Voices for Peace

A Collection of Statements on Peace

Compiled by Stan Penner

From Pope John Paul II

The following words are by Pope John Paul II. We all know that this violence-prone world of ours needs them badly. (Somehow, I think the new Pope would agree with all of them, too.)

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"I…call to everyone, Christians and the followers of other religions, to work together to build a world without violence, a world that loves life and grows in justice and solidarity."

Pope John Paul II, Kazakhstan, Sept. 2001

"I insist on repeating clearly to all, once again, that no one may kill in God’s name."

Pope John Paul II, quoted in the Winnipeg Free Press, Jan. 11, 1998

"War is an adventure without return."

Pope John Paul II Christmas Day speech in 1990 on eve of Gulf War

"On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and return to the ways of peace."

Pope John Paul II addressing “all men and women engaged in violence”
Drogheda, Ireland, Sept. 29, 1979

"If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons."

Pope John Paul II, from "Welcome to the Quote Garden"

When a leader of some 1.1 billion people, and an example to millions if not billions more, says words such as these, I say there is hope, even much hope. The Pope has done his part; let’s live it out. Now that’s where the “rubber hits the road.” Who is loving enough, and brave enough, to put Pope John Paul II’s words into everyday living, and even in times of war? Many, many military and civilian lives could be spared if we do just that. I trust that many will.

Other Voices Speaking for Peace

"War is not only the denial of Christianity, but of all the most sacred things of life."

Major General John O’Ryan

"War exhibits principally two characteristics that mark it as essentially devilish, namely murder and deception."

Phillip Mauro

"Die we must, kill we cannot."

Dr. Archie Penner, theologian and author

"We kind o’ thought Christ went agin war an’ pillage."

James Russell Lowell, poet and pacifist

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."

General Omar N. Bradley

"The churches have sacrificed the teaching of Jesus to exigencies of the state."

Dr. W.E. Orchard

"Shall Christians assist the prince of hell, who was a murderer from the beginning, by telling the world of the benefits or the need of war?"

John Wesley

"War is as contrary to the spirit of Christianity as murder."

Dr. Adam Clark

"God is forgotten in war; every principle of Christianity is trampled upon."

Sidney Smith

"I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear 'overcome evil with good.' They don’t want to hear 'those who live by the sword die by the sword.' They don’t want to hear 'if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.' They don’t want to hear 'blessed are the merciful.' They don’t want to hear 'love your enemies.'"

Tony Campolo, on the war effort,
Christian Week Nov. 27, 2001

"Love, not deadly force, is the Christian’s weapon."

John D. Roth

"We Christians teach against the great vices of the world; but sad to say, we almost overlook the greatest of vices, war."

Theodore Epp

"…violence can never bring peace, and 'putting the sword back in its place' is admitting God's authority, and confirms God's love for us."

Rev. Chang-whan Kim, speaking to over a million people
in Seoul, South Korea in 1987

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

the Apostle Paul

"But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Jesus, our Lord and Saviour

Women's Voices for Peace

If men won’t, or can’t stop wars, maybe women can. Women have always spoken out against war.

"When we carry our eyes back through the long records of our history, we see wars of plunder, wars of conquest, wars of religion, wars of pride, wars of succession, wars of idle speculation, wars of unjust interference, and hardly among them one war of necessary self-defence in any of our essential or very important interests."

Anna Barbauld, English poet, essayist, critic, 1793

"The half of humanity that have never bourne arms is today ready to struggle to make the brotherhood of man a reality. Perhaps the universal sisterhood is necessary before the universal brotherhood is possible."

Bertha von Suttner, Speech to the Federation of Women of America, 1912

"If brains have brought us to what we are in now, I think it is time to allow our hearts to speak. When our sons are killed by the millions, let us, mothers, only try to do good by going to the kings and emperors without any other danger than a refusal."

Rosika Schwimmer, Speech at International Congress of Women at the Hague, 1915

"Women will soon have political power. Woman suffrage and permanent peace will go together. When a country is in a state of mind to grant the vote to its women, it is a sign that that country is ripe for permanent peace. Women don’t feel as men do about war. They are the mothers of the race. Men think of the economic results, women think of the grief and pain."

Dr. Aletta Jacobs, (1851-1929)
Holland’s first woman doctor and founder of the Dutch suffrage movement.

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. The work of educating the world to peace is the woman’s job, because men have a natural fear of being classed as cowards if they oppose war."

Jeanette Rankin, (1880-1973)
First woman to enter U.S. House of Representative in 1917.
Lost her seat in Congress when she voted against entry in WWI.

"But the havoc wrought by war, which one compares with the havoc wrought in nature, is not an unavoidable fate before which man stands helpless. The natural forces which are the causes of war are human passions which it lies in our power to change."

Ellen Key, (1849-1926) Swedish social feminist.

"Where do all the women who have watched so carefully over the lives of their beloved ones get the heroism to send them to face the cannon? I am afraid that this soaring of the spirit will be followed by the blackest despair and dejection. The task is to bear it not only during these few weeks, but for a long time - in dreary November as well, and also when spring comes again, in March, the month of young men who wanted to live and are dead."

Kathe Kollwitz, German artist, 1914.
(Kollwitz’s son was killed in WWI two months after she wrote this note.)

"There is an erroneous impression that this and other countries are at war with one another. They are not. Their governments, composed of men and responsible only to the men of each country, and backed by the majority of men who have caught the war and glory fever, have declared war on one another. The women of all these countries have not been consulted as to whether they would have war or not...."

Harriette Beanland, English dressmaker,
three days after WWI declared, 1914.

"No tinsel of trumpets and flags will ultimately seduce women into the insanity of recklessly destroying life, or gild the willful taking of life with any other name than that of murder, whether it be the slaughter of the million or of one by one."

Olive Schreiner, South African writer, feminist, 1911.

"Ladies, do you know the numbers? Our taxes are higher than three billion and the ministers of the army and navy devour a third themselves....The household with six francs a day for expenses, for example, starts each day by throwing two francs away."

Sylvia Flammarion, 1905 speech to working class French women.

"If war boosts the economy of the industrial nations that own the war supplies, it smashes the economy of the nations that consume them.”

Fereshten Gol-Mohammadi, Iran, 1983.

"If a child grows up with the idea of violence, that you get what you can by force, what kind of world will this be?"

Julinda Abu Nasr, Lebanon, 1980s.

"I am convinced that the women of the world, united without any regard for national or racial dimensions, can become a most powerful force for international peace and brotherhood."

Coretta Scott King, (1922-2006)
Active in U.S. civil rights movement and Non-Violence Center.

Lessons from the Second World War

The Second World War may have cost as many as fifty million lives. Let’s do our utmost so that such carnage will never happen again. It is my hope and prayer that the poem below can be of some help in guiding our thoughts toward peace and understanding (in the Middle East, etc., etc.) even now as we remember the terrible cost of the Second World War sixty years later.

The poem was written by Nicholas Peters just after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peters, who lived for some years at Grande Pointe, Manitoba, Canada, had emigrated from Russia in 1925 as a boy of ten and had seen firsthand the horrors of revolution and war in his native country. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 and trained as a flying officer. He died on the night of March 7-8, 1945 after his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. The poem is from a collection of Peters' work entitled Another Morn.

The Peters family has given permission to have the poem published.

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The Wars We Make

I gaze into the world with sorrowing eyes
And see the wide-abounding fruits of hate.
We fight, we say, for peace, and find
The wars we make
To be a spring of hate and source of future wars.

Is there no peace for man?
No hope that this accursed flow
Of blood may cease?
Is this our destiny: to kill and maim
For peace?
Or is this 'peace' we strive to gain
A thin unholy masquerade
Which, when our pride, our greed, our gain is
touched too far,
Is shed, and stands uncovered what we are?

Show me your light, O God
That I may fight for peace with peace
And not with war;
To prove my love with love,
And hate no more!

Some twelve years ago, my wife and I stood beside Peters' grave in an Allied war cemetery in Germany, with a huge sword on a cross backdrop, and grieved for him and the countless others buried there "row on row" in those graveyards of Europe. Quietly they lie now, sometimes friend and foe close together with so much of life still waiting to be lived.

Most of the last verse of Peters' poem is inscribed on his tombstone with a slight change in the wording.

SHOW US YOUR LIGHT, O GOD, THAT WE MAY FIGHT FOR PEACE WITH PEACE AND NOT WITH WAR.

I dream of the day when all of us, governments included, will listen to this soldier’s plea.

Surely as followers of Jesus we Christians should take up a cry, a plea, such as this airman’s. Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy in a homily that I love and appreciate, states, “Think about the Passion of Jesus. It is the greatest manifestation of non-violent love the world has ever seen. From the Mount of Olives to Mount Calvary the way of the cross is the way of staggering non-violence…It is the greatest sermon on non-violent love the world has ever heard.”

Fr. McCarthy says more, “For the last seventeen centuries…Christians have been saying, ‘We will follow Jesus and reject homicidal violence as soon as non-Christians follow Jesus and reject homicidal violence.’ How much of this brilliant fool’s gold theology is enough? Some generation of Christian leadership is going to have to take all the necessary steps to return the Church to being a non-violent people of peace amidst the warring and hostile nations, cultures, tribes and classes.”

McCarthy wants the Church now to take such a position of love. I say in the Name of Jesus our Saviour, why not? Let’s surprise this world of ours with true Christian (agape) love-shown both to friend and enemy (yes, to enemy too-as Jesus said we should). I daresay that miracles will begin to happen when we find the grace to do that.


Stan Penner
Manitoba, Canada

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WAR AND THE CONFESSING CHRISTIAN

My concern lies with war and the terrible toll it takes on human lives. I'm sure that you share this concern. Most people want peace and yet $900 billion a year is spent on weapons worldwide. When a cousin of mine was in Japan he was repeatedly asked, "What are you doing for peace?" Some years ago, I met a former World War II Canadian Army warrant officer. With tears in his eyes, he wondered out loud as to how many German children he had orphaned. He had rigged up a heavy gun on his army carrier and had snuffed out as many German men's lives as possible. "I was a very good shot," he chokingly told me. Are we, the followers of Jesus Christ, blessed because we are peacemakers in this war-torn world? (See Matt. 5:9) Are we the salt and light that we should be or are we as Christ's Church just as guilty or even more guilty as anyone else in instigating and maintaining the wars on the face of this earth?

According to a paper in my possession (see also Charles Colson's book, Kingdoms in Conflict) some fifty years ago, at Barmen-Wuppertal in Germany, a small group of Christians, in a confessional statement, set themselves against the war, racial and other policies of Adolph Hitler. They were told in no uncertain terms that they were wrong. Both fellow citizens and fellow Christians assured the Barmen believers that Hitler was a real saviour, not the enemy of God but God's emissary. Had the Church in Germany as a whole adopted the Barmen confession the world could have been spared untold suffering. Hitler would hardly have risked war if he had known that the Church would not back him. Some time ago, on 100 Huntley Street, a Christian TV program, a "Christian" Jew spoke. His father had been taken away and killed by three Germans; one had been a Catholic, one a Lutheran, and one a Pentecostal (The speaker had the grace to call them backslidden.). But is this the way for the Christian? Do we who are the followers of the Prince of Peace simply commit any and all atrocities that our government wants us to do or do we draw the line somewhere? Many Christians hold to a so-called "Just War" theory but when it comes to actual war most Christians simply side with their own land. Some believers who have refused to take up arms have been terribly persecuted for it and some have been put to death. Somehow I feel that this is the Jesus' way- die rather than kill. Had Jesus joined the Roman army of His day and killed His fellow men as required I doubt if you or I would be following Him today. Fighting and killing simply wasn't His way; His was the way of love. Surely had He lived on this earth during the Second World War He would not have cut the throat of any German, Japanese, Italian, etc., or for that matter, any soldier on "our" side. Are we not to be like He was?

What was the position of the early Christians in regard to war? Robert M.Grant, the distinguished historian and author of Augustine to Constantine: The Thrust of the Christian Movement into the Roman World (Harper & Row, 1970) says:

“Early Christian theologians condemned murder and cited war as prime instance. Manuals of church discipline refused to allow for the possibility of military service and insisted that upon conversion a soldier had to leave the army.” (p. 273). (from Jon Bonk's book, The World at War The Church at Peace, Kindred Press, Winnipeg 1988, p.19.)

The Sermon on the Mount (and many other teachings of Jesus) with verses such as, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven:’" (Matt. 5:43-45a) had left their mark. Paul had told them, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good "(Romans 12:21}.

What do military men themselves say? Well, I'm sure it varies but one, Omar Bradley, a U.S. five-star general, Known as the "GI's general" and field commander of 1.3 million men during the Second World War has said, "As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral." (Maclean's, April 20,1981} Surely we as Christians should take up a cry such as this!

Farley Mowat, now a naturalist, a writer, and a former Canadian soldier who participated in the carnage of the Second World War, writes as follows in his book AND NO BIRDS SANG: "Let it be said then that I wrote this book in the absolute conviction that there never has been, nor ever can be a "good" or worthwhile war...so awful that through three decades I kept the deeper agonies of it wrapped in the cotton-wool of protective forgetfulness...but could not, because the Old Lie-temporarily discredited by the Vietnam debacle-is once more gaining credence; a whisper which soon may become another strident shout urging us on to mayhem. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori! (It is sweet and seemly to die for one’s country). Spawned in Hell long before Homer sanctified it, and goading men to madness and destruction ever since, that Old Lie has to be put down! (McClelland et al, Toronto, 1979, p. 195-196).

Pierre Berton, a Canadian soldier, an officer, and also a renowned author, describes the battle of Vimy Ridge in gruesome detail in his book, Vimy. In conclusion he asks, "Was it worth it?" The battle had cost thousands of limbs, eyes, and lives on both sides. Even relatives had been pitted against each other in this terrible slaughter and, much after the war, as an old German soldier and the son of a Canadian soldier talk about this they agree that the war had been "a terrible waste of human life brought on by greedy people and tolerated for too long by silent majorities." To the question, "Was it worth it?" the answer is very clear- "No." (McClelland et al, Toronto, 1986, p. 307-308}.

Why is it Bradley, Mowat, and Berton who have to say this, why not the Church per se? Do churches have blinders on their eyes as to the antithesis of war and the Christ of the Gospels? Loving care for those on the "other" side is put on the shelf and war is supported by many of the very people who carry, or at least are to carry, the image of the Prince of Peace. Jesus talks about stones crying out if certain voices would be silenced and it seems to me that this is what is happening in regard to a peace witness. Far too often, the Church refuses to preach peace and others are taking up the cry. A case in point would be modern school textbooks. Often people in the upper echelons of education, nowadays, are trying hard to make the next generation of young people see the folly of war on this rather fragile "spaceship” earth. One Junior High book carries the story of the founder of the Red Cross, Henry Dunant. In the course of doing business with an Emperor, Dunant stumbled upon a battlefield littered with bodies and with mortally wounded French and Austrian soldiers. Dunant got the Red Cross movement going but later hated all people because of the cruelties he had seen at Solferino. Another school book tells of a Japanese girl who desperately wants to live but cannot because the atom bomb disease (leukemia) took her away. The story ends with a prayer, "This is our cry, this is our prayer; Peace in our world."

The Church should call war what it is: it is horrible; it is brutish; it is fiendish. But no! The Church far too often blesses the tanks, the cannons, the bayonets, and,in some cases, possibly even the hydrogen bombs. What preachers have said in support of their country's military would fill volumes.

I honestly feel that it is wrong to kill my fellow man even when my own country is at war. At such times I appeal to a higher authority, God Himself, and say with Peter and the other apostles, "We must obey God rather than men! "(Acts 5:29).

And please don't get me wrong. I think that soldiers have been brave without end; they have sacrificed as no one should have had to sacrifice, and they have done countless acts of heroism. To be honest, though, one must admit that the "other" side's soldiers did more or less the same. This was brought out very forcefully in a movie I watched on television, "All's Quiet on the Western Front." The sad part is that the braver and the more dedicated a soldier is the more suffering he will generally inflict on the other side.

Sometimes in my mind's eye I can "see" a bayonet thrust into another man's stomach or I can see a small child lying with legs blown off, etc.etc. Years ago, when my father and I operated a pulpwood and logging operation in Northern Manitoba, a neighbour one night shot and killed his son (around twenty years of age).At the request of the R.C.M.P. I went to identify the body. I can still see him lying on that shack floor, dead, his mouth wide open, his arm behind his head-a very unpleasant sight. Countless soldiers have done this to each other and why? They were sent by their governments and often by "Christian" governments on both sides. England and France have had a "Hundred Year's War.” Even Canada and the United States have been at war. Surely the Church can do better than to simply support each and every conflict governments get themselves into. The CANADIAN WAR AMPS stress the words, NEVER AGAIN. They have seen and experienced the horrors of war. One old soldier, on being shown an "enemy" soldier's grave showed no hatred but commented something like, "Just another good soldier." This old soldier well knew that the soldiers on the "other" side weren't all the heinous monsters that war propaganda so often would have had them believe. They too were the precious sons of their mothers, brothers to doting sisters, and with sweethearts and wives at home.

We are shocked, frightened, and outraged when someone is murdered and we absolutely should be, but isn't it somewhat strange, though, how as soon as it's called war many people and even many Christians are ready to do mass "murdering" themselves or at least have others do it. Imagine what happens when huge bombs fall on a heavily populated area (like in Cologne, Germany in World War Two, or in London, England). Men, women, and children are burned alive; they are blown to smithereens; they are horribly maimed; unborn babies are aborted, mutilated, torn apart, etc., etc. Many people who ordinarily are dead set against abortion seem to shrug it off as long as it is done under the guise of war. Isn't it time that we confess that we have sinned horribly because of all the warring that we have done and that we allow Christ to give us a heart of love for all people-even for those who happen to live across some political border?

I truly feel that as followers of the Prince of Peace we must work for peace, both spiritual and physical. I read a poster that suggests a modest proposal for peace: LET THE CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD AGREE THAT THEY WILL NOT KILL EACH OTHER. That would be a good start but I’ll quickly add : LET THE CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD AGREE THAT THEY WILL NOT KILL THEIR FELLOW MAN.

I am sure that most people would agree with what I've said as long as it is applied to the "other" side. If only the other side would follow the teachings of Jesus then things would be just great, but miracles can start to happen when we go by the old saying "Charity begins at home." It begins with us.

Let's work together to further Christ's kingdom. As Christians, instead of being involved in the horrendous deeds of war, let’s be involved in works of mercy and thus be instruments of peace instead of instruments of war. This is a tall order, and especially so when our own country is at war, but, with God’s help, and our wanting to do so, this does, and will continue to happen. Somehow I think we could turn the world "upside down" if we Christians did this consistently. My prayer is that God will give us the courage, the strength, and the love to do this.


Stan Penner
Manitoba, Canada

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A Letter to Americans

Congratulations, Americans, for bringing shuttle Discovery safely home. We rejoice together with you; the world applauds. You guys are good.

And, as it should be, CNN (and probably almost countless other stations) reported on the safe return of the shuttle, but then, almost in the same breath, more deaths were reported from Iraq.

Is that killing and dreadful suffering in Iraq ever going to stop? We are learning to conquer space (I find that very exciting and hope it will continue), but have MUCH to learn about living together on this planet Earth. What can we do? What should we do?

One of your own, namely Linus Pauling, scientist, peace advocate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner has some suggestions. He writes in his book No More War as follows:

"Man has developed admirable principles of morality, which in large part govern the actions of individual human beings. And yet, we are murderers, mass murderers.

Does the Commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' mean nothing to us? Are we to interpret it as meaning 'Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,' or, 'Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so?'

I am an American, deeply interested in the welfare of my fellow Americans, of our great Nation. But I am first of all a human being. I believe in morality.

I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs-there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism.

I believe in the power of the human spirit. I should like to see our great Nation, the United States of America, take the lead in the fight for good, for peace, against the evil of war. I should like to see in our cabinet a Secretary for Peace, with a budget of billions of dollars per year perhaps as much as 10 percent of the amount now expended for military purposes. I should like to see set up a great international research program involving thousands of scientists, economists, geographers, and other experts working steadily year after year in the search for possible solutions to world problems, ways to prevent war and to preserve peace.

During the past hundred years there have been astounding developments in science and technology, developments that have completely changed the nature of the world in which we live. So far as I can see, the nature of diplomacy, of the conduct of international affairs, has changed very little.

The time has now come for this aspect of the world to change, because we now recognize that the power to destroy the world is a power that cannot be used.

May our great Nation, the United States of America, be the leader in bringing morality into its proper place of prime importance in the conduct of world affairs!"*

Pauling speaks from the head and from the heart. Let’s take heed.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

*Linus Pauling’s words are from pages 216 and 217 in his book, NO MORE WAR (Dodd, Mead, and Company NY, NY)

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2000 soldiers

A letter to the young and the old, too,

Thinking of the 2000 American soldiers now dead in the Iraq War, let’s note the following:

"Old soldiers never die, but ninety-nine soldiers in a hundred are pitiably young, and they die in their millions, without beginning to guess why it is that life asks that of them." - John Keegen, et al. in their book, Soldiers

"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." - Herbert Hoover

I think it’s time that young people, the world over, tell the old guys who start wars, "Now it’s your turn to go and we’ll stay home." Should such ever happen, I do think wars would become very unpopular.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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The "Security" Charade

Robert Bowman, below, has a message we would do well to note. He's a veteran of a war (Vietnam) of which the chief architect of that war, Robert McNamara, now says, "We were wrong, terribly wrong." But as Kim Phuc (the little girl in Vietnam, her clothes seared from her body by napalm, running screaming from her burning village-on a photograph few will forget) now says, "We cannot change history but with love we can heal the future." I wonder who, besides The National Catholic Reporter, will be brave enough to publish Bowman’s message and thus help not only to heal the future, but also the present, which, in light of the terrible suffering in Iraq, and elsewhere too, desperately needs healing.

Sincerely,
Stan Penner

by Robert Bowman

(Robert Bowman flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is presently (1998) bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, FL.)

If deceptions about terrorism go unchallenged, then the threat will continue until it destroys us.

The truth is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these threats. No Star Wars system no matter how technically advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars are poured into it, can protect us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Cessna or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal, not a penny of the $270 billion a year we spend on so-called defense can defend against a terrorist bomb. That is a military fact.

As a retired lieutenant colonel and a frequent lecturer on national security issues, I have often quoted Psalm 33: "A king is not saved by his mighty army. A warrior is not saved by his great strength." The obvious reaction is, "Then what can we do?" Is there nothing we can do to provide security for our people?"

There is. But to understand it requires that we know the truth about the threat. President Clinton did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism when he explained why we bombed Afghanistan and Sudan. He said that we are a target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world.

Nonsense!

We are the target of terrorists because, in much of the world, our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things.

In how many countries have agents of our government deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational corporations?

We did it in Iran when the US Marines and the CIA deposed Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah and armed, trained, and paid his hated Savak National Guard, which enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran, all to protect the financial interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder that there are people in Iran who hate us?

We did it in Chile. We did it in Vietnam. More recently, we tried to do it in Iraq. And, of course, how many times have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell out their own people so the wealth of the land could be taken out by the likes of Domino Sugar, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.

In country after country, our government has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why it is hated around the world. And that's why we're the target of terrorists.

People in Canada enjoy democracy, freedom, and human rights. So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian, or Swedish?

We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism.

Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must change our ways. Getting rid of our nuclear weapons unilaterally if necessary will enhance our security. Drastically altering our foreign policy will ensure it.

Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children. Instead of continuing to kill hundreds of Iraqi children every day with our sanctions, we should help Iraqis rebuild their electric power plants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals, and all the things we have destroyed and prevented them from rebuilding.

Instead of training terrorists and death squads, we should close the School of the Americas (Ft. Benning, GA.). Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we should abolish the CIA and give money to relief agencies.

In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to hear.

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How a fable could help the President in Iraq

We all know the story: The wind and the sun are having an argument as to which one of them is the strongest. They decide on a test. The one that can get a man to take off his coat will be considered the strongest.

The wind tries first. It blows and it blows and the harder it blows, the more the man clutches and hangs on to his coat. No success! The sun works in a different way. It simply shines and thus warms the man. Soon the coat is off.

Moral of story: Kindness is very strong.

Somehow I think that if the most powerful man on this planet, namely the President of the United States, would start showing much kindness in Iraq, it would go much farther than all that firepower. I’m sure that is already happening up to a point, but I feel there should be much, much more kindness shown. Be magnanimous, President Bush. It could do wonders. (I honestly believe that many a war could have been avoided-e.g. Vietnam-if kindness, instead of hate and power, had been shown.)

Why not give it a try, Mr. President? And I wish you only God’s best, always.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

Friends

I, a Christian, have a Muslim friend. Is this significant? Well, if every Christian had one Muslim friend (I’m sure many have far more), or one could say if every Muslim had one Christian friend (I’m sure many have far more), I daresay it would be very significant. And, let me add here, whatever our faith is, or if someone has no particular faith, let’s make lots of friends the world over. This may sound naïve but I’ll say it anyway, "When we are friends, we want to help each other, not hurt each other (In fact, my Muslim friend and I have made a pact that we will not hurt each other.)." Now, and one could say especially now, that’s significant.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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The Battle of Vimy Ridge

April 9, 2006

We are commemorating the 89th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (fought April 9-12, 1917) and my heart goes out to those suffering and dying young men (both sides) who could have been friends under other circumstances.

I think back to seeing a friend of mine in Northern Manitoba (about twenty years old) who was gunned down during a domestic argument. Identifying the body for the R.C.M.P. was very unpleasant. I can still see him lying there, cold in death. And then I picture those thousands of men bleeding and broken on the fields of France.

I also think back to the former World War II Canadian warrant officer I met some years ago. As a young soldier he had been sent to kill and, as the saying goes, he did his job. Now, sitting at the lunch table with me, with tears in his eyes, he wondered out loud as to how many German children he had orphaned. He had mounted an especially deadly gun on his army vehicle and had snuffed out as many German men’s lives as possible. "I was a very good shot," he chokingly told me.

My thoughts go back some fifty years to western Manitoba. A plucky young wife tried to make a go of things while her husband sat shell-shocked beside her. He had been in farming but had to give this up because his emotional health had not survived the horrors of war. I was told that he had seen too many comrades drown as his ship sank. We know that myriads of others (on both sides) suffered a similar fate.

I think of Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross. In the course of doing business with an Emperor, Dunant stumbled upon a battlefield littered with bodies and with mortally wounded French and Austrian soldiers. Dunant got the Red Cross movement going but later hated all people because of the cruelties he had seen at Solferino.

I remember the ships barely showing in the waters at Pearl Harbour, entombing hundreds of American young men. Japanese tourists stand among us and I wonder what their thoughts are as they survey this watery grave.

I think of the little Japanese girl who desperately wanted to live but could not because the atom bomb disease (leukemia) took her away. Her story ends with a prayer, “This is our cry, this is our prayer; Peace in our world.”

I remember the old soldier on the Canadian War Amps film. When shown a grave of an "enemy" soldier he showed no animosity but simply remarked, "Just another good soldier." This seasoned veteran well knew that the soldiers on the "other" side weren't all the heinous monsters that war propaganda so often would have them believe. They too were the precious sons of their mothers, brothers to doting sisters, with sweethearts and wives at home. They too desperately wanted to come home-alive.

Veterans and non-veterans alike-Canadians, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Israelis, Iraqis, Afghans,, and all others, as we reflect on the frightful cost of Vimy Ridge and other battles and wars, let’s redouble our efforts to live in peace and harmony on this rather fragile "spaceship" earth. Let’s determine to settle conflict by reason, negotiation, arbitration (as, for instance, the Canadian-American Alaskan border dispute), or whatever other civilized method it takes, but not with the brutality, the insanity, of war.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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This is an address delivered to the faculty of Malone College, Canton, Ohio, sometime during the seventies.

There are some foolish, short-sighted, and rather stubborn people around, even on this campus, who believe - really and pretty decisively - that a Christian is so radically different from non-Christians, that he espouses - for want of a better term - Biblical Pacifism. Obstinately, I confess to be one of them. Sometimes these people are given the label of Conscientious Objectors, who quite indiscreetly struggle to practice non-resistant love.

These strange samples of humankind, really want to be called Christians. This desire has not always met with success. Often, particularly when passions are kindled and fanned into flame, and especially when the nation is deeply involved in armed conflict, they were called by such names as traitors, or yellow-bellies, or Bolsheviki. Neither did they always escape labels as conspirators, cowards and copouts. They even have been charged with being unpatriotic, and even treason. Incidentally, these are all statements of negation. Billy Sunday summed up the sentiments of many, when he pronounced: "Christian Pacifists ought to be treated as Frank Little was at Butte, and then let the coroner do the rest."

How unreasonable and senseless are these "Christians?" They are so unreasonable that when they walk down a street and see Uncle Sam on a poster, pointing at them and asking, "Are you willing to die for your country?" they charge him with authentic inconsistency at the best, or an unpolished falsehood at the worst. "What you unquestionably mean, Uncle Sam, is not really whether we are willing to die, rather, are we willing to kill. Please, do not confuse us with inverted or transposed meanings. Language in verbal communications is difficult enough for us without these. To this feigned appeal, we can only rejoin: "die we will, kill we cannot." Credibility gaps in advertising are prevalent and serious. Why add another?

There are those of us who are so unpatriotic that we will offer ourselves for the ministry of healing, physical, and more, anywhere, in any crisis, only not to be part of that machine which administers death and torture and hell. Such action is hardly based on fear. Unless it is the fear to play God with human lives, and such destinies which that game might involve. If there exists a call to such inhumanities, as war, under whatever pretended authority, we staunchly deny and adamantly reject that imagined authority, without repudiating much human authority. Seemingly, our hearts, our senseless hearts, have perceived no such call. Whether this is cowardice, or folly, or "copoutism," when such people are held captive by their consciences, which they firmly believe is informed by the New Testament, and understood to be the clear example and teaching of their Master, they love so dearly, is for others to judge.

But all this is not the end of their foolishness. These Christian Pacifists are true to their persuasion when they identify themselves with the Baptist professor, one time faculty member at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Rutenber. He contended that it was hardly sound reasoning to deny Christians the use of the sword in the defence of the Gospel, our greater treasure, when the same sword is commended and lauded in the defence of our culture, a treasure lesser by far. At times, some of us even begin to wonder whether much in our culture should be defended at all, leave alone with the sword of death.

These alien citizens can be faulted for another identification. They cannot only understand, they even glory - what misplaced identification! - in some conclusions drawn, by a prominent German scholar, Hans-Werner Bartsch, when he sounds the trumpet, totally muffled by many: "There is not any possibility left to understand killing as an act of love." And he reminds the world that no soldier has ever been called for the mere purpose of self-sacrifice. No military action could ever succeed with an army constituted by such purpose, or a personnel, which is planning and preparing for self-sacrifice alone. The calling of a person for military conflict has as its purpose to sacrifice as many soldiers of the opposing army as is "necessary" for military success.

Or, again, is it not rather stupid to assent to the eminent German's "irrationality," when he so tactlessly avows: "Instead of asking whether it is possible under certain circumstances for a Christian to participate in warfare, we have to ask whether participating in warfare is a possible way of proclaiming the gospel."

Again, these deceived Christians can be faulted in another way. They believe the Scriptures. To them, both, the Old and the New Testament, are inspired by God, and are their rule in faith and practice. However, they have the strange notion that their consistency of interpretation and application of Scripture truth is hardly invalid. With such commitment, they have come to the conclusion that there is no way they can use the Old Testament to legitimize a Christians' participation in war. They come to this unorthodox conclusion for two - and more - reasons. They even have the unrealistic audacity to claim clarity for their conclusion.

Boldly these piteous believers affirm that there can be no Christian who will accept and apply the full and real meanings of God's war commands to Israel literally. To do so, they see, to their unwise satisfaction, that it would utterly destroy the last fragment of the often repentantly received just war theory. Are the principles of the theory not violated, ask these silly Pacifists, by the type of war commanded by God in the Old Testament? Are not some of the wars which God commanded the fiercest genocides?

Both Pacifists and non-Pacifists read: "Thus says the LORD of Hosts 'Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'" "What kind of war is this?" asks the astounded enquirer. Out of the necessity of accepted logic, and possessed by the Spirit of Jesus, he answers: "This is a war of aggression, not acceptable to the just war believer, and how much less to the one who loves his Lord. It is a war of extermination, of genocide, equally repugnant, if not more so, at least in principle, to those in harmony with a just war commitment, and to those not so committed."

But those, who disagree with this ridiculous breed of Bible believers, must not treat them too harshly, when the latter insist, as they honestly do, that the war commanded, as described, contradicts the just war theology in that it asks for a war of violence far greater, far more violent, more excessively atrocious, than necessary to subdue the Amalekites. And, surely, it is a war far more gory and abominable than permissible in the so-called just war theory.

Additionally, these odd Pacifists curiously argue by asking serious questions concerning the interpretation of the Old Testament. Unwisely, they are convinced that neither the Pacifist, nor the non-Pacifist can possibly avoid the questions, which the former must ask. The Old Testament commands war, in order to destroy, or eradicate evil. These commands most clearly validate, it is asserted by the opponents to the New Testament Pacifist, participation in modern wars - if, indeed, they do not actually mandate participation in modern national armed conflict for the believer in Jesus.

Here comes the age-old and agonizing query: How in the name of consistency and logic, can those, who accept the Old Testament as the unchanging word of God, so firmly and finally accept the divine command to Israel to wage the most atrocious wars, when they decisively chuck many of the other commands, equally revolting to both parties mentioned? Can those who refuse to obey the many other divine commands, equally given to Israel, still claim to be faithful to the teachings of the Old Testament? Again - these indiscreet Christians need an answer-why do those who teach that the Old Testament command to use the physical sword - to thrust through the bodies of innocent women, and children, to disembowel, and send to the grave of the lost those, for whom Christ died and should be won for Him - is valid, yet they will not accept, or even crusade, for the execution of adulterers, witches, and sons who are disobedient to parents? Are these not commanded in the same Scriptures, by the same God, to the same people? Is it not true that back of all these harsh commands of killing lies the purpose, namely, to destroy evil?

But there is more, much more. Departures from the worship of Yahweh merited the imposition of capital punishment. Not even the Sabbath breaker, whose only recorded sin is that he gathered sticks on that holy day, could escape the death penalty imposed by God Himself through Moses.

Can these strange pacifistic Christians really be charged with error - the charges, as noticed, are often far worse - for simply asking for consistency in the treatment of the Word of God, both in the writing of a theology, and in application of its truth? In all their foolishness, these common folk will simply not admit that by their view of the Old Testament they dislocate, or destroy, that precious document.

If they would be thus seriously charged, they would answer without a moment of reflection, "But we must deal with facts, in this case Old Testament facts, theological facts." When pressed further, they might even cry "foul!” "This is not a matter of destroying anything, when ALL the commandments of God in the Old Testament are taken seriously!" these misguided believers will unblushingly contend. They will keep on insisting that this whole matter is one of proper and consistent principles of interpretation.

But all this is not the end of their madness. They cherish an impractical concept of love, agape love. To them, even the concept of love must be taken, not only literally, but also consistently. This means that agape can only be practised to foe and friend alike. To this kind of Christian, "foe" and "enemy" cannot carry any regional or national distinction for this love. The love commanded the Church, in the view of this queer understanding, will not, indeed, cannot, do "ill, or harm," even to a national "enemy."

Equally, there is no impersonal, or any other, situation which can afford a departure from the exercise of this love for the child of God. Neither can such instances, as having a national enemy, or an impersonal, non-relationship, be used to rationalize radical love in order to soften it, or rob it of its moral content and responsibility. So argue these undiscerning Christians. They even feel they can show that human logic is violated, if their concept of difficult love is not accepted.

It is the last World War. The city is Darmstadt, Germany. The scene is an Air Force bomber thousands of feet overhead in the depth of a German night. Obliteration bombing is its mission. The city below is asleep; the innocent and the not-so-innocent. The crew, figuratively, if not literally, wrings its hands and hearts. Those who man the airship are decent people. They have families in America, or France, or Britain, or Canada. Thinking of the innocent children below, at least some of them, who are fathers, discover a painful image in their minds. Their sons, their daughters, so beautiful, so innocent, sleep soundly in the security of their mothers' efficient management in the absence of their fathers from their own beloved country.

In one brief, brief - perhaps in numbed, semi-thoughtlessness? - moment at least one of them is incapable of not transferring something of that love of father to the innocents and the beautiful below. A sigh escapes him, and a muttered verbalization, too garbled for the others to understand. But in his mind it is unmistakable. "How I love them!"

The order to drop the load is issued. Death, suffering, anguish, hell, with utter destruction, is rained on all below. To this Pacifist - perish his memory and conscience - who recently read Paul: "Love works no ill to his neighbour," and, "love is kind," asks agonizingly: "This love over Darmstadt-from whence?" Does not Paul also say: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." This statement must be deeply pondered.

Death, death, the enemy of God! All death, or only some death? Can he, who makes a covenant with the enemy of God to cause death, be in covenant relation with the God, who can only finally destroy that enemy, death itse1f? Darmstadt love, these believers in their simplicity know, is not found in the Scriptures. It is foreign to all their understanding. If the affirmation of Paul, that love does no harm to his neighbour, is seen to mean "friend" and "kin," and cannot be applied to enemies, least of all, to national "enemies," we must counter: "Read your Bible again."

How does this unwise Christian answer those who contend, and say, "Yes, you can kill, or do harm, or ill, in the name of Jesus-i.e., in the name of love and with love - to the one who is doing ill, and evil, and practicing violence, since he has earned such retribution? And, particularly, you can justifiably kill the one who would kill because of love for the one who would be killed. Will not a moral and modest person, if he is logical and consistent, readily admit that evil must be punished?" The Pacifist easily answers: "This proves far too much." For, if one can do that which is wrong, in one case, and claim it is done purely for the benefit of another, and, therefore, it is a love-act, does this not justify every act of wrong doing, as long as it is for the benefit of the one loved?

If this is so, there can always be the next, and the next, and the next occasion; each instance of this "love-act" involving just slightly more evil? Must those who espouse such ethics not accept the legitimacy and propriety of the following action? If a Christian mother can do ill and wrong for the benefits of her offspring, can she not ultimately practice prostitution for even greater and more legitimate benefits for the children she loves?

But these Christian immoderates, losers, and twisters make another mistake. At least, if they are historically inclined. For this kind of Christian takes seriously the results of the studies of such scholars as Roland Bainton. This eminent historian claims that the Christians of the first three centuries were Pacifists. What audacity for an historian like Bainton! He even calls these centuries the "era of pacifism." Is Bainton a heretic, or were the early Christian heretics? Some might think of both in this way. However this may be, the Christian, dedicated to nonresistant love, might even rejoice in this heresy. How silly and irreverent can Christians become!

But seeds planted tend to reproduce their own kind. Foolishness reaps foolishness. So, our plot deepens. For some strange reason-and for many, some unaccountable reasons-the Pacifist is never quite able to see a qualitative difference between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the one hand, and a Buchenwald and an Auschwitz, on the other. Differences there surely must be. The mind boggling horror of six million Jews, violently and hideously murdered over a period of years, and a quarter of a million Japanese, also loved by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ravaged and murdered by a nuclear bomb in a few moments of time with years of agony to follow, seem morally far too similar to warrant real distinctions. The morally blinded Pacifist, wanting in astuteness, must leave the "positive morality" of the death camps to the Germans, and the "positive morality" of the devastation of the Japanese cities to the Allies. We search in vain for such "positiveness" in any ethics.

For many it will be difficult to understand this cowardly Christian for not being able to see Jesus in khaki, grenades dangling from his belt, a machine gun over his shoulder, and shouting to those under his command: "Come on, fellows, we must kill those dirty bastards." If someone would remonstrate with the Pacifist about his illicit language, he would gape at that person with unbelieving astonishment. When finally he recovers from his shock, most likely he would answer the person who exhorted him, and maybe with a touch of chagrin: "Jesus would call them bastards a thousand times, before He would mow them down in cold blood, and send them to a graceless hell." Perhaps, the Pacifist, after this sudden response, would go on musing on the problem of values and obscenities. Most likely, he would be sorry for the language used.

Finally, not in exhaustion, but rather the end of this exercise, these non-seeing, stubborn, cop-out Christians can be faulted further for being so naive, as to see eye to eye with one late British New Testament scholar, C. H. Dodd, at least on some of his conclusions in his Biblical exegesis. Dodd was so "irresponsible" that he saw Romans 12 and 13 as a single, interwoven fabric. He further came to this conclusion: "...Civil government...is there to support the cause of right, and to enforce just retribution on wrongdoing...." This latter function, he argues, is the application of wrath as Paul defines it in Romans. "The social degradation," he goes on, "which results from sin, is the most radical manifestation of the same principle. The Christian order of society rests on a different and higher principle, which was espoused in Chapter xii and is succinctly stated in xiii, 8-10. The Christian takes no part in the administration of the retributive system,. but, insofar as it serves moral ends, he must submit to it."

With Luther, one might even hear these foolish Christians affirm: "Here we stand, we can do no other, so help me [us] God!"

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Afghanistan

Written by Stan Penner

In regard to the tragedy of Vietnam, the chief architect and most prominent promoter of that war, Robert McNamara now says, “… we were wrong, terribly wrong.” Those very same words may yet be spoken in regard to Afghanistan. The Russians, with some 120,000 troops tried to subdue that country and could not (More than 13,000 soldiers and 500,000 Afghans died.). When Gorbachev came to power he tried to extricate Russia from that horrible conflict and, using a political officer’s words, read the following to the Politburo, “Why do we have to kill civilians, destroy villages, burn down settlements? What are we fighting for?” (Readers Digest) It took another two years for Russia to get out of that quagmire. It is my hope and prayer that we people on a planet spinning through space (literally), will come up-and soon too- with better ways of solving conflicts than to do it with evermore ferocious methods of maiming and killing. We get sick and die all too soon as it is. Let’s help each other, not hurt each other.

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Soldiers Can Choose

Written by Stan Penner

Soldiers Can Choose to Stop Fighting was the title of the speech at the Veterans for Peace National Convention in Seattle given on Aug. 12, 2006, by Lt. Ehren Watada who refused to go to Iraq to fight. He wants no part in an illegal and unjust war (The vets who’ve “been there” gave him a standing ovation). It’s very difficult for a soldier on the battlefield to go against even immoral orders, but it has happened, and should happen a whole lot more. No soldiers should obey immoral orders, but, because of the pressure, they do. It may be of interest that Omar Bradley, a U.S. five star general, known as the GI’s general, and field commander of 1.3 million men in the Second World War has said, “As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.” That rules out fighting in any and all wars. Makes sense, somehow, I think. We humans will have a much better world when we help, not maim and kill, each other.

Sincerely,
Stan Penner

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Can't Force the Peace

From Winnipeg Sun, May 4, 2005

The terrible things happening in Iraq (Bloodbath at funeral; 116 killed in Iraq in four days, Associated Press, May 2) bring to mind a quotation from Albert Einstein: "Peace cannot be kept by force. It must be achieved by understanding."

Stan Penner

(We're not going to argue with Einstein.)

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Supper

From Stan Penner

For years my family and I lived in northern Manitoba, Canada where a number of our friends and neighbours were hunters and trappers. Killing animals, of course, was rather routine for them. Sometimes, when these friends and neighbours became angry, it could be dangerous.

One time, two of them (one had already served time for murder) became angry with each other. The whole community was tense wondering what would happen. Guns and knives were always ready.

After awhile, things settled down and I asked one of the two (the one who had served the time for murder) what had happened. He said, “I invited Thomas (not his real name) over for supper.” They were on good terms again and the whole community could relax and go back to its regular activities.

Moral of story: In the Middle East, here in North America, and everywhere else, it’s time that we people (yes, leaders, but all the rest of us too) from different cultures, different faiths, different colours, different political persuasions, etc., etc. invite each other “for supper.” Miracles can happen with something as simple as that. But we must actually do it, not just think we should.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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Thoughts on Peace

From Stan Penner

In regard to the war effort, Tony Campolo is quoted in Christian Week, Nov. 27, 2001, as follows: “I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear `overcome evil with good.’ They don’t want to hear `those who live by the sword die by the sword.’ They don’t want to hear `if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.’ They don’t want to hear `blessed are the merciful.’ They don’t want to hear `love your enemies.”

In regard to Jesus’ crucifixion, Paul Tillich, in his book, The New Being, writes: “Trembling and shaking the earth pointed to another ground on which the earth itself rests: the self-surrendering love on which all earthly powers and values concentrate their hostility and which they cannot conquer.”

According to what Campolo says, one could ask whether most American churches (Canadian, and other churches, too) have now joined the world in also concentrating their hostility on the self-surrendering love that Tillich writes about. How does the Church regard, for instance, conscientious objectors to war? I have a pastor friend in the U.S. who before 9/11 was totally against war, and now he is behind America’s war in Iraq with a passion and is very unhappy with people who are conscientious objectors to war. It’s not a good thought but if it’s true, or even only partly true, that the Church now reacts in hostility to self-surrendering love, it is my hope and prayer that those churches which have joined in such hostility will repent and work even with enemies, and these days one could say especially with enemies, and let the self-surrendering love of the One we trust our very souls to, guide us in a world where hate and killing, even for Christians, seem evermore the norm.

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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Look at the faces! Look at the faces!

From Stan Penner

April 22, 2004

Dear Editor:

Recently (April 16, 2004), in an Associated Press article, I read where Lance Cpl. Tom Browne in Fallujah, Iraq, with the corpse of a suspected insurgent baking in the sun nearby, and admitting that he has killed several rebels so far, says, “I don’t even think about those people as people.”

I feel sorry for the dead because lives have been snuffed out, and all lives are very precious, whether American, Iraqi, or any other (just ask a mother), but I also feel sorry for soldier Browne because he has had to steel himself to the extent indicated by his remark. Killing people, and then seeing the dead “baking in the sun,” is not easy. Like the Vietnam vet put it, “I emptied the whole clip into him; then I cried.” I suspect that Lance Cpl. Browne, like countless other soldiers before him, will suffer over those deaths, if not now, then later. (Years ago, in Northern Manitoba, at the request of the R.C.M.P., I identified the body of a young man shot and killed. I can still see him lying on the floor, mouth wide open, arm behind his head, cold in death. Scenes like that just keep coming back.)

A soldier during a war wrote home, “ It’s so hard when I am up close. When I see the faces of the people, I can’t bring myself to kill them. But when I am farther away just shooting artillery shells, then I can do it, as long as I don’t see their faces.”

Soldiers, everywhere, before you kill, look at the faces; look at the faces! Politicians, everywhere, before you send the young off to kill, in your mind’s eye, look at those faces! In fact, all people on this planet whirling around the sun, no matter from what country or ideology, let’s look at each other’s faces, see the common humanity there and then seek to help each other, not hurt and kill each other. Let’s redouble our efforts in bringing about peace where there is now hatred and war.

Stan Penner

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Thoughts from a January 10, 2004 Letter to the Editor

by Stan Penner

Violence causes dehumanization and a lot of violence is happening in Iraq. In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, young Calvin questions his father, “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?” Another question could be, “How does killing a hundred thousand Iraqis, make Iraq a better country?” And, again, “What does all that killing in Iraq do to those who actually do it (both sides)? Killing people can be extremely difficult. A soldier wrote home, “It’s so hard when I am up close. When I see the faces of the people, I can’t bring myself to kill them. But when I am farther away just shooting artillery shells then I can do it, as long as I don’t see their faces.” Sad to say, young men, and now sometimes women, too, often not past their teens, are expected to be hardened killers. As George McGovern, during his 1972 presidential campaign put it, "I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying.” Or let’s listen to some words from the book Soldiers by John Keegan et al., “Old soldiers never die, but ninety-nine soldiers in a hundred are pitiably young, and they die in their millions, without beginning to guess why it is that life asks that of them.” Who speaks for them? MOTHERS OF THE WORLD, DON’T ALLOW THAT! SPEAK UP! Don’t let your children die in their millions, and when they’re pitiably young yet, and, according to Keegan, most don’t even know why they’re fighting, killing, and dying. (Fathers, of course, too, should speak up but if fathers can’t, or won’t stop wars, maybe the women will.) When Dan Rather was on a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, he went into the hold of the ship and heard only one word from the lips of those wounded young soldiers. What was the word you may well ask. It was “MOTHER.” As Dan Rather puts it, “None called for father, or for doctor or nurse. Only mother.” Mothers, are you listening?

Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner

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"These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." - Acts 17:6

And now look at the ninth verse. What a turning of the world upside down that is! You walk through London, and who are the men that we put upon our columns and pillars, and upon our park gates, and so on? Read the ninth verse, and see how that turns the world upside down. There upon the very top of the world, high, high up, can be seen the armless sleeve of a Nelson: there he stands, high exalted above his fellows; and there, in another place, with a long file up his back, stands a duke; and in another place, riding upon a war horse, is a mighty man of war. These are the world's blest heroes. Go into the capital of what empire you choose to select, and you shall see that the blessed men, who are put upon pedestals, and who have statues erected to their memory, who are put into our St. Paul's Cathedral, and our Westminster Abbey, are not exactly the men mentioned in the ninth verse. Let us read it. "Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God." Ah! but you do not often bless the peace-makers, do you? The man who comes between two beligerents, and bears the stroke himself—the man who will lie down on the earth, and plead with others that they would cease from warfare—these are the blessed. How rarely are they set on high. They are generally set aside, as people who cannot be blessed, even though it seem that they try to make others so. Here is the world turned upside down. The warrior with his garment stained in blood, is put into the ignoble earth, to die and rot; but the peace-maker is lifted up, and God's crown of blessing is put round about his head, and men one day shall see it, and struck with admiration they shall lament their own fully, that they exalted the blood-red sword of the warrior, but that they did rend the modest mantle of the noon who did make peace among mankind.

I have next to remark, that the Christian religion turns the world upside down in its maxims. I will just quote a few texts which show this very clearly. "It was said by them of old time, eye for eye and tooth for tooth; but I say unto you, resist not evil" It has generally been held by each of us, that we are not to allow anyone to infringe upon our rights; but the Saviour says, "Whosoever would sue thee at the law and take thy cloak, let him take thy coat also." "If any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn unto him the other also." If these precepts were kept, would it not turn the world upside down? "It has been said by them of old time, love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy;" but Jesus Christ said, "Let love be unto all men." He commands us to love our enemies, and to pray for them who despitefully use us. He says, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him, and if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." This would indeed be turning the world upside down; for what would become of our war ships and our warriors, if at the port-holes where now we put our cannons, we should have sent out to some burning city of our enemies—for instance, to burning Sebastapol,—if we had sent to the houseless inhabitants, who had been driven from their homes, barrels of beef, and bundles of bread and clothes, to supply their wants. That would have been a reversal of all human policy, but yet it would have been just the carrying out of Christ's law, after all. So shall it be in the days that are to come, our enemies shall be loved, and our foemen shall be fed.

And to conclude our Saviour's sermon, notice once more, that we find in this world a race of persons who have always been hated—a class of men who have been hunted like the wild goat; persecuted, afflicted, and tormented. As an old divine says, "The Christian has been looked upon as if he had a wolfs head, for as the wolf was hunted for his head everywhere, so has the Christian been hunted to the uttermost ends of the earth." And in reading history we are apt to say, "These persecuted persons occupy the lowest room of blessedness; these who have been sawn asunder, who have been burned, who have seen their houses destroyed, and have been driven as houseless exiles into every part of the earth—these men who have wandered about in sheep's skins, and goat's skins,—these are the very least of mankind." Not so. The gospel reverses all this, and it says, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." I repeat it: The whole of these beatitudes are just in conflict with the world's opinion. and we may quote the words of the Jew, and say, "Jesus Christ was 'the man who turned the world upside down.'" Spurgeon's words are as relevant today as they were in 1858. I hope and pray that Christian preachers everywhere will have the courage to preach as Spurgeon did in 1858. If they did, I daresay they, too, would “turn the world upside down." But, sad to say, most churches (but not all) seem to have, as Dr. W.E. Orchard puts it in Theodore Epp's book "Should God's People Partake in War?,"...sacrificed the teaching of Jesus to exigencies of the state."

Below are some more statements from Should God’s People Partake in War? "made by men who regard war as an outstanding evil" (Epp). A number of them are army officers and statesmen.

"War is the only game in which both sides lose." Walter Scott

"There never was a good war, or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin

"The loudest and most horrible scornful laughter of deepest hell is war." Klopstock

"War is the sum total of human villainies." John Wesley

"War is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable." Erasmus

"War is the greatest existing menace to society, and has become so expensive and destructive, that it not only causes the stupendous burdens of taxation now afflicting the nation; but threatens to engulf and destroy our civilization." Senator Borah

"Unless some move be made, we ask ourselves whether we are thus doomed to go headlong down through destructive war into darkness and barbarism." General Pershing

"The more I study the history of the world the more I am convinced of the inability of brute force to create anything durable." Napolean, on St. Helena

"There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword." General Grant (This statement contradicts the general belief, that "War is a necessary evil." Epp’s words)

"We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers." Blain Pascal

"If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another." The Duke of Wellington

"I confess without shame that I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation-War is Hell." General Sherman

The noted philosopher William James of Harvard, in his Varieties of Religious Experience quoted approvingly an Austrian army officer: "If the soldier is to be good for anything as a soldier, he must be exactly the opposite of a reasoning and thinking man. War and even peace require of a soldier absolutely peculiar standards of morality. The recruit brings with him common notions of which he must seek immediately to rid himself. The most barbaric and pagan tendencies in men come to life in war, and for war's use they are incommensurably good."

"War is not only the denial of Christianity, but of all the most sacred things of life." Major General John O’Ryan

"War exhibits principally two characteristics that mark it as essentially devilish, namely, murder and deception." Phillip Mauro

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Two Quotes from Minnesota Veterans for Peace

From Helen Keller

"Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!"

From Mark Twain

"The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: ‘It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war.’ Then the few will shout even louder…Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it...Next, statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

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Which Will It Be?

From Evangelical Pastor Greg Boyd, Maplewood, Minnesota

"When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

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Remembering Cec Muldrew

by Anne Lindsey

I'm sad, once again, to have to report on the passing of another of Manitoba's special citizens - someone who has supported the Eco-Network for many, many years - Cecil Muldrew.

Cec was known to everyone involved in any cause for peace, justice and the environment. He was a generous, energetic and passionate soul - whether it was about the value of a vegan diet, about the need for planting trees, or the need to end war.

In his career as an educator, Cec was revered and respected by colleagues and students alike. In retirement, he continued to educate, and moreover, to "activate". A veteran of World War II, Cec was outspoken about the injustices of conflict, and played an active role in Veterans Against Nuclear Arms and Project Peacemakers. He spent his last years living a simple, but in his words, enriching, life at Victoria Beach - where he became involved in the Manitoba Model Forest and enjoyed his other passion, nature, to the fullest.

At his memorial service, the following words, written by Mark Belletini, were spoken. They are reprinted here, because this is so accurate a description of Cec, and so much what he would want of his fellow travellers.

And now, let us turn our face toward our living:
Go in peace.
Live simply, gently, at home with yourselves.
Act justly.
Speak justly.

Remember the depth of your compassion.
Forget not your power in the days of your powerlessness.
Do not desire to be wealthier than your peers
And stint not your hand of charity.

Practice forbearance.
Speak truth or speak not.
Take care of yourself as bodies,
For you are a good gift.

Crave peace for all people in the world,
Beginning with yourselves,
And go as you go with the dream of that peace
Alive in your hearts.

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