the tensions in my head and heart are near a breaking point today. i can't reconcile the headlines in the newspaper in which we aim to 'destroy' our enemy and jesus' council to his disciples (me, too, then) heard in churches around the world on this day that we exercise our might by taking a towel, kneeling, and washing each other's feet. a few weeks ago, madeleine albright, the u.s. secretary of state during the clinton administration, invoked similar tensions in her speech at yale divinity school. 'is it not preposterous to think of applying jesus teaching about turning the other cheek as a serious response to the events of september 11th?' well, sure, in the most simplistic sense it is preposterous. we cannot simply offer thousands more lives to the horror of terrorism's indescriminate killing. yet clearly a literal invocation of 'an eye for an eye', as mahatma gandhi put it, makes the whole world blind.
miroslav obviously has a lot to say on such themes and as i drove to work this morning i remembered a powerful reflection he wrote for the christian century in the fall of 2002, well before we actually began the current invasion and occupation of iraq. titled 'indefensible war' and directed against president bush's proposed preemptive war against saddam hussein and his regime in iraq, miroslav writes that 'such a war is likely to bring long-term instability to a sensitive and volatile region and inflame islamic extremism.' He concludes that such a political consideration ought to have been enough to not start war against iraq. but further, he writes, a christian must reject such a preemptive war as immoral and unwise.
just last week, miroslav was interviewed on public televisions' religion and ethics weekly. they introduced him as a theologian who argues that even in the face of the mob violence in fallujah where four americans were horribly killed and then displayed publicly, christ's command to love and forgive enemies retains its claim on us. again, not in some simplistic sense that excludes justice, but that the first response to violence ought to seek means for peace rather than to strike back. powerfully, miroslav said that 'If I say "I forgive you," I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. But what forgiveness is at its heart is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender. I release the offender who is [an] offender from what the justice would demand to be done.' this, it seems to me, is miroslav's call for us to be 'like god.' for those in sacramental traditions, it is what we mean when we say that we are what we eat--we become 'eucharist' , christ's body, for the world. we are taken, blessed, broken, and poured out for the life of the world god loves.
it is politically incorrect to say this, but i think the united states needs to be able to admit when it has done wrong. we need not say we're all wrong, for that is not true. i long for a president who, like abraham lincoln, saw with fear and trembling the moral fault of all sides in the conflict of his day. he saw the conflict as god's judgment upon their failure to negotiate peace, and vowed in his public leadership 'to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.'
+peace, peace, in this war-weary world
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