mercy mission to exotic Caribbean islands but coming quickly back, leaving the destitution and hopelessness virtually untouched (while spending tens of thousands of scarce dollars on the mechanics of the trip in the meantime).

And of course, Dom Helder Camara's famous saying is pertinent to the charity or/and justice point: "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor should be hungry, they call me a communist."

I guess my point is that, while we need to keep "going to the streets" in protest against our nation's oppressive policies, we also need to focus on transforming churches into true peace churches. And if we can do that, the next generation may see an end to Christianity's complicity (indirect though it may be) in international and domestic violence. It is certainly not a loving God's will that our nation should condemn its enemies to earthly agony and starvation and death.

Of course, we also have to keep in mind what is regarded by the writer of Matthew 25:31-46 as radical evil: the withholding of mercy to "the least of these." That passage, the "Final Judgment" passage, tells us about what may be the eternal consequences of indifference to relievable human suffering, of not doing for other people's pain what we hope they would do for us if we were in their shoes.

Every Church A Peace Church? Of Course! Jesus Intended It!

To my knowledge, the only organization that is emphatically and explicitly working to challenge the establishment churches into becoming what Jesus surely intended his church to become, a universal peace church, is Every Church A Peace Church (ECAPC, www.ecapc.org). I invite all supporters of every worthy Christian faith-based peace and justice organization to check out ECAPC's critically important mission and consider partnering with it in their complementary missions. If ECAPC succeeds in its mission, there will be a flood of eager participants from the newly committed "peace churches" to the faith-based NGOs such as yours and the denominational Peace Fellowships of this world.

And the coming of the peaceable Kingdom of the Lamb will be at hand.

© Gary G. Kohls, MD, 1306 E.8th St., Duluth, MN 55805 Ph/fax (218) 728-9756, email: gkohls@cpinternet.com, Midwest Coordinator for Every Church A Peace Church (http://www.ecapc.org).