Showing posts with label Peacemaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peacemaking. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Religion In The Public Square - Pope Francis advocates for peace building not war


VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Concern about the growing tensions between the United States and Iran has been bubbling within the Vatican, as Pope Francis and high-ranking prelates urge global leaders to employ self-restraint and dialogue.
“Dear brothers and sisters, in many parts of the world there is a terrible feeling of tension in the air,” Pope Francis told the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square after his Angelus prayer on Sunday (Jan. 5).
“War brings only death and destruction,” he continued. “I call upon all parties involved to fan the flame of dialogue and self-control, and to banish the shadow of enmity.”
Though Francis did not refer directly to Iran or the United States, the timing of his words coincided with the rising hostility between the two countries, which led Vatican observers to view the pope’s words as a direct appeal to the two parties in question.
For more click here.
Editor's note:
Here at UU A Way Of Life, we remind Unitarian Univeralists that we covenant together to affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. We at UU A Way Of Life will do everything we can to prevent escalation of war and work for peaceful resolutions to internation conflicts and disagreements. A focus of these efforts is supporting political candidates who are peace builders and not war hawks.

Monday, November 11, 2019

November 11, 2019, Veteran's Day - Let's honor the conscientious objectors too


Today is veteran's day. My father is a veteran of World War II and he was proud of his service and I am too. My son was a Medic in the Army in the late 80s and I honor his service, but I also honor those who objected to the increased militarism of the United States who has used its power in violent ways in immoral wars such as Viet Nam and Iraq.

The use of violence to solve international disputes has led the world down a dangerous path with the false notion of what Walter Wink calls "redemptive violence."

Most major religions abhor violence and do not teach it whether it be Jesus, Buddha, or modern practitioners of nonviolence such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Daniel and Phil Berrigan, Muhammed Ali, and my friend, John Honeck, and many others.

I worry about a nation that glorifies its warriors and its military might more than its peacemakers and nonviolent practitioners who continually try to teach us that for human kind there just might be a better way.

To read more about conscientious objection click here.


Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Should UU be a peace church?


The Jacobin magazine, Summer 2019 issue has an article entitled "Dismantling the school-to-soldier pipeline."

Anyone under the age of eighteen should not be recruited or be part of the military system. I believe this is a United Nations protocol, and in my view the United States doesn’t follow it.

The Pentagon’s own research shows that, while JROTC doesn’t really improve academic outcomes, it works well as a turnstile for the armed forces. It’s obvious why the program is so strongly supported by the Pentagon: about 40 percent of students who spend at least three years in JROTC go into the military after graduation.

Instead of the legal draft we fought against during the Vietnam War, we started looking at the “poverty draft”: people being pushed into the military by their economic and social status. We realized pretty quickly that the poverty draft needed to be addressed differently than the legal draft. We couldn’t just go out and moralize about participation in war. We needed to actually offer something as an alternative to young people.

Did you know that the Pentagon and public schools sponsor Junior ROTC in high schools across the country and they target poor kids?

For more click here.

According to Wikipedia there are over 3,200 JROTC units in high schools in the U.S.

Should Unitarian Universalism be a peace church? What would the UUA say about JROTC?

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Seeking Shelter: A Story of Place, Faith, and Resistance on Block Island off of Rhode Island


Check out "Seeking Shelter" a 30 minute documentary about Block Island in Long Island Sound where William Stringfellow, Daniel Berrigan and others created a community of love to change the world.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A root of violence is eliminationist and exlusionary thinking


Last Sunday, 4/11/10, I led a 2 hour class on "Nonviolent approaches to peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and peacemaking" for our Second Sunday activities at the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

3 people came.

We talked a bit about the UUA Statement Of Conscience on Peacemaking and whether the UUA should become a peace denomination.

What we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality.

I am going to be writing a few articles on our discussion because I think some good ideas came up that should be preserved and circulated.

The first idea that impressed me was the idea that the one of the roots of violence is splitting - us/them- thinking, talking, and acting. "You are either with us or against us." Bush was good at this, and said it many times during his administration. Those of us of Viet Nam vintage remember the bumper stickers from that era which read "Love it or leave it!", and "Better dead than red!"

Human beings have a strong penchant for demonizing and objectifying the enemy. It makes it easier to kill them because they are perceived as less than human, inferior to us, and deserving of elimination.

What is the antidote to exclusionary and eliminationist thinking?

I think that it is encompassed in UUs first principle, appreciating "the inherent worth and dignity of every person."

Unfortunately, as Ken Wilbur notes, human beings can be thought of as being at three levels of consciousness, egocentric, ethnocentric, and worldcentric or cosmocentric. Ken says that 70% of human beings never develop beyond the ethnocentric stage of consciousness. Unitarian Universalists who understand and actually practice their faith are at the worldcentric stage of consciousness, but if what Wilbur says is true, we clearly are in a minority.

As a church we witness to an inclusionary position and we recognize and act on the belief that we all are part of the interdependent web of all existence which flies in the face of the Us/Them dichotomy.

Our small faith filled group on this past Sunday morning want something more for our world than Us/Them thinking, talking, and acting. We want the UUA to recognize that this kind of splitting is the root of violence and that we have to reach across the divide and recognize that the enemy is us. We are hoping that the SOC on peacemaking passes in the GA this June.

This is article #1 in a series on Nonviolent Approaches to peace.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Dennis Kucinich and Walter Cronkite talk about creating the Department Of Peace



I think most Unitarian Universalists support the creation of a Department Of Peace. Peacebuilding means the creation of institutional supports for peacemaking and peacekeeping.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Remember Oscar Romero





I certainly hope that the Peacemaking resolution passes at GA this summer. Somebody has to turn the militarism in our American society around. Let us UUs be a enlightened witnesses to our governments sinful policies.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

March 24th, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. opposed publically the Viet Nam war for the first time

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led an anti-war march for the first time in Chicago, on March 24, 1967 opposing the Vietnam War by saying:

“ Our arrogance can be our doom. It can bring the curtains down on our national drama . . . Ultimately, a great nation is a compassionate nation The bombs in Vietnam explode at home—they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America . . . .”

I was 21 and could have been drafted except that I was married and had a daughter so I was 3A for my draft status which meant I couldn't be draft yet. Many of my friends were and one of my best friends was killed. He was a medic and hadn't been in Viet Nam 2 months. 38 years later I bought the house he lived in as a child at an auction and I live in it today. Small world.

Monday, March 1, 2010

What we could do if the U.S. were to close its military bases overseas

Hastings On Nonviolence blog had a wonderful article posted on 02/19/10 entitled "Outvasion" which describes the idea of the U.S. closing its military bases around the world. Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

The US has a military presence in 153 of the 194 nation-states on Earth, some 1,000 (approximately) bases large and small. This is an astonishing and abiding source of anger against the US.

Hastings recommend that we close most of these bases and with the money we would save increase the Peace Corps to help other nations. It is a great idea!

To read the whole article, click here.

Friday, January 8, 2010

War Crimes in our midst

Thom Hartman - Poem on war crimes

Will you ignore or provide witness?

Monday, January 4, 2010

Nonviolence is necessary

"It wasn't that the twentieth century had lost either the talent or the taste for the projects of mass murder - the autos-de-fe staged by Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler on a scale undreamed of in the theology of Pope Innocent IV, but the miraculous births of Fat Man and Little Boy in the cradle at Los Alamos had placed the fire of heaven under the control of the secular authorities, into the hands of the wise scientists and caring statesmen. What had been divine had become human, the hydrogen bomb revealed as both symbol and freight-fowarding agent for the Day Of Judgment."

Lewis Lampham, p.15, Lapham's Quaterly, Vol III, No.1

And now that we can exterminate ourselves, what do we do? We have the power of God at our disposal. Learning nonviolence is no longer an option if humanity is to survive, it is a necessity. Unitarian Universalists who say they believe in the respect for the interdependent web of all existence must put themselves on the line. Do we have the courage, the moral fiber, the spiritual strength to become a witness to the world that nonviolence is no longer a choice but a moral mandate?

Sunday, January 3, 2010

How is your congregation voting on the Peacemaking Statement Of Concscience?

The Peace Ministry Network (PMN) will be hosting a Tele-Forum on January 10th at 8 pm EST. This forum will be dedicated to discussing the current draft Peacemaking Statement of Conscience (SOC). Together we will explore what we like or dislike about the current draft.

Since this draft will be redrafted twice more, it would seem best if we spent our time (one hour) together looking at what content should be in our concise, inclusive, and definitive SOC rather than "wordsmithing". The PMN is here to assist in this Study Action process and we feel that a direct interchange between our various UU peacemakers will help this process along and hopefully we will end up with a Peacemaking Statement that we all can be proud of.

Please call 712 432 1699 and when asked key in the access code 309780#. Please note that normal phone charges will apply.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

UU Peacemakers Web Site is really kewl!

Check out the UU Peacemakers web site by clicking here.

Achievement of freedom occurs in exact proportion to our achievement of nonviolence

I am adding a new tag on the UU A Way Of Life entitled, Peacemaking, today.

"We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word, and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it. the attainment of freedom, whether for a person, a nation or a world, must be in exact proportion to the attainment of nonviolence for each."

Gandhi

What does Gandhi mean that our achievement of nonviolence in the world is in exact proporation to the attainment of freedom?

Interesting idea that the United States, as the super power of the world, and who produces the most weaponry in the world, doesn't seem to understand. Could it be that the crazy idea of "fighting for our freedom" is an oxymoron?

We can never become truly free as human beings until we have achieved nonviolence. Wow! What a remarkable and heretical idea.
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