Peace and Christianity

For those of us standing outside the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions looking in often wonder how these religions claim to speak peace while at the same time they draw boundaries and build walls between themselves, each feeling that they are the chosen ones of God.  I have no doubt that this is why John Lennon wanted us to imagine a world with no religion.  It does simplify the equation.  But the same religions used to bash and genocide indigenous cultures with are the same religions that often inspire the work of peace and justice.  I support my religious siblings who take that vow of peace by peaceful means, working for justice and equality in this world.

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship is recruiting and hoping to unite Christians in their latest campaign against gun violence.  So many of our youth are embracing violence as the primary conflict resolution method because it's all they know.  This is how our country settles all it's conflicts abroad and the way that Hollywood portrays all of humanity.  There are many alternatives to this violent option and we, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, ALL of us, must set aside our petty differences and work to save our species.  We must engage our natural love of life and help remove the fog of hatred and fear from the eyes of others.  Here's but one initiative you can engage in.

Gun Violence: Heeding God's Call

Friends,

The National Committee of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has spent the last six months discerning how to get more deeply involved in the work of preventing gun violence in communities here in the United States. We have made a decision that we would like to partner with a project called “Heeding God’s Call” that started last year in Philadelphia.

Heeding God’s Call is a partnership between urban and suburban churches who band together to ask gun dealers to sign onto an agreement that they will act responsibly. If dealers refuse to do so, the churches organize to use nonviolent direct action to call attention to the irresponsibility of the gun store owners. HGC is interested in expanding into other communities across the country, and is looking for partners like the PPF to do so.

If you would like to get involved with our effort to support and expand the work of Heeding God’s call, please send an email ppfwitness@gmail.com to let us know. We will respond with the information you will need to participate in a conference call on Wednesday night, June 2, at 9:00 Eastern Time.

Rick

 To learn more about the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship here's a nice video to help you meet some of the good Christian Peacemakers in our world.

The Culture of War and Lipstick

The sexy singer from Barbados, Rihanna, has a new video for her song "Hard".  I have to wonder if she wasn't paid by the military recruiters to make this video.  If she wasn't, she should have been.  It attempts to make war itself desirable and sexy.  It's an appeal to the "bad-ass" mentality.  To me it represents so much of what is wrong with the American war culture.  The real bad-asses are the ones standing unarmed in front of the guns and tanks, demanding justice and security for the innocent civilians caught in all the red-blooded, testosterone driven nationalism.  I'd rather see Rihanna using her sex appeal to get the boys to put down their guns, rather than adding more bullets to an atmosphere already heavy with lead and death.

The message to young women is clear, that by adopting the "hard" violent persona you are somehow more sexy, desirable and secure.  There's also the implication that your sex is itself a weapon, and that a girl can use it to control and manipulate the man's world.  It's far from a new message.  I got the same message when I was a young woman from Cher, Madonna, Tank Girl, etc.  The messages are that "we have what they want and can use it to get what we need" and that it's somehow safer to join "them" in the game rather than to play by our own rules.  What exactly is it that we need from men that we can't get from a sperm bank?   R-E-S-P-E-C-T as Sister Aretha spelled it out for us all.  This is the clearest message being delivered in this video, that if your woman enough to straddle a pink tank, you will have that desired respect from all men.  It's a tragically flawed message. 

The reality of our war on terror is that more of our soldiers have died by suicide than have been killed by the "enemy".  War is not sexy.  It is wholesale murder, mostly civilian.  A greater percentage of female soldiers are raped while in service, Enemy within: rape in US military ranks.  Their sexuality and acceptance of violence as a way of life did not protect them.  They did not even get the respect of the men that they were fighting side by side with.  Please, my beloved sisters, do not join this team.  It can only bring suffering.

How does war affect a woman?  Does she bring a soothing quality to combat?  Or can she kill another woman and her children as cold-bloodedly as a man?  Turns out that she can.  Women have proven to be just as, if not more so, brutal than men.  Often they claim that they have to be to prove that they aren't "soft".  Some of the worst atrocities in the Rwanda genocide were waged by a woman,

Mother of atrocities: Pauline Nyiramasuhuko's role in the Rwandan genocide

At age 18 Israeli girls must serve in the military.  They are speaking out on how that service has changed them. 

Female Soldiers Break Their Silence

Sure, we can be like the famed Amazons, we have warrior hearts, but let's use that courage and ferocity to wage peace.  Of the two genders women should best understand what it takes to bring a beautiful human being into this world.  Let's not break each others hearts by killing those precious beings we've worked so hard to nurture.  Let's own our sexuality sisters.  What is more sexy than a mother nursing her child, or playing hide and seek in the park, or the mother holding the peace sign outside the White House demanding a better, safer life for all mothers everywhere.  Let's make peace the sexiest game in town.

Here's a better video, join the tribe.