“The Brink”

Thought to ponder at the beginning:
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. — Jimi Hendrix

My Fellow Americans,

In the last few weeks, our nation has walked up to the brink of a military strike in Syria. Whether by a mistaken off-hand comment by Secretary of State John Kerry or by behind-the-scenes design and negotiations of Presidents Obama of the U. S. and Putin of Russia, we now appear to be on a different tack. And the world waits to see what negotiations will bring. The world waits, while the powerful posture, persuade, and pontificate. The world waits and prays for reason and heart to prevail.

Many have debated the ethics of a military strike as America has deliberated the wisdom and efficacy of such a strike. While it seems clear the majority of our nation’s citizens have no appetite for another foreign intervention, the ethics of a threatened or actual military strike remain elusive.

Many have debated those ethics using the Just War Doctrine to buttress their views. The Just War Doctrine, first articulated by Augustine in the fifth century and honed through the centuries, governs decisions about going to war, establishes right conduct in war, and addresses how to end wars.

In recent weeks, the debate has centered around the decision to go to war. Could a military intervention in Syria be just? According to the Just War Doctrine, a war can be just IF the following conditions are all met.

• The war is for a just cause.
• The war is waged for right intentions: to redress a wrong, as opposed to material gain or supporting an economy or industry.
• The injustices suffered by one side far outweigh the injustices suffered by the other.
• The war is waged at the behest of duly constituted public leaders. Wars waged by dictators are not just. Nor are military actions based on deceit. Rather, in a just war, the authority that wages war operates within a political system that recognizes and honors systems of justice.
• There is a reasonable expectation of success.
• War is waged only as a last resort.
• The potential gains of waging war are proportionate to the potential losses and evils suffered.i

The Just War Doctrine has served as a good tool on many occasions in the past. But with respect to the United States and Syria, the Just War Doctrine has been used by both sides to support their arguments. The arguments lobbed from one camp to the other have been so heated that David Gibson of The Religion News Service wrote on Wednesday (9/11/13):

Even as the world’s powers grasped for a last-minute resolution to the crisis in Syria, it remained an open question whether any amount of diplomacy could prevent the conflict from claiming at least one more victim: the classic Christian teaching known as the “just war” tradition. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/just-war-doctrine- syria_n_3908606.html)

Gibson asserts there are several reasons why the waters of discourse have become muddy:

First, the situation in Syria is so complex as to make any decision morally compromised. Attacking Syria – even a limited, surgical strike – would violate several of the Doctrine’s principles: namely, we would not have a reasonable chance of success, the potential gains would not be in proportion to the potential losses, and all other options have not been tried.

Conversely, attacking Syria would be supported by the Doctrine because – at the very least it would be for a just cause. Also, the strike would be waged for right intentions. And, finally, the injustices suffered by one side far outweigh those suffered by the other side.

A second reason for the confusion about applying the Just War Doctine, according to Gibson, is that liberal Christianity is shifting increasingly toward pacifism. With that shift come those who say no war can ever be just. But equally strong voices within Christianity claim humanity has a “responsibility to protect” – a view sometimes at odds with pacifism. Certainly pacifistic views and the belief that we have a responsibility to protect have been at odds in the case of Syria, as the U. S. has claimed its reason for action is to protect the most vulnerable civilians, especially children who stand to be obliterated by poison gas.

So applying a Doctrine that has served since the fifth century has become complicated indeed.

I hear the arguments – I even make some of them myself – but today I must tell you my heart cries out. Perhaps yours does, too. My heart cries out of the shear weariness of carrying the burden of sadness and shame on my shoulders because I live in a nation that bludgeons its way through history. Whether in overt ways – engaging in actual warfare – or covert ways – selling or providing arms to warring parties and engaging in clandestine political operations that produce and promote violence – America the beautiful is responsible for so much violence.

My heart cries out because I know how hard it is to communicate, to listen, to seek and achieve understanding when cultures and needs clash and when tempers heat up, and particularly when the love of power eclipses the power of love.

And yet I also believe human beings are capable of trying harder and doing better. We are capable of speaking the truth to power, of admitting our failures and mistakes, of seeking and granting forgiveness. We are capable of walking the tricky road of communication and laboring to understand differences.

My heart cries out because of the toll war takes: sacrifices we have already made in lives, in money, in moral standing in our would, and in our consciences. With all of those sacrifices, the Middle East is no nearer to stability today than it was before we started. And yet we seem intent on pursuing the same measures we have always used, despite the evidence that tells us something very different is needed. Insanity is to keep doing the thing that hasn’t worked time and again.

I cry out for the suffering – particularly the suffering of the most vulnerable… the children. I believe a paradigm shift is needed – here in America and across the world. Within Christianity, which brought us the Just War Doctrine, a new theory is beginning to emerge: Just Peacemaking. Proponents assert our old model was binary – one either embraced pacifism or followed the Just War Doctrine, which justifies some wars. Just Peacemaking is a third way – one that models peaceful solutions to conflicts, one that actively promotes both peace and justice, so that fewer conflicts arise to the level of violence.

Just Peacemaking is inchoate, in the process of forming, just as the Just War Doctrine was 1600 years ago. Much of the work can be undertaken on any scale – ranging from global to local. As such, the work constitutes a way of living, an ethical and spiritual path to follow. In other words, one does not have to be a national leader to undertake Just Peacemaking.

Just Peacemaking is based on a study of Christian scripture. But I imagine most of the world’s religions could find support for the precepts within their own scriptures. These three areas comprise the work involved (summarized from Glenn Stassen and David Gushee http://justpeacemaking.org/the-practices/):

Initiate peace. Work for justice.
Foster love and community.

First, initiate peace. Just peacemaking asserts creating peace is an ongoing process, one in which we can and should participate. And here, Stassen and Gushee list the following areas to address.

1. Support nonviolent direct action.
2. Take independent initiatives to reduce threat. It’s not only incumbent on our leaders to create peace; it’s incumbent on us, too.
3. Use cooperative conflict resolution.
4. Take responsibility for conflict and injustice; seek repentance and forgiveness. How radically different a notion that is – that a nation could admit culpability and seek forgiveness. Yet, that is what Just peacemaking asks nations to do.

To those I would add one more: Seek to discover who benefits from war. I am just cynical enough to suspect that much of our warring has at its root the corporations that benefit from the fighting. Not only that, but wars are used to buttress those in power as opposed to being waged on behalf of the people they lead.

Second, work for justice. Just peacemaking recognizes that peace without justice is not true peace. Oppressed groups can be silenced, giving the impression of peace. But as long as injustice and oppression flourish, the seeds of conflict still lie in fertile soil. And here, Stassen and Gushee suggest the following:

1. Advance democracy, human rights, and religious liberty.
2. Foster just and sustainable economic development.

Third, Foster Love and Community. I suspect we know what this looks like on the local level and in our individual lives. Many of us come to this church because we can actively do the work of fostering love and creating community together. On a global scale, Just Peacemaking asks the following, according to Stassen and Gushee.

1. Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system.
2. Strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for cooperation and human rights.
3. Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade.
4. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations.

Critics of Just Peacemaking point out that following all the precepts of the theory will not prevent all wars, and I agree. Sometimes we will have to decide whether we are pacifists or whether we will use the Just War model (or some other model) to determine the morality of engaging in a particular conflict.

But here is what excites me about Just Peacemaking.

First, I believe active pursuit of peace along the lines Just Peacekeeping lays out would reduce the number of conflicts that come to a head. As such, our world would gradually recalibrate itself to begin to see peace as not only a possible outcome of disagreements but an expected outcome, too.

Second, Just Peacemaking calls on all people – all of us – empowering us to be peacemakers, vigilant to injustice and systems of oppression, and committed to speaking out. We are the emissaries and creators of peace – not just in our nations or regions, but in our towns, our families, and even within our souls. In our very own, seemingly small lives, we have the power to try harder when disagreements flourish, to keep returning to the task of listening, trying to understand, and speaking our truth. The practice begins with us, right now, today, one person at a time.

Third, Just Peacemaking unites people across all spectra and across the wide world. Matters of war and peace are not strictly the purview of our leaders, but all human beings share in creating peace.We are united in our concerns for one another, our hopes for one another, our dreams for our world. Here I lift up the startling and ironic wisdom of Vladimir Putin, taken from his letter to the New York Times published in the wake of President Obama’s speech this past week:

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir Putin! Theologies may differ, but Mr. Putin is right. Despite our differences, every human being on this earth – indeed, every form of life – is formed from the stuff of stars. Creating peace, being peace, we honor that great, nearly unfathomable, miracle that connects our individually beating hearts to every person on earth and to the far reaches of our mysterious, gargantuan, and beautiful galaxy. No longer can we bear the costs of war, whether the costs be spiritual, moral, emotional, physical, or financial. The time for change has come. May it begin with us.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the whole world. No exceptions.

 

i Information about the Just War Doctrine comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory and “Just War Theory,” by Jon Dorbolo, 2001: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/just_war_theory/criteria_intro.html. The points of the doctrine are sometimes collapsed into six or four (rather than the seven presented in this sermon), but these seven points describe the doctrine in essence.