wfn.org | Religious leaders back nonviolent solutions to terrorism

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Jan. 24, 2002      News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-71BP{020}

NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of Bishop C. Joseph Sprague is
available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html.

By United Methodist News Service

Four religious leaders, including a United Methodist bishop from Chicago,
have issued a call on behalf of an interfaith coalition for the United
States to attack terrorism through nonviolent means rather than military
might.

Speaking during a Jan. 23 telephone press conference, arranged by the Center
of Concern in Washington, the leaders joined the Rev. James Hug, a Catholic
priest and the center's president, to declare that the loosely organized
coalition "is promoting peaceful, faithful and just ways to end terrorism
and its sources." 

United Methodist Bishop C. Joseph Sprague said he had been troubled by the
affirmation from some religious quarters that the Bush administration's
bombing campaign against Afghanistan met the criteria of a "just war"
theory. He argued that in terms of the proportionality of the U.S. firepower
and the damage to noncombatants, the Afghanistan campaign fails the "just
war" test.

"In this culture, we seem to have a deep and abiding love affair with the
technical," he said. While U.S. pride in the efficiency of its missiles is
understandable, that pride also borders on idolatry, he said.

"One way to test the power of idolatry is to ask who it serves and who is
the victim," Sprague said. Considering victims of stray bombs or the
devastation wrought by those bombs to be the "collateral damage" of such a
campaign dehumanizes them. "We fail, in this culture, to understand that our
abstractions, if they are unmasked, have human faces.

"Bomb Afghanistan not with military might, but with food, medical and
agricultural know-how," he added. "There are those things that we can share
and share rightly."

The bishop said he believes the current military action "will only polarize"
the United States and provide a seedbed for further terrorist acts from
fringe elements. Sprague told United Methodist News Service he was
expressing his personal viewpoint and not speaking for the entire church.

Participants in the press conference, including the Right Rev. Richard
Shimpfky, an Episcopal bishop from California, addressed the notion that
some consider viewpoints critical of the U.S. government policy to be
unpatriotic. "It is absolutely essential for us in the United States to be
very clear that the voice of dissent has a virtuous and important role to
play," he said. The goal should not be unity and conformity but an honest
search for answers "that are compatible with peace with justice."

Some of the old ways of addressing the root causes of injustice and
terrorism are no longer appropriate today, he said, noting that American
isolationism is the most dangerous path to take.

Sister Kathleen Pruitt, president of the Leadership Conference for Women
Religious, expressed solidarity with Pope John Paul II and the 175 religious
leaders joining his Jan. 24 "pilgrimage of hope" to Assisi, the birthplace
of St. Francis, to pray for world peace. "Violence and hostility are no
longer ways to bring about peace," she said.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, cited a
line in the Torah that reads "Justice, justice, shall you pursue." In
rabbinical teachings, he explained, that repetition of the word "justice" is
interpreted in two ways: that justice can only be pursued using just means
and that justice must be sought both for yourself and for the other.

He advocated the use of the International Criminal Court as a means of
bringing about such justice. If the U.S. government would drop its
opposition to the court, its support could strengthen "the likelihood that
there will not be such terrible and disgusting acts of terrorism," Waskow
said.

Resolving the bitter and deadly conflict between Israel and Palestine also
is a necessary requirement in addressing terrorism and bringing about peace,
according to participants.

Sprague said the U.S. citizens and church members must call upon the U.S.
government to affirm the existence of both the state of Israel and the
Palestinian state and bring a more evenhanded approach to dealings with both
entities, acting as "that parental figure in the midst of a dysfunctional
family."

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United Methodist News Service
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