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Afghanistan

UCC releases board statement on 911,
civil liberties, middle east crises and Afganistan

April 23, 2002
Communication Ministry
United Church of Christ
Ron Buford, press contact
216-407-1470
<bufordr@ucc.org>
<http://www.ucc.org>

CLEVELAND -- The Boards of Directors of the Covenanted Ministries of The
United Church of Christ met in St. Louis on April 18-21 and have released
the following statement concerning the events of September 11, the
middle-east crisis, and the war in Afganistan.

                      Make Us Instruments of Your Peace
               A Pastoral Letter from the Boards of Directors
         of the Covenanted Ministries of the United Church of Christ

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
                   Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
                       where there is injury, pardon;
                        where there is doubt, faith;
                        where there is despair, hope;
                       where there is darkness, light;
                     where there is sadness, joy . . .

      We, the members of the boards of the Covenanted Ministries of the
United Church of Christ, meeting jointly April 18-21, 2002, in St. Louis,
Missouri, greet you in the name of our risen Savior Jesus Christ.  During
this time when the world cries out amid violence, we extend to you our
deepest appreciation that in the wake of the tragedies of September 11,
2001, our church has chosen the way of peace.
      In our ministry with people most directly affected by those events,
including our own members and their families, our churches have contributed
over $2 million for immediate and long-term assistance through One Great
Hour of Sharings special disaster appeal, Hope from the Rubble.  Roughly
three-quarters of that amount has enabled a coordinated response through
Church World Service, and local ecumenical and interfaith organizations as
well as local United Church of Christ efforts to provide skilled counseling
to people throughout the region, offering support for pastors and lay
people alike, including a special outreach to children. Five hundred
thousand dollars has been designated to address the long-term effects of
toxic materials and health-related issues at Ground Zero in New York City.
      We want to thank you, as well, for the many additional ways you have
given and continue to give of yourselves in the months since the tragedy:
our pastors spiritual care and counsel; lay persons volunteering their
time and skills, donating blood, or tending to frightened children; many
extending the hand of generosity once again by sending contributions to our
special appeal to assist those suffering in Afghanistan.  This generosity
is a testimony to our churchs choice to affirm life in the face of the
cruelty and barbarism of the September 11 attacks, and the subsequent
bombing and loss of life in Afghanistan.
      The events of September 11 shook us at our very foundations.  They
shattered our illusions of security.  Many among us began to seek security
through the abrogation of the rights that we have proudly claimed to be the
hallmark of a democratic society.  For example, the USA PATRIOT Act, signed
into law on October 26, 2001, gives virtually unchecked power to the
Executive Branch of our government.  It imposes new limitations on our
freedoms of speech and association; it permits, without judicial approval,
surveillance of political activists and organizations deemed to oppose U.S.
policies; it circumvents the Fourth Amendment in permitting government
monitoring of the internet, email, and even private telephone
conversations; it permits mandatory detention, without trial, of
non-citizens in our midst, including those held at the U.S. military base
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
      Our church has a history of critiquing the conventional wisdom of
the day.  We have opposed slavery, tyranny, discrimination against those
who were considered different or suspect.  This heritage, based in our
commitment to life in Christ, calls us to oppose such measures in our own
society and to offer an alternative view of where our security lies in
belonging to and living for Christ, through the advocacy and safeguarding
of justice, and in extending the hand of hospitality to those deemed
foreign.
      We choose the way of peace for the people of Afghanistan, who have
seen too much death and devastation from war, oppressive governments and
natural disasters.  We abhor the Talibans disregard for human rights.  We
earnestly hope and pray that the new provisional government of Afghanistan
will be able to transcend the dubious pasts of many of the participants in
that new government.  At the same time we question whether war can truly
eradicate the root causes of terrorism, and we lament the proposed military
expenditures to sustain such a war and the temptation to restore a
first-strike nuclear policy.  Afghanistan needs to be built up, not further
destroyed.  Our nations resources should be used to bring the hope of new
life, not the continuing prospect of death for the innocent and the
unknown.
      We are told by U.S. policy makers that military action against Iraq is
necessary in the quest for security.  This course of action, in addition to
being immensely unpopular among our Arab and European allies, flies in the
face of recent experience.  U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein,
and the imposition of strict economic sanctions against Iraq, have only
strengthened his tyrannical regime while bringing untold misery to the
Iraqi people.  As Christians called to feed the hungry and clothe the
naked, we reiterate our call for the removal of sanctions against Iraq,
which have only victimized the most vulnerable, and our call for the
avoidance of military action, which in the past has only solidified Saddam
Husseins hold on power and enhanced his popularity in the Arab world.
      The resolution of the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the
key to regional and international stability.  The United States, because of
its special relationships in the area, bears unique responsibility for
helping to achieve peace. Israelis and Palestinians Jews, Christians and
Muslims have suffered far too long, and now live in constant fear of each
other.  A state of war prevails, featuring on the one hand the random and
senseless violence of suicide bombers, and on the other the reoccupation
of Palestinian lands, with attacks by tanks and aircraft, checkpoints and
curfews, assaults and demolitions of homes and orchards, the imprisonment
and public humiliation of Palestinian leadership.
      Again, we are called to choose the way of peace.  We condemn the
violence used by all parties to the conflict, even as we recognize the
imbalance in capacity that favors Israel.  As in the past, we affirm the
right of Israel to secure borders and peace with its neighbors, but we also
insist on the rights of the Palestinian people to sovereignty and
self-determination.  Placing the phenomenon of suicide bombers within the
context of the war on terrorism cloaks the reality of injustice that
provokes some to such desperate and self-destructive acts.  Similarly,
criticism of the policies of the government of Israel should not give
excuse for the latent and sometimes overt anti-Semitism that has been
such a scourge in the past, and which is experiencing renewal in Europe and
in the United States.  We honor our kindred relationship with Jews and
Muslims, siblings within the Abrahamic tradition.
      We support efforts to bring peace with justice to the Holy Land, and
yearn for the day when the prayers of all believers will mingle together in
Jerusalem in a symphony of peace.  To this end, we pledge to continue to
pray and engage our nations policy, and we join the international
ecumenical community in supporting the World Council of Churches Decade to
Overcome Violence and especially its initial focus on Israel and Palestine.
We affirm, and pledge our cooperation in, the Councils initiative to
implement an ecumenical accompaniment program in both Palestine and Israel
as a promising strategy to thwart the escalation of violence.  Our witness
shall be our accompaniment of both Israelis and Palestinians as they seek a
way out of the current deadly cycle of death and destruction.
      In the wake of September 11, we choose the way of peace, having
experienced the horror of terror and death.  We would resist the temptation
to solve the worlds problems by the use of the implements of war.  In a
world in which the United States functions as sole superpower, we in the
church are called to witness to the interdependence of all people, that in
Gods eyes the life of every human being is precious.  We would be Christs
body in this world, loving all of our neighbors, even resisting the powers
and principalities to demonstrate in our lives that we are followers of
Christs Way.

                . . . For it is in giving that we receive;
                  it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
            and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
                                      Saint Francis of Assisi, 1181 - 1226

(This pastoral letter was approved Sunday, April 21, 2002, by a vote of
each of the boards of directors of the Covenanted Ministries of the United
Church of Christ: Justice and Witness Ministries, Local Church Ministries,
the Office of General Ministries, and Wider Church Ministries.  These four
bodies conduct U.S. and global ministries in behalf of the
1.3-million-member United Church of Christ, which has nearly 6,000 local
churches in the United States and Puerto Rico.  The four boards of
directors consist of a total of 229 laypersons and ordained ministers from
throughout the church.  The document was also affirmed on Tuesday, April
23, 2002, by vote of the 76-member Executive Council of the United Church
of Christ, which conducts denominational business between the biennial
meetings of the churchs General Synod. This pastoral letter, intended for
churchwide and public distribution, speaks to [and not for] the members and
local churches of the United Church of Christ.)