Quaker Response to Events Since September 11, 2001

Top 2. Dec 14, 2001 8:37 AM

» Bill_Samuel - Re: glad to see this article

In response to message posted by biogardener:

Thanks, Traute. I encourage everyone to read Traute's article.

-- posted by Bill_Samuel

Top 3. Jan 3, 2002 7:05 PM

» rkhen - Hi Bill!

Thanks very much for once again providing Christian leadership in these frightening times. I have been truly dismayed at the speed with which a great number of professed Christians abandoned God's cause after 11 September and cleaved wholeheartedly to Someone Else.

I especially appreciate your references to the causes of the 11 September attacks. So many men and women of professed faith, many of them prominent religious leaders, have indulged in flagrant moral and intellectual laziness in coming to terms with that catastrophe. Many (the mass media would have us believe that they are the majority) have accepted an impossibly self-serving explanation, that the US were innocently minding their business, pure and humble, when suddenly they were attacked by black-hearted, Satan-worshipping demons.

As usual, Bill, you have set an admirably Christian tone for this discussion, which I will honour by not categorising the hypothesis described above in terms any stronger than "factually incorrect."

The Gospels are crystal clear on this point: what goes around, comes around. Violence like 11 September doesn't just happen, and no child of God, or group thereof, is "God's chosen" or a "minion of Satan." The US, for example, are deeply implicated in some of the most despicable acts of our time. Collectively, Americans have treated their brothers and sisters (or allowed their proxies to treat them) with appalling conceit. Now that "the chickens have come home to roost," as another devout follower of God once put it, I will not be stampeded into abandoning God's cause. No-one kills or torments my brothers and sisters with my blessing, no matter the raison-du-jour. As I strongly condemn the hateful, vengeful, unGodly actions of 11 September, and would have stopped them if I could, I strongly condemn the subsequent hateful, vengeful, unGodly actions of the US and its allies, and would stop them if I could. Christ demands no less.

The hymn says it plainly: "You can't kill the Devil with a gun or a sword." Christ's Gospels contain no provision for vengeance, retaliation, or deterrence. (They don't even provide for self-defence, of which present actions are in any case far from a valid example.) I'm afraid that, however inconvenient Christ's commandments have become for some Christians today, no amount of lawyering up Scripture will make their acts holy. They are unholy acts, and the words, actions, and attitudes of those who espouse them only underscore that fact.

Until recently, I mostly kept my peace about these convictions, at least in public. I did this partly out of a desire not to stir up more ill-will in a world already overburdened with it, and partly from the real fear that I would become a victim of rampaging apostate Christians if I did so. Recently, however, The Voice kicked me in the pants and told me to start acting like a real Christian. (I'm afraid The Voice is occasionally far from "still and small" with me; evidently, God is painfully aware of the unusual thickness of my skull.) The point is, this is no time for practicing Christians to remain silent. Anybody can be a Christian when there's nothing to lose. The true test of faith is times like these, when the Devil is screaming in your face and you may get hurt if you refuse to abandon God.

Thank you for this forum, Bill, and especially for putting yourself in harm's way. Your example instructs me, as it must many others as well.

-- posted by rkhen

Top 4. Jan 3, 2002 7:14 PM

» Bill_Samuel - Re: Hi Bill!

In response to message posted by rkhen:

Thank you. Actually I've had very little negative reaction.

-- posted by Bill_Samuel

Top 5. Jan 19, 2002 5:16 AM

» biogardener - TV program on conscientious objectors

I just finished seeing a one hour TV special on public TV called The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, a rather timely look at conscientious objectors in World War II and the lasting results of their work. Well worth seeing.

-- posted by biogardener

Top 6. Jan 19, 2002 7:28 AM

» Bill_Samuel - Re: TV program on conscientious objectors

In response to message posted by biogardener:

Interesting. That's an American PBS program which was on the PBS schedule for this last Monday (January 15), but it seems most PBS stations did not carry it. But apparently it's already been shown in Canada.

I live in a very militaristic area, and I don't know if it will ever be shown here.

-- posted by Bill_Samuel