In 1945 the US Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Fred Koramatsu for violating the Exclusion Order issued in 1942 which sent all citizens of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps. Fred, a life long resident of San Leandro, California, was simultaneously excluded from leaving the area; therefore, his only wrongdoing was his ethnicity of birth. Justice Hugo Black writing for the 6 justices who affirmed the conviction, rationalized: “Hardships are a part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships.”
More than 50 years later, Koramatsu received the Presidential Medal for Freedom, for his courage and persistence in opposing injustice. In accepting the award Fred reminded the nation: “we should be vigilant to make sure this will never happen again.” At Holden we studied the brief Koramatsu filed with the Supreme Court in 2004 urging them to hear the appeals of the Guantanamo detainees challenging the legality of their incarceration. Among the many instances of the misuse of the rubric of “military necessity” to violate civil liberties, Koramatsu quoted a distinguished legal panel reviewing the government response to the Red Scare in the 1920s:
...and we may well wonder in view of the precedents now established whether constitutional government as heretofore maintained in this republic could survive another great war even victoriously waged.”
Questions we wrestled with included:
Why does the Koramatsu case matter to us as Christians?
Why does it matter to us as citizens in 2007?
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Peacemaking
What are Christian responses to Empire in a time of war?
Without repentance, a nation can lose its soul. Lincoln began this idea for the US in his 1863 Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, which ends with the famous line: “with malice toward none; with charity for all.” In the National Fast day Proclamation Lincoln asserted the biblical claim that a nation so blessed with liberty and equality “can long endure” only as it continually passes through the crucible of national self-interrogation and repentance, especially when that crucible comes in the shape of war. Lincoln understood this patriotism as obligating both the President and the citizens to “confess their [political] sins and transgressions” as a national practice of truth.[1]
Even-especially!-a presidential declaration of war did not suspend national interrogation and genuine repentance. Regardless of the nature or justification of war, repentance is necessary because accountability to God is paramount.
The Holden community, at the last session of God, War and the Law, brainstormed ideas beyond repentance as responses to war and violence, including:
1. Be faithful in small things, that’s where your strength is. Start with your next-door neighbor.
2. Don’t wait for the leaders!
3. Respectful relationships are the root of love and nonviolence.
4. Good works are links in the chain of love.
5. Peace begins with a smile.
6. Practice patience: seek first to understand before being understood.
7. Set aside your power and ego; begin the day with thanksgiving and be ready to accept forgiveness.
8. Redefine success in non-monetary terms.
9. Be open to true dialogue and changing your self.
10. Look for common ground.
11. Overcome fear, it leads to inhospitality.
12. Quit the myth of “melting pot.”
13. If the message of the church is exclusive, remember that God is love and we are all God’s children.
14. As we die and rise again, the church need do the same.
Peter Thompson
[1] Gary M. Simpson, “’By the dawn’s early light’: The Flag, the Interrogative, and the Whence and Wither of Normative Patriotism,” in Word & World, Vol. 23, no. 3 (St. Paul: Luther Seminary, Summer 2003)
Without repentance, a nation can lose its soul. Lincoln began this idea for the US in his 1863 Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, which ends with the famous line: “with malice toward none; with charity for all.” In the National Fast day Proclamation Lincoln asserted the biblical claim that a nation so blessed with liberty and equality “can long endure” only as it continually passes through the crucible of national self-interrogation and repentance, especially when that crucible comes in the shape of war. Lincoln understood this patriotism as obligating both the President and the citizens to “confess their [political] sins and transgressions” as a national practice of truth.[1]
Even-especially!-a presidential declaration of war did not suspend national interrogation and genuine repentance. Regardless of the nature or justification of war, repentance is necessary because accountability to God is paramount.
The Holden community, at the last session of God, War and the Law, brainstormed ideas beyond repentance as responses to war and violence, including:
1. Be faithful in small things, that’s where your strength is. Start with your next-door neighbor.
2. Don’t wait for the leaders!
3. Respectful relationships are the root of love and nonviolence.
4. Good works are links in the chain of love.
5. Peace begins with a smile.
6. Practice patience: seek first to understand before being understood.
7. Set aside your power and ego; begin the day with thanksgiving and be ready to accept forgiveness.
8. Redefine success in non-monetary terms.
9. Be open to true dialogue and changing your self.
10. Look for common ground.
11. Overcome fear, it leads to inhospitality.
12. Quit the myth of “melting pot.”
13. If the message of the church is exclusive, remember that God is love and we are all God’s children.
14. As we die and rise again, the church need do the same.
Peter Thompson
[1] Gary M. Simpson, “’By the dawn’s early light’: The Flag, the Interrogative, and the Whence and Wither of Normative Patriotism,” in Word & World, Vol. 23, no. 3 (St. Paul: Luther Seminary, Summer 2003)
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Torture
Torture Definitions
Convention Against Torture (1984)
“…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person…”
Federal law
“…torture means an act committed by a person acting under color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering…”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Geneva Convention (1950) (treatment of prisoners of war)
“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatsoever.”
Yoo & Bebee Memo August 1, 2002 (Office of Legal Counsel):
"Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture … it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.”
What Yoo does not - and in the opinion of this author cannot - understand, is that these treaties reflect fundamental principles that lie at the very core of the military profession - principles that reflect a delicate balance between the necessities of war and the dictates of humanity.
What those who have, or do, serve in uniform on behalf of our nation intuitively understand is the implied covenant that exists between the armed forces and the nation under whose flag they fight, kill, destroy, and detain. The essence of this covenant is a willingness to engage in such conduct based on a belief that doing so will be consistent with the inherent notion of morality. Because members of the military profession have historically understood that preserving this sense of morality would be most severely stressed during armed conflict, they were at the forefront of developing non-negotiable principles to limit the brutality of conflict, and in so doing limit the corrosive moral consequence of conflict for those called upon to engage therein. When Senator McCain reminds us that the conduct we endorse during armed conflict reflects more about us than it does our enemy, it reflects his intuitive appreciation of this truism.
Geoffrey S. Corn
Law Professor and former Lt Col. U.S. Army
Peter Thompson
Convention Against Torture (1984)
“…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person…”
Federal law
“…torture means an act committed by a person acting under color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering…”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Geneva Convention (1950) (treatment of prisoners of war)
“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatsoever.”
Yoo & Bebee Memo August 1, 2002 (Office of Legal Counsel):
"Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture … it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.”
What Yoo does not - and in the opinion of this author cannot - understand, is that these treaties reflect fundamental principles that lie at the very core of the military profession - principles that reflect a delicate balance between the necessities of war and the dictates of humanity.
What those who have, or do, serve in uniform on behalf of our nation intuitively understand is the implied covenant that exists between the armed forces and the nation under whose flag they fight, kill, destroy, and detain. The essence of this covenant is a willingness to engage in such conduct based on a belief that doing so will be consistent with the inherent notion of morality. Because members of the military profession have historically understood that preserving this sense of morality would be most severely stressed during armed conflict, they were at the forefront of developing non-negotiable principles to limit the brutality of conflict, and in so doing limit the corrosive moral consequence of conflict for those called upon to engage therein. When Senator McCain reminds us that the conduct we endorse during armed conflict reflects more about us than it does our enemy, it reflects his intuitive appreciation of this truism.
Geoffrey S. Corn
Law Professor and former Lt Col. U.S. Army
Peter Thompson
Empire: The Idolatry of Power
Today’s empire requires neither annexation nor traditional expansion. Empire is “a situation in which a single state shapes the behavior of others, whether directly or indirectly, partially or completely, by means that can range from the outright use of force through intimidation, dependency, inducements, and even inspirations.” An empire is any “large, ambitious, and expanding nation determined to grow in size, power, and influence – a nation determined to overcome all obstacles that block its path to greatness.” One prominent author has coined the term “empire lite” to describe America’s empire of free market economy, democracy and human rights, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known. Others put it more bluntly: The American Empire amounts to armed American global supremacy.
A year after 9/11 President Bush stood before the Statue of Liberty and said:
“The ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it. May God bless America.”
The intensely theological language in John 1:5 is in the past tense, “…and the darkness did not overcome it.” The use of the past tense is an acknowledgement of the accomplished wonder of Christ revealing his relationship to God and the salvation brought to all people. Christ is the life and the ‘true light’ and although threatened by the spiritual darkness of ignorance and confronted with rejection, the light was not overcome.
Bush’s rendering, on the other hand, strips the actual meaning of the text in order to give rhetorical significance to American values-freedom, human dignity, peace, and hope. By changing the tense, the light became descriptive of America’s present role in foreign affairs and the victory over darkness was made into something to still happen in the future. This use of scripture and the substitution of America for Christ are idolatrous.[1]
Peter Thompson
[1] Stephen B. Chapman, “Imperial Exegesis: When Caesar Interprets Scripture” in Anxious About Empire, ed. Wes Avram (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004)
A year after 9/11 President Bush stood before the Statue of Liberty and said:
“The ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it. May God bless America.”
The intensely theological language in John 1:5 is in the past tense, “…and the darkness did not overcome it.” The use of the past tense is an acknowledgement of the accomplished wonder of Christ revealing his relationship to God and the salvation brought to all people. Christ is the life and the ‘true light’ and although threatened by the spiritual darkness of ignorance and confronted with rejection, the light was not overcome.
Bush’s rendering, on the other hand, strips the actual meaning of the text in order to give rhetorical significance to American values-freedom, human dignity, peace, and hope. By changing the tense, the light became descriptive of America’s present role in foreign affairs and the victory over darkness was made into something to still happen in the future. This use of scripture and the substitution of America for Christ are idolatrous.[1]
Peter Thompson
[1] Stephen B. Chapman, “Imperial Exegesis: When Caesar Interprets Scripture” in Anxious About Empire, ed. Wes Avram (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004)
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Habeas Corpus
The Military Comission Act of 2006 removes the right of habeas corpus for aliens detained at Guantanamo. It's constitutionality is being tested in the Courts. It is helpful to review the role of habeas corpus in understanding its importance to the US legal system.
In the 1600’s in England, active Puritan congregations bent on reforming the world were ready to defy the highest powers of church and state. They resisted injustice on grounds of individual conscience, natural law (as reflected in the Bible), the Magna Carta, and other precedents in English legal history. Puritans such as John Hampden, John Lilburne, Walter Udall, William Penn, and hundreds of others, by their open disobedience to existing law, laid a foundation for the future of civil liberties, both in England and in America.
“Freeborn” John Lilburne printed and distributed unlicensed Puritan books and pamphlets in London, for which he was arrested in December 1637 and brought before the Court of Star Chamber. The Star Chamber was an infamous inquisitional court which required an oath in advance of any charges being made. Lilburne refused to take the oath, asserting that swearing an oath violated his sacred obligation and further, that he should not required to be a witness against himself. His sentence was to be whipped at the cart-tail from the Fleet prison to the Palace Yard, Westminster,[1] where he was to stand in the pillory, then to be imprisoned until he conformed and admitted his guilt. The sentence was carried out on 18 April 1638 with Lilburne loudly declaring that he had committed no crime against the law or the state, but that he was a victim of the bishops' cruelty. Lilburne's punishment turned into an anti-government demonstration, with cheering crowds supporting him.
Lilburne was kept in prison for nearly three years. During his imprisonment, he wrote many pamphlets that publicized the injustices committed against him. In November 1640, King Charles reluctantly summoned the Parliament. Within a week of its meeting, Oliver Cromwell drew attention to Lilburne's case in a passionate speech denouncing the tyranny of the bishops, and Parliament ordered his release. Lilburne was later paid reparations by the House of Lords in recompense for his internment, and in 1641 the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was abolished by statute. Lilburne’s case was emblematic of the Puritans’ use of the writ of habeas corpus to oppose the oppression of the Crown. The case was also the seminal event in the establishment of the United States’ Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Why is the right of an alien to challange the legality his custody important to a US citizen?
[1] Cart-tailing involved being dragged behind a cart while state agents and onlookers flogged the prisoner en route to the prison.
In the 1600’s in England, active Puritan congregations bent on reforming the world were ready to defy the highest powers of church and state. They resisted injustice on grounds of individual conscience, natural law (as reflected in the Bible), the Magna Carta, and other precedents in English legal history. Puritans such as John Hampden, John Lilburne, Walter Udall, William Penn, and hundreds of others, by their open disobedience to existing law, laid a foundation for the future of civil liberties, both in England and in America.
“Freeborn” John Lilburne printed and distributed unlicensed Puritan books and pamphlets in London, for which he was arrested in December 1637 and brought before the Court of Star Chamber. The Star Chamber was an infamous inquisitional court which required an oath in advance of any charges being made. Lilburne refused to take the oath, asserting that swearing an oath violated his sacred obligation and further, that he should not required to be a witness against himself. His sentence was to be whipped at the cart-tail from the Fleet prison to the Palace Yard, Westminster,[1] where he was to stand in the pillory, then to be imprisoned until he conformed and admitted his guilt. The sentence was carried out on 18 April 1638 with Lilburne loudly declaring that he had committed no crime against the law or the state, but that he was a victim of the bishops' cruelty. Lilburne's punishment turned into an anti-government demonstration, with cheering crowds supporting him.
Lilburne was kept in prison for nearly three years. During his imprisonment, he wrote many pamphlets that publicized the injustices committed against him. In November 1640, King Charles reluctantly summoned the Parliament. Within a week of its meeting, Oliver Cromwell drew attention to Lilburne's case in a passionate speech denouncing the tyranny of the bishops, and Parliament ordered his release. Lilburne was later paid reparations by the House of Lords in recompense for his internment, and in 1641 the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was abolished by statute. Lilburne’s case was emblematic of the Puritans’ use of the writ of habeas corpus to oppose the oppression of the Crown. The case was also the seminal event in the establishment of the United States’ Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.
Why is the right of an alien to challange the legality his custody important to a US citizen?
[1] Cart-tailing involved being dragged behind a cart while state agents and onlookers flogged the prisoner en route to the prison.
Civil Disobedience and Relationship
In the act of civil disobedience, we meet particular people like ourselves, not ‘the state,’ and the most enduring thing we can achieve through such act is, in the end, our relationship to the people we touch and who touch us. Our hope should not be for any strategic victories over such representatives of the state, but rather loving nonviolent relationships with them in the midst of the arrests, trials, and jail sentences.
The danger of seeing civil disobedience as an assertion of conscience over against the evil of the state is that it may obscure the opportunity for relationship.
“How many martyrs ever had any practical programs for reforming society? Since politics weren’t working anyway, one had to find an act beyond politics: a religious act, a liturgical act, and act of witness. If only a small number of people could offer this kind of witness, it would purify the world. Wasn’t there a time in England when every Quaker was in jail? What a great scene that must have been! Perhaps that’s where all Christians should be today.” Fr. Daniel Berrigan
We are called to be faithful, not successful.
Peter Thompson
The danger of seeing civil disobedience as an assertion of conscience over against the evil of the state is that it may obscure the opportunity for relationship.
“How many martyrs ever had any practical programs for reforming society? Since politics weren’t working anyway, one had to find an act beyond politics: a religious act, a liturgical act, and act of witness. If only a small number of people could offer this kind of witness, it would purify the world. Wasn’t there a time in England when every Quaker was in jail? What a great scene that must have been! Perhaps that’s where all Christians should be today.” Fr. Daniel Berrigan
We are called to be faithful, not successful.
Peter Thompson
Sunday, March 11, 2007
A Nonviolent Culture?
Girard: Evolving Toward a Culture Beyond Violence
Renee Girard[1], a French anthropologist who recently retired from Stanford University, sees the resurrection as a new way to nonviolence in our world. In his view, Jesus was the ultimate innocent victim, meaning a victim of injustice with whom we can identify. In Girard’s anthropology, human culture is founded on the majority building unanimity through scapegoating a victim, and that cyclical process of ongoing violence is both covered up and justified by the mythology of religion. Most of human history, before the death of Christ, founded religion on the “single victim mechanism” which relied upon the guilt of the scapegoat.
The cycle of violence originates for Girard in the inherent human characteristic of imitation, which, when fueled by desire, creates jealously and exploding competition that leads to conflict and violence. Satan, rather than a being, is this process of perverse mimicry which ends in violence. God and Satan, therefore, are the “arch models”: one whose disciples desire nothing by way of greed, the other who models greed for whatever is desired.
The concern for the just treatment of victims in the Psalms and Prophets, Girard concludes, comes to fruition in Jesus. Following Jesus is building non-exclusive communities (including the church) that function without scapegoats.
Questions:
1. Where do we see the contagious cycle of violence in our world? In ourselves?
2. Can viewing the crucifixion as: Jesus showing the world how to return love for violence, be reconciled with our ideas of salvation?
Rev. Dan Geslin
[1] Renee Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Marynoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1999)
Renee Girard[1], a French anthropologist who recently retired from Stanford University, sees the resurrection as a new way to nonviolence in our world. In his view, Jesus was the ultimate innocent victim, meaning a victim of injustice with whom we can identify. In Girard’s anthropology, human culture is founded on the majority building unanimity through scapegoating a victim, and that cyclical process of ongoing violence is both covered up and justified by the mythology of religion. Most of human history, before the death of Christ, founded religion on the “single victim mechanism” which relied upon the guilt of the scapegoat.
The cycle of violence originates for Girard in the inherent human characteristic of imitation, which, when fueled by desire, creates jealously and exploding competition that leads to conflict and violence. Satan, rather than a being, is this process of perverse mimicry which ends in violence. God and Satan, therefore, are the “arch models”: one whose disciples desire nothing by way of greed, the other who models greed for whatever is desired.
The concern for the just treatment of victims in the Psalms and Prophets, Girard concludes, comes to fruition in Jesus. Following Jesus is building non-exclusive communities (including the church) that function without scapegoats.
Questions:
1. Where do we see the contagious cycle of violence in our world? In ourselves?
2. Can viewing the crucifixion as: Jesus showing the world how to return love for violence, be reconciled with our ideas of salvation?
Rev. Dan Geslin
[1] Renee Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Marynoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1999)
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Just War
We discussed the various criteria of the Just War tradition, which serves historically as a troublesome link between religion and war. The tradition has been troublesome because it has been used in the hands of politicians to justify a continuous string of wars and other unjust actions and policies: the most infamous of which are the crusades and slavery.
The tradition is generally traced to Augustine in the 5th century, who at the time was defending the church from charges that it was at fault for the sacking of
“Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity, and waged only that God may by it deliver men from the necessity and preserve them in peace….Let necessity, therefore, and not your will, slay the enemy who fights you.”
The Achilles heels of Augustine’s theory, in my opinion, are two fold. First, Augustine bases the theory on an unrealistic assessment of the will of politicians in particular and humans in general. For the tradition to reflect Christian values the political leader need act without regard to self interest. For the soldier to act with right intention requires love of enemy in his heart as he vanquishes the enemy to rid the enemy of sin!
Second, Augustine combined the ideas that corporal punishment properly reflects parental love with Romans 13: 1-7 to conclude that war could be used in conversion of unbelievers to Christianity. “But while those are better who are guided aright by love, those are certainly more numerous who are corrected by fear.” Thus holy war and persecution of “savages” was justified by the tradition. A reading of the passages immediately preceding and following (Romans 12: 9-21; 13: 8-10) the language relied upon by Augustine shows Augustine’s reliance is misplaced and the vengeance that is God’s is not for the Christian to carry out.
The tradition has been modified and added to over the years and the US Catholic Bishops in 1983 adopted the following criteria for a justifiable war. These criteria are posed in a context of a presumption against war, as follows:
*********************
Presupposition: there is a “presupposition against war”
Jus ad bellum
Just cause:
To confront “a real and certain danger”
To protect innocent life.
To preserve conditions necessary for decent human existence.
To secure basic human rights.
Competent authority:
“In the catholic tradition the use of force has always been joined to the common good: war must be declared by those with responsibility for public order.”
Comparative justice:
Relative levels of right and wrong on both sides of a dispute; whether sufficient right exists to override the presumption against war.
Right intention:
“War can be initiated only for those reasons set forth above as a just cause.” During conflict, pursuit of peace and reconciliation, avoidance of unnecessary destruction, unreasonable conditions.
Last resort:
“For resort to a war to be justified, all reasonable alternatives must have been exhausted.”
Probability of success:
No use of force when the outcome will be “either disproportionate or futile”; yet “at times defense of key values, even against great odds, may be a ‘proportionate’ witness.”
Proportionality:
“The damage to be inflicted and the costs incurred by war must be proportionate to the good expected by taking up arms.”
Jus in
Proportionality:
Avoidance of “escalation to broader or total war” or “to the use of weapons of horrendous destructive potential.”
Discrimination:
“The principle prohibits directly intended attacks on non-combatants and non-military targets.”
*********************
War, Peace and God: A Lutheran Unified Approach (Gary Simpson, Augsburg Press, Summer 2007) claims the just war tradition when properly understood and applied reflects God’s desire for the strong moral restraint of war and for the wide rapid outbreak of just peacemaking. “A unified approach means that just war tradition retains moral worth to the extent that we keep it within the richer arc of God’s just peacemaking.”
It seems this brings us back to the issue of the character of God.
Because of its sorted history, should the just war tradition be banished to the dump? Is it too late to do so? Is its rehabilitation possible? Besides politicians, are Christians also part of the problem?
Peter Thompson
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Presidential War Powers vs. Civil Liberties
Fred Koramatsu
In 1945 the US Supreme court affirmed the conviction of Fred Koramatsu for violating the Exclusion Order issued in 1942 which sent all citizens of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps. Fred, a life long resident of San Leandro, California, was simultaneously excluded from leaving the area; therefore, his only wrongdoing was his ethnicity of birth. Justice Hugo Black writing for the 6 justices who affirmed the conviction, rationalized: “Hardships are a part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships.”
More than 50 years later, Koramatsu received the Presidential Medal for Freedom, for his courage and persistence in opposing injustice. In accepting the award Fred reminded the nation: “we should be vigilant to make sure this will never happen again.” At Holden we studied the brief Koramatsu filed with the Supreme Court in 2004 urging them to hear the appeals of the Guantanamo detainees challenging the legality of their incarceration. Among the many instances of the misuse of the rubric of “military necessity” to violate civil liberties, Koramatsu quoted a distinguished legal panel reviewing the government response to the Red Scare in the 1920s:
...and we may well wonder in view of the precedents now established whether constitutional government as heretofore maintained in this republic could survive another great war even victoriously waged.”
Questions we wrestled with included:
Why does the Koramatsu case matter to us as Christians?
Why does it matter to us as citizens in 2007?
In 1945 the US Supreme court affirmed the conviction of Fred Koramatsu for violating the Exclusion Order issued in 1942 which sent all citizens of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps. Fred, a life long resident of San Leandro, California, was simultaneously excluded from leaving the area; therefore, his only wrongdoing was his ethnicity of birth. Justice Hugo Black writing for the 6 justices who affirmed the conviction, rationalized: “Hardships are a part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships.”
More than 50 years later, Koramatsu received the Presidential Medal for Freedom, for his courage and persistence in opposing injustice. In accepting the award Fred reminded the nation: “we should be vigilant to make sure this will never happen again.” At Holden we studied the brief Koramatsu filed with the Supreme Court in 2004 urging them to hear the appeals of the Guantanamo detainees challenging the legality of their incarceration. Among the many instances of the misuse of the rubric of “military necessity” to violate civil liberties, Koramatsu quoted a distinguished legal panel reviewing the government response to the Red Scare in the 1920s:
...and we may well wonder in view of the precedents now established whether constitutional government as heretofore maintained in this republic could survive another great war even victoriously waged.”
Questions we wrestled with included:
Why does the Koramatsu case matter to us as Christians?
Why does it matter to us as citizens in 2007?
Monday, February 26, 2007
God, the Bible and Violence, a new look
I begin this posting with a confession-a confession of embarrassment. I have long thought that I knew the bible very well but Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s work has shown me that I failed to take seriously the extent of the violence that runs throughout the bible. I had read books like Sam Harris’ “End of Faith” but was able to dismiss his arguments about the dark side of religious traditions without examining his evidence seriously.
Undoubtedly we have all participated in discussions about whether or not Islam is at base a violent faith but seldom have I confronted with the question in regard to our own faith tradition.
When I was preparing for these discussions at Holden Village I had intended to do a little on the holy war tradition in the first testament and then look at some of the passages in the book of Revelation. I am now convinced that such an approach only confirms my failure to even to begin to address the pervasiveness of violence in the bible. It now seems strange to me that I could have thought so little about this subject when the topic was “God, War and the Law”!
Our discussions during this second week will explore what it might mean to look more seriously at this issue. We will be reading a number of texts in both testaments where violence, much of it directly ascribed to God, is presented. Then we will test out an observation from James Sanders in “From Sacred Story to Sacred Text”: “Enlightened reading of the layers can thus be corrected by enlightened reading of the whole, and vice versa. … “…no theological construct built on it (God/Realty) can escape-sooner or later-the Bible’s own prophetic challenge.” (Page 6). We will be reading alternative voices from within the scriptures themselves with a particular emphasis on the place of Jesus in this conversation. We will test how this interpretative principal could assist in moving us as people of faith who claim to be disciples of Jesus toward being a non-violent presence and witness in a very violent world.
Our informing perspective will be a theology of the Cross. “But a modest church that is still under the spell of an immodest theology has not yet begun to deal with the fact that “Religion Kills” For what “kills” in religion is not only, or primarily, the exclusionary deed, the aggressive and proselytizing stance, the crusading attitude and act, but the underlying doctrine that functions both as inspiration and justification for all such actions. A religious community that believes itself to be in possession of “the Truth” is a community equipped with the most lethal weapon of any warfare: the sense of its own superiority and mandate to mastery. Douglas John Hall, “The Cross in Our Context” (Page 5). In other words, it is our understanding of God and of God’s very nature that informs, shapes, and inspires our way of being in the world.
A theology of the Cross can help keep us modest and thus perhaps make us less violent. To quote Hall again: “The theology of the Cross …is … first of all a statement about God, and what it is says about God is not that God thinks humankind so wretched that it deserves death and hell, but that God thinks humankind and the whole creation so good, so beautiful, so precious in its intention and its potentiality, that its actualization, its fulfillment, its redemption is worth dying for.” (Page 24).
If I were to do these presentations again, I would begin with the violence that is an overwhelming aspect of the biblical and Christian tradition and then see how the arguments I made in our reading of Genesis address this violence. I would look more diligently listen for other voices that challenge the cry of violence.
Undoubtedly we have all participated in discussions about whether or not Islam is at base a violent faith but seldom have I confronted with the question in regard to our own faith tradition.
When I was preparing for these discussions at Holden Village I had intended to do a little on the holy war tradition in the first testament and then look at some of the passages in the book of Revelation. I am now convinced that such an approach only confirms my failure to even to begin to address the pervasiveness of violence in the bible. It now seems strange to me that I could have thought so little about this subject when the topic was “God, War and the Law”!
Our discussions during this second week will explore what it might mean to look more seriously at this issue. We will be reading a number of texts in both testaments where violence, much of it directly ascribed to God, is presented. Then we will test out an observation from James Sanders in “From Sacred Story to Sacred Text”: “Enlightened reading of the layers can thus be corrected by enlightened reading of the whole, and vice versa. … “…no theological construct built on it (God/Realty) can escape-sooner or later-the Bible’s own prophetic challenge.” (Page 6). We will be reading alternative voices from within the scriptures themselves with a particular emphasis on the place of Jesus in this conversation. We will test how this interpretative principal could assist in moving us as people of faith who claim to be disciples of Jesus toward being a non-violent presence and witness in a very violent world.
Our informing perspective will be a theology of the Cross. “But a modest church that is still under the spell of an immodest theology has not yet begun to deal with the fact that “Religion Kills” For what “kills” in religion is not only, or primarily, the exclusionary deed, the aggressive and proselytizing stance, the crusading attitude and act, but the underlying doctrine that functions both as inspiration and justification for all such actions. A religious community that believes itself to be in possession of “the Truth” is a community equipped with the most lethal weapon of any warfare: the sense of its own superiority and mandate to mastery. Douglas John Hall, “The Cross in Our Context” (Page 5). In other words, it is our understanding of God and of God’s very nature that informs, shapes, and inspires our way of being in the world.
A theology of the Cross can help keep us modest and thus perhaps make us less violent. To quote Hall again: “The theology of the Cross …is … first of all a statement about God, and what it is says about God is not that God thinks humankind so wretched that it deserves death and hell, but that God thinks humankind and the whole creation so good, so beautiful, so precious in its intention and its potentiality, that its actualization, its fulfillment, its redemption is worth dying for.” (Page 24).
If I were to do these presentations again, I would begin with the violence that is an overwhelming aspect of the biblical and Christian tradition and then see how the arguments I made in our reading of Genesis address this violence. I would look more diligently listen for other voices that challenge the cry of violence.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Intorduction from Charlie Mays
God, War, and the Law
Introductory remarks from Charlie Mays
This Month in the Mountains is intended to be a conversation on the interrelationship of God, war and the Law. The conversation partners are those of us who have gathered here in the Village, the bible and now those of you who will be joining us on this blog.
In any conversation it is important to know those who are engaged with us in the discussion. For those of us who have been claimed to God to be disciples of Jesus Christ the bible is a critical partner in the discussion. What authority do we give to the bible? Why? What is the context in which a particular section of the bible came into being? How have people of faith in succeeding generations read the text? How might specific texts be word of God for us?
Often we fail to give consideration to our own context, be that our social or our personal context. What does it mean to read the bible as 21st century citizens of the most powerful nation that history has ever known? What role do our own personal needs, experiences, preferences, theologies, etc. play as we listen to and respond to the bible?
In our opening session we attempted to become aware of some of these factors. For help in doing this, we turned to W. Paul Jones’ “Theological Worlds” (Abingdon 1981). He suggests that the theological world we live in will both aid and hinder what we hear in and from the Tradition. He further suggests that our study is enriched when our conversation includes people from every one of his five theological worlds. Thus it is always best to study in community. (In the interest of full disclosure, I inhabit his second theological world, the world of social justice.)
We also set as one of our frames of reference a quote from Brain McLaren in “A Generous Orthodoxy” Zondervan 2004): “Remember in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefit it brings to its nonadherents.” (Page121)
We began our bible study with the book of Genesis with the perspective that it might have something to say to us about how we regard those we name as enemies. All of Israel’s neighbors and enemies are introduced in Genesis and, at the outset, they were all members of the family.
A quotation from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible provides a good summary of our perspective:
“The conflict between Cain and Abel introduces a theme that runs throughout the book of Genesis: the rivalry between brothers. Such rivalry occurs among Noah’s sons (9:20-27); between Abraham and Lot (13:1-18), who are uncle and nephew but are called brothers (13:8), and between Isaac and Ishmael (21:8-21). But the primary examples are the rivalries between Jacob and Esau (chaps. 25-36) and between Joseph and his bothers (chaps. 37-50).
“This theme is so common because the stories of Israel’s ancestors are family stories. …
“The story of Cain and Abel, in the pre-flood era, is thus the model negative portrayal of sibling rivalry. In it the conflict between brothers, in spite of God’s words of caution to Cain (4:7), is left unresolved and reaches its ultimate outcome, the murder of one brother by another. By contrast, the stories of sibling rivalry after the flood are all resolved without bloodshed. … In each case, however, conflict is resolved by reconciliation rather than recrimination. The brother who has been wronged, and who is also the more powerful, sets aside his grievances in order to reunite the family.” (Page 13).
We set as bookends for this study the question of Abel, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9) and Joseph’s words to his brothers at the end of Genesis: “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” (50:19). We suggested that the answer to that question is “Yes” as indicated by the fact that Joseph provides for them and speaks kindly to them. He forgives them and meets there needs for living. He does for them what God does for all his creatures.
Genesis 18 provided us with a look at what it means to practice hospitality and in the doing it to receive the promise. And then to do “righteousness and justice” (18:19). Immediately upon hearing the promise of progeny, Abraham enters into earnest intercession for wicked Sodom. In his heartfelt pleading we hear our prayers for justice. In Abraham’s desperate questions about slaying the righteous with the wicked which are the heart and soul of his intercessory prayer, we hear our own cries as well as those of people in places where war, hunger, disease wipe out millions of children and adults.
Our final stop in Genesis was the reunion of Esau and Jacob in chapters 32-33. We gave peculiar focus to the word “face” that occurs a number of times often hidden in our English translations. As Jacob prepares to meet Esau he says: “I may appease his face with the present that goes before my face and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift up my face.” (32:20)
In the next scene, Jacob encounters the “man” at the Jabbok, he emerges from the struggle with a new identity and names the place Peniel saying, “For I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.” (32:30). Following his meeting with Esau, Jacob says: “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” (33:10).
Could it be that in the face of the reconciled sister or brother we see the face of God. Perhaps when we practice hospitality and serve the marginalized, we see God/Jesus. (Matthew 25:41ff).
As we move to the second section of our discussion of God, war, and the Law that will begin tomorrow, we intend to address the question posed by the title of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s book “Is Religion Killing Us?” (Trinity Press International 2003): How might we deal with the images of violence that are found in both testaments? What can we do with passages that clearly image the violence of God who destroys not only our enemies but God’s as well? What place does a non-violent Jesus have in our faith and discipleship?
Nelson-Pallmeyer challenges us as he writes: “What if we saw these ancestors in the faith as both insightful and fallible and thus capable of both revealing and distorting God? This approach would encourage us to take our faith journeys seriously. It would allow us to learn from the ideas and experiences of our predecessors in faith without falling into the grave temptation of assuming that answers to important life questions are embedded in the past instead of unfolding in the mystery of the present and future.” (Page 134).
We’ll be talking with the bible, with one another, with theological works by folks like Nelson-Pallmeyer and Douglas John Hall and with you! We look forward to having your voice in our conversations.
Charlie Mays
Introductory remarks from Charlie Mays
This Month in the Mountains is intended to be a conversation on the interrelationship of God, war and the Law. The conversation partners are those of us who have gathered here in the Village, the bible and now those of you who will be joining us on this blog.
In any conversation it is important to know those who are engaged with us in the discussion. For those of us who have been claimed to God to be disciples of Jesus Christ the bible is a critical partner in the discussion. What authority do we give to the bible? Why? What is the context in which a particular section of the bible came into being? How have people of faith in succeeding generations read the text? How might specific texts be word of God for us?
Often we fail to give consideration to our own context, be that our social or our personal context. What does it mean to read the bible as 21st century citizens of the most powerful nation that history has ever known? What role do our own personal needs, experiences, preferences, theologies, etc. play as we listen to and respond to the bible?
In our opening session we attempted to become aware of some of these factors. For help in doing this, we turned to W. Paul Jones’ “Theological Worlds” (Abingdon 1981). He suggests that the theological world we live in will both aid and hinder what we hear in and from the Tradition. He further suggests that our study is enriched when our conversation includes people from every one of his five theological worlds. Thus it is always best to study in community. (In the interest of full disclosure, I inhabit his second theological world, the world of social justice.)
We also set as one of our frames of reference a quote from Brain McLaren in “A Generous Orthodoxy” Zondervan 2004): “Remember in a pluralistic world, a religion is valued based on the benefit it brings to its nonadherents.” (Page121)
We began our bible study with the book of Genesis with the perspective that it might have something to say to us about how we regard those we name as enemies. All of Israel’s neighbors and enemies are introduced in Genesis and, at the outset, they were all members of the family.
A quotation from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible provides a good summary of our perspective:
“The conflict between Cain and Abel introduces a theme that runs throughout the book of Genesis: the rivalry between brothers. Such rivalry occurs among Noah’s sons (9:20-27); between Abraham and Lot (13:1-18), who are uncle and nephew but are called brothers (13:8), and between Isaac and Ishmael (21:8-21). But the primary examples are the rivalries between Jacob and Esau (chaps. 25-36) and between Joseph and his bothers (chaps. 37-50).
“This theme is so common because the stories of Israel’s ancestors are family stories. …
“The story of Cain and Abel, in the pre-flood era, is thus the model negative portrayal of sibling rivalry. In it the conflict between brothers, in spite of God’s words of caution to Cain (4:7), is left unresolved and reaches its ultimate outcome, the murder of one brother by another. By contrast, the stories of sibling rivalry after the flood are all resolved without bloodshed. … In each case, however, conflict is resolved by reconciliation rather than recrimination. The brother who has been wronged, and who is also the more powerful, sets aside his grievances in order to reunite the family.” (Page 13).
We set as bookends for this study the question of Abel, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9) and Joseph’s words to his brothers at the end of Genesis: “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” (50:19). We suggested that the answer to that question is “Yes” as indicated by the fact that Joseph provides for them and speaks kindly to them. He forgives them and meets there needs for living. He does for them what God does for all his creatures.
Genesis 18 provided us with a look at what it means to practice hospitality and in the doing it to receive the promise. And then to do “righteousness and justice” (18:19). Immediately upon hearing the promise of progeny, Abraham enters into earnest intercession for wicked Sodom. In his heartfelt pleading we hear our prayers for justice. In Abraham’s desperate questions about slaying the righteous with the wicked which are the heart and soul of his intercessory prayer, we hear our own cries as well as those of people in places where war, hunger, disease wipe out millions of children and adults.
Our final stop in Genesis was the reunion of Esau and Jacob in chapters 32-33. We gave peculiar focus to the word “face” that occurs a number of times often hidden in our English translations. As Jacob prepares to meet Esau he says: “I may appease his face with the present that goes before my face and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift up my face.” (32:20)
In the next scene, Jacob encounters the “man” at the Jabbok, he emerges from the struggle with a new identity and names the place Peniel saying, “For I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.” (32:30). Following his meeting with Esau, Jacob says: “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” (33:10).
Could it be that in the face of the reconciled sister or brother we see the face of God. Perhaps when we practice hospitality and serve the marginalized, we see God/Jesus. (Matthew 25:41ff).
As we move to the second section of our discussion of God, war, and the Law that will begin tomorrow, we intend to address the question posed by the title of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s book “Is Religion Killing Us?” (Trinity Press International 2003): How might we deal with the images of violence that are found in both testaments? What can we do with passages that clearly image the violence of God who destroys not only our enemies but God’s as well? What place does a non-violent Jesus have in our faith and discipleship?
Nelson-Pallmeyer challenges us as he writes: “What if we saw these ancestors in the faith as both insightful and fallible and thus capable of both revealing and distorting God? This approach would encourage us to take our faith journeys seriously. It would allow us to learn from the ideas and experiences of our predecessors in faith without falling into the grave temptation of assuming that answers to important life questions are embedded in the past instead of unfolding in the mystery of the present and future.” (Page 134).
We’ll be talking with the bible, with one another, with theological works by folks like Nelson-Pallmeyer and Douglas John Hall and with you! We look forward to having your voice in our conversations.
Charlie Mays
Thursday, February 22, 2007
God War and the Law
Welcome to the blog for Holden's February and March program, entitled "God, War and the Law." Watch this space for updates about the program.
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