My Tribute to Glen H. Stassen (1936-2014)

Early yesterday morning (26 April 2014), at his home in Pasadena, CA, Dr. Glen Harold Stassen died quietly in his sleep. He had been battling cancer for months.  He was not only my Doktorvater and beloved teacher, but like another father to me. Glen Harold Stassen, son of Harold E. Stassen (youngest governor of Minnesota, major author of the United Nations Charter, “Secretary of Peace” in the Eisenhower Administration (creating the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency), and perpetual candidate for the U.S. presidency as one of the last progressive Republicans), was a Christian ethicist. Educated at the University of Virginia (B.S. in Nuclear Physics), The Southern Baptist Theology Seminary, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (B.D.), and Duke University (Ph.D.), he taught at Duke University, Kentucky Southern College (now merged into the University of Louisville), Berea College, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary(1976-1996), and Fuller Theological Seminary (1996-2013). He also taught regularly at The International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague (moving to Amsterdam) and had guest lectured the Baptist seminary in Seoul, South Korea and numerous other institutions.

As his former student and co-author, Dave Gushee has pointed out, he will probably be best known for developing “Just Peacemaking,” as a distinct, proactive approach to the ethics of war and peace, alongside pacifism and Just War Theory.  The debate between Just War Theory and pacifism over if and when to go to war was one Stassen took seriously (he began as a Just War Theorist but eventually, about the year 2000, became a convinced pacifist), but he thought that concentrating solely on that question missed the question, “What Practices Should We Adopt to Work for Peace?” This is where he believed the major focus of the biblical witness lies and where he focused his efforts. Both pacifists and Just War Theorists can participate in the practices of Just Peacemaking, for pacifists it fleshes out a commitment to active peacemaking (not just a no to war) and it helps Just War Theorists know what “resorts” to try before reaching the JWT criterion of “last resort.”

Glen will also be known for his “triadic” interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and for a focus on “transforming initiatives” out of cycles of bondage.These are significant contributions to Christian ethics. But Stassen also leaves behind numerous organizations he either founded or gave strong help to in his life as an activist: the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, Interfaith Paths to Peace, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, the Texas Christian Life Commission, the Baptist World Alliance Human Rights Commission, Peace Action, the National Religious Coalition Against Torture, the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and so much more.

Stassen’s legacy is also in his many students:  Pastors, missionaries, activists, and scholars–both in his own Baptist tradition and in many others.  Those of us who had the privilege of being his students know that we can never repay the debts he has given us.  He was an encourager who brought out the gifts of others. He challenged us on many levels. His scholarship was exacting, his activism fueled by tremendous energy–and a simple desire to follow Jesus faithfully.

He is survived by his wife, Dot Lively Stassen, and his sons, Bill, Michael, and David, and his sister, Kathleen Esther Stassen Berger, head of the Sociology Department at Bronx Community College (City University of New York).

He will be missed terribly.

Update:

Services for Glen Harold Stassen: Viewing at First Baptist Church, Chapel, 75 N Marengo Ave, Pasadena, California on Friday, May 2, 2014 from 5 to 8 pm. Funeral will be at the same church in the sanctuary on Saturday, May 3, 2014 starting at 4:00 pm. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be given to either the Just Peacemaking Initiative at Fuller Theological Seminary, 135 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91182 or to the Special Needs Trust for David Stassen, 2030 Casa Grande Street, Pasadena, CA 91104. Post or forward as appropriate.

There will also be a later memorial service in Louisville, KY, where the Stassens lived for so long. No details about this, yet, but it will probably take place at Crescent Hill Baptist Church, where the Stassens where members for 20 years.

Update II: Tributes to Stassen’s life and work have begun to pour in around the web. Here’s the round up:

1) This is the initial obituary by Bob Allen at Associated Baptist Press.

2) David P. Gushee’s tribute.

3) Here’s the story at Christianity Today.

4) This is the story in the Los Angeles Times.

5) Jana Reiss, Glen’s editor for his last book, gives a tribute on her blog at the Religion News Service.

6) This Associated Baptist Press story discusses Stassen in the context of the state of Baptist peace activism.  I think Stassen was more successful than Robert Parham does.

7) Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Professor of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, and a colleague of Glen’s in developing and spreading Just Peacemaking for 30 plus years, gives an excellent reflection at Huffington Post.

8) Fred Clark has a reflection at Patheos.

9) Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, who was friends with Stassen for decades, offers this tribute. (Note: For a very long time Stassen served on the board of Sojourners as well as the board of Christianity and Crisis.)

10) Rev. Jeff Hood, a Southern Baptist ethicist and PFLAG activist, gives a brief tribute that reflects the pastoral heart and sensitivity of Glen Stassen.

11) Leaders of the European Baptist Federation and the International Baptist Theological Seminary reflect on Stassen’s contributions here.

12) Dan Buttry, American Baptist minister and peace activist, reflects on Stassen here.

13) Alan Bean gives a tribute here.

14) The New York Times MOSTLY get it right, here.

15) The Louisville Courier-Journal finally weighs in with a fair write-up and notification of the Louisville memorial service.

I’ll add more links as I find them. I expect more reflections after Saturday’s funeral.

 

Update: The funeral last Saturday was very healing. A 2nd memorial service will be held in Louisville, KY at Crescent Hill Baptist Church on 21 June 2014. No times or other details, yet, but people are asked to send tributes if they cannot come themselves. The Stassen family were members of Crescent Hill BC for 20 years.

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Nobel Peace Women: The Female Nobel Peace Laureates

Without a woman there would be no Nobel Peace Prize.  Alfred Nobel was a 19th C. industrialist and self-made millionaire.  He did not believe in inherited wealth.  He wanted his heirs to make their own way in the world.  He did believe in giving back to society, especially through the advance of the sciences and the arts. So, he when he was drafting his will (without lawyers, whom he distrusted, a fact that later caused problems for the executors of his estate), he decided to leave the bulk of his wealth to various institutions that would award prizes to individuals who made lasting contributions in physics, chemistry, medicine (or physiology), and literature. Originally, Nobel had not intended to include a prize for advancing the cause for peace, even though he was worried that wars were growing more destructive and had begun to admire some elements of the 19th C. peace movement. (The Nobel Prize in Economics was not part of Nobel’s original will. It was added in 1968 by the Swedish Central Bank, the Sveriges Riksbank,  and is funded by the Riksbank, not by investments from Nobel’s estate. What we call the” Nobel Prize in Economics” is actually The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Honor of Alfred Nobel.) It was Nobel’s friend and former secretary, Bertha von Suttner, who persuaded Nobel to revise his will to include an annual prize for peace–but until his will was read after his death, even she didn’t know he had heeded her advice.

Nobel’s distrust of lawyers made it difficult to follow his dying wishes. First, his relatives contested the will because they wanted the money. Second, Nobel had lived in several countries and it was not clear which country’s courts should get to decide the case. Third, Nobel had not constructed the will in a way that recognized legal parameters. So, it took several years to sort out.  He died in 1895.  The first Nobel Prizes were not awarded until 1901.

Even after sorting out the legalities and contested claims, the work wasn’t done. Nobel was very clear about which institutions, he wanted to award his prizes, but he was less than clear on the criteria for deciding the winners.  Nobel was a Swedish citizen and so most of the awarding institutions are Swedish.  The Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry,  and MedicinePhysiology, are awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by the Swedish Academy of the Arts.  All 5 of these prizes are presented to the winners (laureates) by the Swedish Royal Family at a ceremony in Stockholm. So is the “Nobel” Prize in Economics awarded by the Swedish National Bank in the name of Alfred Nobel.   The case with the Peace Prize is different.  During Nobel’s lifetime, Norway had been annexed by Sweden, but there was a move for Norwegian independence. Nobel supported Norwegian independence, but didn’t want a war.  He designed his peace prize to support the peaceful separation of Norway and Sweden, but also to support their continued friendship (He believed Scandinavian unity was a good model for an oft-warring Europe) and to support democracy. (Nobel had no problem with constitutional monarchy as long as royal families were strictly ceremonial and did not impede parliamentary democracy.) So, alone among the Nobel Prizes, the Peace Prize is not awarded by any Swedish institution, but by a 5-member Norwegian Nobel Committee that is created by the Storting (the Norwegian parliament), but is to include no sitting members of the Storting (past members are eligible). It is awarded not in Stockholm, but in the Norwegian capital of Oslø and it is not awarded by the royal family, but by a representative of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in the presence of the Norwegian Royal Family.

Most of the leaders of the global peace movement thought that Bertha von Suttner would be the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, not just because of her role in getting Nobel to create the prize, but for other reasons that will be clear below.  But the Norwegian Nobel Committee has proven over the years to be more sexist than anyone expected. Of the 101 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize  (it has also been awarded to 20 different organizations and no prize was awarded in 19 separate years, most of them during world wars), only 15 have been women–even though far more than 15 women have been major leaders for peace–as belatedly the Nobel Committee itself has acknowledged.  (A few of the organizational winners have been represented by women, but not enough to balance out the incredible inadequacy of only 15 female Nobel Peace Laureates.) Further, some of the men who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize have later done things that have brought the Nobel Committee and the Prize into disrespect (e.g., Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, who was the only laureate to decline the prize, Yitzak Rabin, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and, to a lesser extent, perhaps, Theodore Roosevelt and Barack Obama). By contrast, all of the 15 women listed below have been major peacemakers.  They may have some controversial biographical details (in a subject as contested as “peace,” it is not surprising that all of the Nobel Peace Prize winners have been controversial in some respect to someone or some group), but no one supporting nonviolent movements for justice and/or actions for world peace have ever looked at one of the women laureates and said, “What was the Committee thinking?”  They have often said that about many of the men.

I would certainly argue that more women deserved this Prize than ever received it. Off the top of my head, I list in no particular order, Dorothy Day, Muriel Lester, Dolores Huerta, Mother Jones, Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Noor (Lisa Najeeb Halaby) of Jordan, Anna Howard Shaw, Dr. Aletta Jacobs, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Maria Montessori, Jeanette Rankin, Vera Brittain, Gladdys Muir, Astrid Lungren, Irena Sendler, Dorothy Height, Hildegard Goss-Mayr,  Fannie Lou Hamer, Barbara Deming, Elise Boulding, Sophie Scholl, Simone Weil, Joan B. Kroc, Coretta Scott King, Betty A. Reardon, Ela Ramesh Bhatt, Gro Brundtland,  Cora Weiss, Marilyn Clement, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Marian Wright Edelman, Sister Helen Prejean, Elizabeth McAlister, Mary Robinson, Petra Kelly, Kathy Kelly, Betty Bigombe, Amy Goodman, Graca Machel, & Medea Benjamin.  That’s not including women who lived before Nobel’s prize was insituted in 1901, nor those who died before they could be honored–although Sophie Scholl and Simone Weil might violate that last (since Nobel’s prize cannot be awarded posthumously).  And because my knowledge of global affairs, while arguably better than most Americans’, is nevertheless limited, it leaves out many around the globe.  As I said, these just came to me, quickly.

But, despite those caveats, the 15 women who have won the Nobel Peace Prize have been amazing and worthy recipients.  Sadly, 3 of the 15 female Nobel Peace Prize Laureates won the same year, sharing the 2011 Prize.  The female Laureates are, in chronological order, as follows:

1. Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914),  1905. Born: Prague, then a part of the Austrian empire, now capital of the Czech Republic.  Living at time awarded the Prize:  Vienna, Austria.  Died: Vienna, Austria. Sole awardee. Motivation of Nobel Committee: “For her long leadership in the movement for peace and global disarmament.”  The Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky Chinic and Tettau  was born to the Austrian nobility, but rebelled against her privileged life.  Though having been born to the military-nobility caste of Austria, von Suttner joined the 19th C. peace movement and became one of it’s leading voices. She wrote a novel, Die Waffen nieder [i. e., Lay Down Your Arms ], which galvanized the public for demilitarization.  She edited a peace journal by the same name and was responsible for organizing for peace throughout Europe.  She created and led the Austrian Peace Society and used funds from the sale of her novels (including Lay Down Your Arms) to launch the International Peace Bureau in Berne, Switzerland (which won the Nobel Prize itself in 1910 and whose leadership has produced no less than 14 Nobel Peace Laureates). She had been previously a secretary to the industrialist Alfred Nobel and when he wrote her concerning his plans to draw up his will to use his wealth to fund a series of scientific and literary prizes, Bertha von Suttner persuaded him to create a prize for peacemakers, too.  Almost everyone expected her to be the first Nobel Peace laureate in 1901 and by the time she was awarded the prize in 1905, her neglect by the Nobel Committee was so embarrassing that it was hurting the reputation of the still-new Nobel prizes.  von Suttner did not rest on her laurels after receiving the Nobel, although she was aging and ill health, she still worked for peace and disarmament and spent the last 2 years of her life (1913-14) trying to prevent World War I–which began 2 months after her death and about whose dangers she had warned for years.
2. Jane Addams (1860-1935), 1931. Born: Cedarville, IL, USA. Died: Chicago, IL, USA.  Residence at time of award: USA.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee: “For her leadership role in the Women’s Peace Conference of the Hague in 1914 and in helping to form the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).”  Born to a wealthy Quaker (Friends) family, Jane Addams launched the “settlement house” movement in the USA by forming Hull House in Chicago and virtually creating the field of social work in the USA.  A leader in the cause of women’s suffrage and in other progressive causes, Addams was, until 1914, one of the the most famous and admired women in the USA. After the U.S. entered into World War I (1917), Addams’ role in trying to stop it became very controversial and she lost her influence nearly overnight. WILPF was derided during the wave of super-patriotism that swept America during WWI and Addams treated as a traitor (even though Pres. Woodrow Wilson drew most of his 14 Point Peace Plan from the WILPF peace platform!).  By 1931, the Nobel Committee wanted to rehabilitate Addams’ image and to draw the U.S. into entering the League of Nations. Addams was already too ill in her last years to go to Oslo, Norway to receive the award. She shared the award that year with another American, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947), President of Columbia University, advocate of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, international arbitration, and leader of the progressive wing of the Republican Party–ironically, since Butler was one of those who denounced WILPF and groups like it during WWI.
   
3. Emily Greene Balch (1867-1961), 1946. Born: Jamaica Plain, MA, USA. Died: Cambridge, MA, USA. Residence at time of award:  USA.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:  “For her long leadership in promoting international peace and human rights, especially as International President of the Women’s International League for Peace with Freedom (WILPF).” Educated as a sociologist (B.A., Bryn Mawr, 1889;M.A., University of Paris, 1891; additional advanced work at Harvard and U. of Chicago; Ph.D., University of Berlin, 1896.), she taught at Wellesley College, rising to the rank of Professor of Economics and Sociology,  until her leadership in the peace movement during WWI led to her dismissal from Wellesley in 1917. (Today, Wellesley College has the Emily Balch Peace Institute, which runs Wellesley’s program in peace studies.) Balch’s work with Jane Addams to get neutral countries to intervene to stop WWI made the US government consider her a dangerous radical even before entering WWI. She promoted the League of Nations and disarmament and warned the world of the dangers of fascism and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini before WWII. She became a Quaker although Nazism led her to modify her lifelong pacifism and urge “defense of universal human rights, sword in hand,” but she continued to work toward a postwar peace that would learn from the mistakes of the vengeful “peace” after WWI.  She earned a living after her dismissal from Wellesley as a journalist with The Nation magazine.  Balch was still considered so radical at the time of she was awarded the Nobel Prize that she received no congratulations from the U.S. government.  Like her older friend, Jane Addams, Balch had to share her Nobel with another American: John R. Mott (1865-1955), President of the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCAs, back when the Y was an evangelical Christian organization), and Chairman of the International Missionary Council, who was awarded the Nobel for his role in promoting peace through Ecumenical Movement of Christianity–who DID receive a congratulatory phone call from the White House!
4. Betty Williams(1946- ), 1976. Born: Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.  Current residence: Florida, USA. Residence at time of Prize: Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee: “For her role as Protestant co-founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement,” (now called the Peace People Community, the first Protestant-Catholic nonviolent movement in Ireland).  Although she left Ireland, Betty Williams continues to work for peace and human rights globally with the bulk of her work aimed at defending the rights of children.  She is the founder and head of the Global Children’s Foundation.  She shared the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize with her friend, Mairead Corrigan.
5. Mairead Corrigan Maguire (1944- ), 1976.  Born: Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom where she continues to reside. Motivation of the Nobel Committee: “For her role as the Catholic co-founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement.” Later renamed “The Community of Peace People,” this was the first Catholic-Protestant grassroots movement for peace in Northern Ireland.  Mairead dedicated her life to nonviolence, has pursued her education further since the Nobel, and has become a global champion of peace and nonviolent activism, travelling to more than 25 countries. She has been a fierce critic of all violence:  whether of terrorism, of government war policies (in both the UK and USA), of religions, of men against women, etc. She promotes the “seamless garment” ethic of nonviolence which opposes abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, and war, and which works through active nonviolence to promote peace with justice and human rights.  She shared the 1976 Nobel Prize with her Protestant friend and co-founder of Peace People, Betty Williams.
6. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), 1979.  Born in Uskup (now called Skopje), Ottoman Empire (now, Republic of Macedonia). Died:  Calcutta, India. Residence at time of award: Calcutta, India.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:  “For her work in bringing dignity to the world’s poor, especially as founder of the Sisters of Charity.”  An ethnic Albanian whose birth name was  Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, this lifelong Catholic woman heard a call to become a nun at age 12.  Sent to India in a teaching order with her new name of “Teresa” as a “woman religious,” she eventually founded her own order to work directly with the poorest of the poor, especially those dying of hunger and illness.  Her order has built homes and hospices for lepers, orphanages, and nursing homes, not only in India but throughout the world. She used her fame from the Nobel Prize to promote peace, nonviolence, disarmament and redirection of world resources to ending poverty and hunger–but also as a vocal opponent of all abortions. (She infamously lectured then-President Bill Clinton on abortion as guest speaker at a White House prayer breakfast!) She was also a conservative opponent of the ordination of women in Catholicism. In 2003, the Vatican took the first steps toward her canonization as a Catholic saint.
7. Alva Myrdal (1902-1986), 1982. Born in Uppsala, Sweden. Died in Stockholm, Sweden. Residence at time of award: Stockholm, Sweden.  Motivation of Nobel Committee;  “For her dedication and leadership in the work of global nuclear disarmament and global reduction of conventional arms.”  Educated as an economist and sociologist, she became one of the founders of the Social Democrat Party of Sweden and became a Cabinet Minister in the Swedish Parliament. Worked in many roles in the United Nations, served as Swedish Ambassador to India, but spent most of her career trying to get nuclear disarmament.  Frustrated with both the USSR and the USA, she quit the United Nations over the “game of disarmament.” Founded the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), now a global leader in peace education and research into “what works” to bring peace.  During the Cold War, Myrdal sought to spread “Nuclear Free Zones,” by getting non-aligned nations, especially in Europe, to ban nuclear weapons from their soil, thereby putting pressure on the US and USSR to signing and implementing nuclear arms reduction/elimination treaties–NOT just “arms control” treaties that limited the growth of nuclear weapons.  Myrdal shared her Nobel Prize with Alfonso Garcia Robles (1911-1991), then Mexico’s Foreign Minister (equivalent to U.S. Secretary of State) who was also a major leader in global nuclear disarmament. Robles had led Mexico to ban nuclear weapons and was working to make all of Latin America a “nuclear free zone.” At the time of the Nobel Prize, he was known as “Mr. Disarmament.”
8. Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-), 1991.  Born in Rangoon, Burma (now called Yangon, Myanmar). Residence at time of award and currently: Burma/Myanmar.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:  “For her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.”  Daughter of Aung San (Burma’s “George Washington,” general who led Burma to freedom from the Japanese), Suu Kyi’s  (pronounced “Sue Chee”) mother (Daw Khin Kyi)  was Burma’s Ambassador to India after WWII.  Her father had been assassinated in 1947, when Suu Kyi was only 2 years old.  There Suu Kyi became a follower of Gandhi. Educated at Oxford (B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, 1967) Columbia University, Kyoto University, and the London School of Oriental and African Studies, she dedicated her life to nonviolence, democracy, and human rights.  She married Michael Aris, British student of Tibetan civilization, with whom she had 3 sons.  1969-1971, works at the United Nations on the staff of UN Secretary General U Thant. Returning to Burma in 1988, she became a vocal critic of the military regime that ruled Burma since 1962 and founded the National League for Democracy. Her NLD won the elections of 1990, but the generals refused to honor the results and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest (repeatedly, for years at a time). The military regime would have killed anyone else, but one can’t just execute the daughter of country’s national hero! The Nobel Prize gathered world attention and support to Suu Kyi and the cause of Burmese democracy, but only in the 2000s was she released from house arrest. The military government is trying to transition t”for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines”o democracy because of global boycotts and sanctions, but it remains suspicious of too much change too fast. Nevertheless, Suu Kyi is now a member of the Myanmar Parliament as an NLD member.  The military government continues to wage war on ethnic and religious minorities (Christian and Muslim) and some have been critical of Suu Kyi’s decision to work within the (not-yet-democratic) system since 2009.
9. Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1959-), 1992 Born in Aldea Chimel, Guatemala. Residence at time of award and currently: Guatemala. Motivation of Nobel Committe: “In recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples.”  A Mayan and leader of a women’s group working to end Guatemala’s civil war and for native rights, Rigoberta Menchu was given the Nobel Prize in 1992–the year when much of the world celebrated the 500 years since Columbus “discovered” the Americas, but which indigenous people mourned as “500 years of slavery, racism, genocide, and stolen land.”
10. Jody Williams (1950-), 1997.  Born in Putney, VT, USA and still lives in Vermont.  Jody Williams is founder of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, with which she shared the Nobel Peace Prize.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:”For their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.” The campaign, with the support of many high ranking military leaders, has succeeded in getting a global treaty to ban land mines, but the U.S. has failed to sign it because it would mean removing the landmines in the DMZ between North and South Korea.
11. Shirin Ebadi (1947-), 2003.  Born in Hamadan, Iran. At the time of the award and currently, she still lives in Iran. Motivation of the Nobel Committee:  “For her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.”  One of the first female lawyers in Iran, Ebadi was the first female judge, but lost her judgeship when the Iranian Revolution happened in 1979. She is a champion of the rights of women and children in Iran.  The Nobel Committee wanted to champion her work and promote progressive change in Iran, but also wanted to highlight the first female Muslim Nobel Peace Prize Laureate at a time when U.S. President George W. Bush was calling Iran, Iraq, and North Korea “an axis of evil,” and had invaded Iraq earlier that year.  Many who would have otherwise celebrated her award, such as Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa, were upset because they believed the Nobel should have gone to Pope John Paul II. Since the pope was dying, this was his last year of eligibility–Nobel’s will forbids posthumous nominations and the only Nobel Peace Prize awarded posthumously went to UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold in 1961, who died in a mysterious plane crash after his winning had already been announced. The Bush administration, of course, objected that even an Iranian dissident should get the award. Ebadi has continued her work for women’s and children’s rights in Iran.
12. Wangari Maathai (1940-2011), 2004.  Born in Nyeri, Kenya. Died in Nairobi, Kenya–her residence at time of award. Maathai was a grassroots organizer who combined environmental work with work for women’s and children’s rights.  Motivation of the Nobel Committiee:  “For her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.’  Not only was Maathai the first sub-Saharan African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but the Nobel Committee also wanted to stress that work for peace, development, and human rights could not succeed without equal commitment to grassroots work to save/preserve the environment.
13. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938-), 2011.  Born in Monrovia, Liberia which is also her current residence and residence at time of award.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:   “For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Having previously spent a year in prison at the hands of Liberian strong man, General Samuel Doe, and having had her life threatened by former Liberian dictator, Charles Taylor, Sirleaf has long been a campaigner for an end to Liberia’s Civil War(1989-2003, with only brief interruptions) and for full democracy and human rights.  In 2005, she became the first female president of Liberia and the first president since democracy was restored at the end of Liberia’s terrible civil war.  She won reelection to 2nd term in 2012. As president, she has disarmed the rebels, ended the blood diamond trade, worked to heal the child soldiers, and sought to bring back a developing economy to the once-prosperous, country which was impoverished by the long and bloody civil war. Originally an accountant and the mother of 4 sons, she earned an Masters of Public Administration degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.  In 1997, she ran for President of Liberia and finished 2nd in a field of 13.  Sirleaf had worked in several roles in the United Nations.  She shared her Nobel Peace Prize with 2 other women: fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee, and Yemenese journalist, Tawakkol Karman (see below).
14. Leymah Gbowee (1972-), 2011.  A Lutheran and mother of 4 who worked in the healing of child soldiers, Leymah Gbowee  became co-founder of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) in West Africa.  By the summer of 2002, she was the leader of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, which united Christian and Muslim women in nonviolent direct action (including sex strikes, occupation of soccer fields,prayers and public exorcisms, threats of mass disrobings–shaming the men in this culture, etc.) which pressured both Charles Taylor and the rebels to attend the peace negotiations in Ghana–and to not  leave the conference until a peace agreement was signed in 2003.  The documentary film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008), tells the story of Leymah Gbowee and the Liberian Women’s Peace Movement. With the end of the Liberian Civil War, Leymah Gbowee earned an M.A. in Peacebuilding and Conflict Studies from Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, VA) in 2007 and learned to work strategically in ways she had previously worked “hit and miss” on instinct. She continues to build grassroots peacebuilding by West African women on an interfaith basis. She also continues her trauma and reconciliation work with child soldiers.  In 2012 she used her Nobel Prize money to found the Gbowee Peace Foundation of Africa. She continues to work with the Women Peace and Security Network Africa and the Women in Peacebuilding Network.  She worked hard on the reelection campaign of President Sirleaf. She is the author of Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War (Beast Books, 2011). She has also served on the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
15. Tawakkol Karman (1979-), 2011 .  Born in Taiz, Yemen. Currently and at time of award resides in Sana’a, Yemen.  Motivation of the Nobel Committee:  “For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Karman, a journalist with an undergraduate degree in commerce from the University of Science and Technology in Sana’a and a graduate degree in political science from the University of Sana’a, became the public face of the “Jasmine Revolution” nonviolent revolution in Yemen and part of the Arab Spring of 2010-2012.  She is the 2nd female Muslim recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  A Sunni Muslim, she is married to Mohammed el-Nahmi and a mother of 3. She co-founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005.  She is also a member of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate.  She led nonviolent mass protests throughout the Jasmine revolution.  She was the first Arab woman and the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  Her heroes in nonviolence and peacebuilding are Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela (for his work in post-apartheid nationbuilding). Receiving the Nobel Prize helped muster more pressure for the ousting of Saleh and the transition to Yemeni elections. Tawakkol has also continued to be a critic of U.S. foreign policy which values stability over democracy and human rights.

I hope that many more women will be added to these ranks and that the Norwegian Nobel Committee focus on nonviolent peace and justice advocates (female and male) from around the world rather than imperial politicians it wants to influence and/or organizations  practicing austerity measures in a time of global recession!

In Appreciation: Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace With Justice (PCPJ)

I’m not a Pentecostal. One might fairly call me a semi-charismatic Baptist. The peace organization to which I have the most loyalty and identification is the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (followed closely by the Fellowship of Reconciliation) (BPFNA). But I want to pay tribute and express gratitude to my friends in Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace with Justice (PCPJ).
Because the vast majority of contemporary Pentecostals (at least in the USA) are extremely militaristic and hyper-patriotic, it surprises many to find that when they began in the early 20th C., most Pentecostals were pacifists and several Pentecostal denominations retained pacifism in their official doctrines for decades (e.g., the Assemblies of God did not change their pacifism until 1967). That story has now been told in several places: e.g., Jay Beaman, Pentecostal Pacifism: The Origin, Development, and Rejection of Pacific Belief Among Pentecostals; Paul Alexander, Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God; Paul Alexander, Pentecostals and Nonviolence: Reclaiming a Heritage.
What is less known is that a group of Pentecostals and Charismatics are working to reclaim that heritage. Think how difficult that must be. But since Pentecostals are 25% of the world’s Christians, the potential for peacemaking if that reclamation is even partially successful is amazing. I have been privileged to meet some of these courageous Spirit-filled, on-fire fools for Christ.
I want to commend them to you. There are far more of them than I can list, but these are my friends in the PCPJ:
Paul Alexander and Deborah Alexander; Eric Gabourel; Marlon Millner and Diana Augsburg Millner; Arlene Sanchea-Walsh; Murray Dempster; Anthea Butler; Dallas Gingles; Terry Johns; Shelly McMullin; Christa Savely; Rick and Jan Waldrop. I’ve probably missed some and to them I apologize.
I hope many of you check out PCPJ, subscribe to their journal, Pax Pneuma, and, if you consider yourself Pentecostal or Charismatic and want to become involved in Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, BOLD peacemaking, think seriously of joining them. This Baptist fellow-traveler will be praying for their every success.

A Tribute to Walter Wink (1935-2012): New Testament Theologian of Nonviolence and Power

On 10 May 2012, Rev. Dr. Walter Wink, passed away less than a week before what would have been his 77th birthday (23 May).  He had, apparently, been suffering some form of dementia for several years.  Dr. Wink was a huge influence on me through his writings, but I met him only once–in Washington, D.C. in 1989 when we were both arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience outside the White House–protesting the continued support of the Bush I administration for the apartheid-era government of South Africa.  (The protests, called “Stand for Truth,” had been planned for months and were huge that Mother’s Day weekend in ’89, but the news was somewhat overshadowed because less than a week earlier, the Chinese government had massacred protesting students and other pro-democracy groups in Tienenmen Square.  I met an amazing array of Christian peace and justice folk that weekend including Wink’s wife, June Keener-Wink, a young Jesuit priest named Fr. John Dear, S.J., who would soon make major contributions to peace and nonviolence theory, to theology, and to peace activism, but, who, that weekend before his fame was very quiet because his handcuffs were too tight and he was in great pain; Sister Joan Chittister, OSB; Jim Wallis, founding editor of Sojourners; Joyce Hollyday; Rev. Eugene Rivers, an African-American Pentecostal whose work with the Boston 10 Point Coalition was greatly reducing violence in street gangs; many more. It was a life-changing weekend for me.)

Dr. Wink lived an amazing life of witness. He was born in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression. He was born and raised in Texas in the midst of Texas Methodism–coming to a very different form of Christian nonviolence than fellow Texas Methodist Stanley Hauerwas.  He earned his B.A., magna cum laude from Southern Methodist University (Major: History; Double minor: Philosophy; English), but rather than pursue his theological education at SMU’s own Perkins School of Theology, Wink earned his Master of Divinity (1959) and his Ph.D. in New Testament studies (1963) from New York’s famed Union Theological Seminary, an ecumenical seminary of great influence. There is some irony here:  Union Theological Seminary is known as a center of non-pacifist liberal Christianity.  True, there are a few pacifist voices associated with UTS: Harry Emerson Fosdick and James Forbes, both Senior Ministers at nearby Riverside Church, were pacifists who taught preaching at UTS. But “Union” has become almost synonymous with names like Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), proponent of “Christian Realism,” Paul Tillich (1889-1965), German-American proponent of Christian socialism and a neo-liberal theology,  James H. Cone (b. 1938-), one of the founders of Black Liberation Theology, and Beverly Wildung Harrison (b. 1932–), foremother of Christian feminist ethics–and all of these voices represent strands of liberal Christianity that, while not militarist or “pro-violence,” are decidedly non-pacifist and endorse nonviolence only tactically and not out of principled conviction.

Wink was an ordained United Methodist Minister who spent time as a youth worker and a parish pastor before teaching at his alma mater, Union Theological Seminary. From 1976 onward, he was Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in NYC, a sister-institution to UTS in covenant with the Presbyterian Church, USA (and found on UTS’ campus).  During his time as a youth worker at East Harlem Protestant Parish, Wink came under the influence of the lawyer and Episcopal lay-theologian, William Stringfellow. Stringfellow’s interpretation of the “Principalities and Powers” in the New Testament would profoundly influence Wink’s own work.

In 1973, Wink published a small book called, The Bible in Human Transformation that declared “the historical-critical method is bankrupt.” I have to confess that I was unable to follow Wink’s point when I first encountered it.  I had come from a tradition of conservative evangelical Christianity and had found the historical-critical method to be liberating from biblicist literalism.  But Wink was not wanting to repudiate the gains of the historical-critical method, but to add to them–using insights from psychology (and later from sociology).

He is best known for his 3 volume work on “The Powers,” i.e., on the biblical terminology for power, especially in the Pauline corpus, that uses terms like “Powers, Authorities, Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, Angels, ” etc. For centuries, these terms were simply dismissed as speaking of demons–and demythologized by the likes of Bultmann and fetishized by some Pentecostals and some Fundamentalists.  Hendrikus Berkhof, John Howard Yoder, and William Stringfellow began to see the importance of this language as pointing at once to political realities and to spiritual realities “behind” political institutions.  Wink, with insights from process theology and depth psychology, gave a metaphysic for the Powers that attempted to be non-reductionistic while acknowledging that none of us on this side of the Enlightenment can simply adopt the pre-modern worldview of the New Testament.  Wink also derived a theological ethic from his study of the Powers, especially in his third volume, Engaging the Powers.  The Powers form a world-system Wink called “The Domination System,” and the inbreaking Kingdom of God is “God’s New Domination-Free Order.” The Powers are not simply evil for they were created by God to bring order out of chaos. But they are “fallen,” twisted from their created purpose and used to enslave and dominate humanity.  They must be engaged–resisted and redeemed–by the followers of Jesus.

Wink also helped many reinterpret the Sermon on the Mount so that Matt. 5:9 is understood not as a call to nonresistance or passivity in the face of evil, but to a “Third Way” of Nonviolent Confrontation of Evil.  In a lexical study of the verb αντισθηναι (“antisthenai”), usually translated “resist,” Wink finds that it actually means “stand against” as in armed rebellion or murder, so that Matt. 5:9 should be translated, “Do not violently resist evildoers.” Wink demonstrates that turning the other cheek when backhanded by a social superior , removng both garments in court when sued for one’s outer garment (thus stripping naked in protest), and going a second mile when a soldier of the occupying army compels you to carry his gear the required one mile are all nonviolent direct actions against acts of domination and oppression.  He first published this is in a small book published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation for black churches in South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle–churches that were seeking a way to be true to the gospel but resist the apartheid evil.  (See Wink, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa:  Jesus Third Way [Fellowship, 1984]).  He expanded and deepened his defense of this approach in several academic articles and book chapters aimed at changing the way New Testament scholars, especially translators and writers of commentaries on Matthew, understood the Sermon on the Mount.  Finally, he reworked his original popular study for a larger audience–beyond the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. See Walter Wink, Jesus and Violence:  A Third Way.  Because of this “active nonviolence” interpretation, Wink did not like the term “pacifism,” (too easy to confuse with “passivity,” and refused to be called a pacifist even though his dedication to nonviolence was strong–and he was a critic of the way that Christian admiration for the life and testimony of Dietrich Bonhoeffer translated into justifications of violence. (The liberationist left often uses Bonhoeffer to justify violent insurrection against conservative governments and the rightwing uses it to justify bombings of abortion clinics.)

Wink was an early defender of full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered persons in the church.  Eventually, he edited a collection of writings on the topic that did not simply include the “usual suspects,” but also the voices of pro-gay evangelicals like Peggy Campolo, Lewis Smedes,  and Ken L. Sehested.  See Wink, Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches.

Wink also edited one of the best collections of writings on nonviolence by members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation over a 50 year period.  See Wink, Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It’s truly a remarkable collection.

Walter Wink seamlessly combined the roles of pastor, teacher, scholar, and nonviolent Christian activist.  I give thanks for his life and witness hope that God continues to raise up prophetic voices like his.

Nine (9) Years After Bush Admin. Lies Took Us to War in Iraq: Remembering Some Who Said “NO!”

Monday, 19 March 2012, will mark the 9th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq: A war of pure choice based on lies and deception–lies mainly told by the Bush administration, but aided by lies from the Blair government, and by some in the mainstream media, especially at The New York Times and The Washington Post.  They lied about Saddam Hussein’s complicity in the attacks on 9/11 (He was an evil dictator, but had nothing to do with that attack, whatsoever); about “connections” between Hussein’s government and Al-Qaeda; about Iraq posessing “weapons of mass destruction,” including chemical weapons and the pursuit of nuclear weapons; lied about Iraq as a threat to the U.S. (it was under tough economic sanctions and TWO “no fly zones.”).  The vast majority in the United States Congress and the public were, at least initially, fooled by these lies and a majority (a slim majority at the time of the invasion which, as always happens when the nation rallies around the flag, quickly grew into a large majority for the first year) supported the invasion.  But not everyone.  I was among the many who said “no,” and I, along with many in the peace movement, did everything we could to make our objections loud and clear.

It is worth remembering the public figures who also objected and did what they could to prevent this national crime and international disaster.  I begin with the 156 Congresspersons and Senators who, in October 2002, voted AGAINST the “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq” Resolution.  This is not a blanket endorsement of all their actions, before or since, but simply an acknowledgement that, on that day, these elected officials were right when so many were wrong:

The U.S. Senate:  These are the Senators who refused to authorize the invasion: Daniel Akaka (D-HI), a veteran of WWII, who is retiring this year at 87; Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) a Vietnam war veteran, who is retiring this year; Barbara Boxer (D-CA); the late Robert Byrd (D-WV) (1917-2010), who pleaded against the rush to war on the Senate floor; Jon Corzine (D-NJ), a U.S. Marine reservist during Vietnam, who left the Senate in 2005 to become Governor of NJ and has since returned to his previous career in finance; Kent Conrad (D-ND), who is retiring this year; Mark Dayton (D-MN), the current Governor of Minnesota; Dick Durbin (D-IL), who is now the Senate Majority Whip; Russ Feingold (D-WI), lifelong fighter against money and corruption in politics, who was defeated for reelection in 2010 and who now heads Progressives United, a movement that seeks to overturn Citizens United and work for electoral reform; Bob Graham (D-FL), who had been Gov. of Florida from 1979-1987, and who retired from the U.S. Senate in 2004 (after a brief run for U.S. President) for heart trouble; Daniel Inouye (D-HI), a veteran of WWII who lost an arm in combat while his family were in Japanese-American internment camps “guilty by reason of race;” the late Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy (D-MA), (1932-2009) who served in the U.S. Army from 1951-1953, but who has been a strong voice for peacemaking since the days of the Vietnam War;  Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Carl Levin (D-MI), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Barbara Mikulski (D-MD); Patty Murray (D-WA), who gave a Senate floor speech against the invasion warning “you break it, you buy it;” Jack Reed (D-RI), a West Point alumnus, and U.S. Army Reserve Officer; Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) who retired from the senate at the end of 2006; Debbie Stabenow (D-MI); the late Paul Wellstone (D-MN), (1944-2002), a liberal icon who died in a tragic plane crash in 2002; Ron Wyden (D-OR); Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), the only Republican Senator to vote against the authorization to invade,  who switched from Republican to Independent in 2006 and, who, as an Independent, is now Gov. of Rhode Island; Jim Jeffords (I-VT), who had been a Republican, but switched to Independent in 2001 and then caucused with the Senate Democrats.

House of Representatives:  ^.

Neil Abercrombie (D-HI 1st), Tom Allen (D-ME 11st), Joe Baca (D-CA 42nd), Brian Baird (D-WA 3th), John Baldacci (D-ME 2nd), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI 2nd), Xavier Becerra (D-CA 30th), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR 3rd), David Bonoir (D-MI 10th), Robert Brady (D-PA 1st), Corrine Brown (D-FL 3rd), Sherrod Brown (D-OH 13th), Lois Capps (D-CA 22nd), Michael E. Capuano (D-MA 8th), Ben Cardin (D-MD 3rd), Julia Carson (D-IN 10th), William Lacy Clay, Jr. (D-MO 1st), Eva Clayton (D-NC 1st), James Clyburn (D-SC 6st), Gary Condit (D-CA 18th), John Conyers (D-MI 14st), Jerry Costello (D-IL 12th), William Coyne (D-PA 14th),  Elijah Cummings (D-MD 7st).

Susan Davis (D-CA 49th), Danny K. Davis (D-IL 7th), Peter DeFazio (D-OR 4th),  Diana DeGette (D-CO 1st), William Delahunt (D-MA 10th), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT 3rd),  John Dingell (D-MI) 15th, Lloyd Doggett (D-TX 25th), Mike Doyle (D-PA 18th), John James Duncan, Jr. (R-TN 2nd)Anna Eshoo (D-CA 14th), Lane Evans (D-IL 17th), Sam Farr (D-CA 17th), Chaka Fattah (D-PA 2nd), Bob Filner (D-CA 50th), Barney Frank (D-MA 4th), Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX 20th), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL 4th), Alcee Hastings (D-FL 23rd), Earl F. Hilliard (D-AL 7th), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY 22nd), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX 15th), Rush Holt (D-NJ 12th), Mike Honda (D-CA 15th), Darlene Hooley (D-OR 5th), John Hostettler (R-IN 8th), Amo Houghton (R-NY 29th).

Jay Inslee (D-WA 1st), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL 2nd), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX 18th),  Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX 30th), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH 11th), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH 9th), Dale E. Kildee (D-MI 5th), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI 13th), Jerry Kleczka (D-WI 4th), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH 10th), John LaFalce (D-NY 29th), James R. Langevin (D-RI 2nd), Rick Larsen (D-WA 2nd), John Larson (D-CT 1st), Jim Leach (R-IA 1st), Barbara Lee (D-CA 9th), Sander Levin (D-MI 12th), John Lewis (D-GA 5th), William Lipinski (D-IL 3rd), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA 16th).

Other prominent opponents of the invasion included:

U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Scott Ritter, a registered Republican, decorated veteran of Gulf War I and former United Nations weapons inspector. Ritter was critical of the Clinton admin. over Iraq’s possible cheating on sanctions. But he stood up to the Bush admin., too, risking his reputation by stating (correctly) that by 2002 Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no ability to create or purchase any. Ritter was openly derided in the media. Many claimed that he must be in the pay of Saddam Hussein. He marched in his first peace march in London.  None of those who trashed his reputation EVER offered an apology when he proved to be right. The Obama admin. should’ve given him a Medal of Freedom to publicly rebuild his reputation.

Brent Scowcraft, a Republican who was National Security Advisor to the first Pres. Bush, wrote an article in the 15 August 2002 edition of The Wall Street Journal entitled “Don’t Attack Saddam!” laying out the case against invasion and occupation–and correctly predicting the length and cost of the occupation against Bush admin. claims that the invasion and reconstruction would “pay for themselves” and take no more than a few weeks.  Scowcraft also correctly predicted that the invasion would distract from efforts against terrorism and from the urgent need (then much more possible than now) of forging a just peace between Israel and Palestine. (Wow. These days it’s hard to find DEMOCRATS who prioritize Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, never mind Republicans who care about it at all.)

U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, who would run as a Democrat for U.S. President in ’04 (and campaign for Sen. Hillary Clinton for president in ’08), repeatedly questioned the evidence that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. As a career military officer, Clark was no dove, and willing to invade Iraq (or anywhere else) if he thought it warranted, but he publicly continued to point out that the Bush administration case was weak to nonexistent.

U. S. Marine Corp General Anthony Zinni repeatedly threw cold water on the Bush admin. fantasies that “regime change” in Iraq would be easy. He mocked their lack of historical perspective and predicted a long, messy, occupation that would be costly in money, lives, troop morale, and U.S. reputation. He also stressed that an invasion of Iraq would drain focus and resources from efforts to destroy Al-Qaeda and work against terrorism.

Ray McGovern, a retired high-ranking intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (responsible for giving the first Pres. Bush his daily intelligence briefing), constantly exposed the lies leading to the Iraq War. He formed Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which I often joked was “Spooks Against War,” and, in 2004, publicly accused then-Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld of war crimes. (Note: McGovern has also been very critical of the Obama administration, including Obama himself, on war, indefinite detention, keeping Gitmo open, and other related matters intertwining civil liberties, national security, and foreign policy.) McGovern became a Christian pacifist about the time of his retirement from the CIA in the late 1990s and today works with the publishing arm of Washington, D.C.’s famed Church of the Savior. I have met and talked to him at several peace conferences and been very impressed with him.

Joseph Wilson, a career diplomat with the U.S. State Department who had been U.S. Ambassador to Iraq prior to the first Gulf War. Wilson was decorated with the Medal of Freedom by the first Pres. Bush for standing up to Saddam Hussein face-to-face and making sure that ALL Americans in Iraq were able to leave the country before the start of Gulf War I.  Wilson had been asked to go to Africa by the CIA to check out part of the Bush admin.’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s attempts to get a nuclear weapon. (Wilson had the necessary contacts from his long career to easily check this claim.) He told the Bush folk that the claims were bogus and when W gave a State of the Union (in January 2003) address which repeated the erroneous claims, Wilson wrote an article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” that exposed the lie in this part of the case for war. In retaliation the Bush administration illegally outed Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert operative for the C.I.A.–ruining her career and, even worse, putting numerous American and allied lives at risk all over the world. (Dick Cheney’s aide, Scooter Libby, was the only one ever charged with a crime in this matter, but I am among the many who believe that Libby acted on the direct orders of Cheney, who should be in prison for this, among other, crimes.) It is widely believed that Plame was involved in counter-proliferation work to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, especially in Iraq and Iran and that her exposure set back major efforts to keep nuclear weapons from Iran. The smear campaigns against Wilson and Plame continued for years.

Pres. Barack Obama, then a little-known state senator from IL, spoke out against the invasion, calling it “the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.” Many peace activists, including myself, have been disappointed in the Obama presidency for not doing more for peace and, even on Iraq, ending the war slowly, on a timetable negotiated with Iraq by Pres. G. W. Bush in the closing days of his presidency, instead of much faster. But, it is worth remembering that Obama spoke up when it counted, showing real political courage, in trying to prevent the start of the war.

Social Justice advocate and entrepeneur Medea Benjamin, had been the founder of Global Exchange, an organization that used the principles of “fair trade” (rather than “free trade”) to work for human rights, global economic justice, and environmentalism. By 2002, it had become major success and many urged Benjamin to stay neutral in the debate over the planned invasion of Iraq. She refused (since the tragic events of 9/11, Benjamin has tried to work for a U.S. foreign policy guided by principles of peacemaking and respect for human rights) and risked her entire organization at risk to form Code Pink: Women for Peace.  Benjamin and Code Pink have used very confrontational forms of nonviolent civil disobedience to confront architects of U.S. foreign policy–not only in the Bush admin., but also in the Obama admin.

Ignored by U.S. conservative Catholics (even some of the hierarchy in the U.S.) on this matter, both the late Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI spoke out firmly against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, against torture, indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, against detention without (civilian) trials and against the Islamophobia of the “war on terrorism.”

Others could be mentioned. I invite readers to name others who spoke out and tried to stop the rush to war that resulted in a 9-year disaster and crime(s).  Many “went along to get along,” but these stood up when public, political courage was needed. We need to honor them–and promote such “speaking truth to power” no matter what political parties are in power and no matter what the context.

Nobel Peace Prize 2011: Shared by 3 Women Peace & Human Rights Activists

The Norwegian Nobel Committee (appointed, as mandated by Alfred Nobel’s will, by the Storting, or Norwegian Parliament) has announced that for 2011, the Nobel Peace Prize will be shared equally by three (3) women, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkol Karman, “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”  The Nobel Peace Prize has often been shared by two individuals (or an individual and an organization), rarely by three individuals, and never by more than three individuals.

Each of these women has long been involved in nonviolent human rights struggle, especially for the rights, safety, and well-being of women and children.  They have also pushed for women to be treated by nations and international organizations as equal participants in peacebuilding efforts, especially post-conflict peacebuilding. This goes against the long history of women and their concerns being ignored in the normal negotiating process that leads to peace treaties.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938-) is the current President of Liberia, the first woman to be democratically elected head of state of any African nation. A Harvard-educated economist, Sirleaf had served as Assistant Finance Minister in the administration of William Tolbert from 1972-1973. Later she was Finance Minister from 1979 to 1980, when the democratic government was overthrown in a coup d’etat by the dictator Samuel Doe. Sirleaf fled the country, one of only 4 members of Tolbert’s cabinet to escape execution, and took jobs with international agencies. She returned to Liberia and was placed under house arrest and had to flee again. At the outbreak of the first Liberian civil war in 1997, she initially supported insurgent leader Charles Taylor’s fight against the dictator Samuel Doe, but later repudiated and denounced him as his war crimes became public knowledge.   A second Liberian war raged from 1999-2003.  At the end of this, Sirleaf returned to Liberia, supported the transitional government’s de-armament process, the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee and efforts to heal returned child soldiers (who had been both victims and victimizers). She ran for President under the new constitution in 2005 and won. Two decades of civil war had left Liberia with no infrastructure, nearly universal unemployment, raging ethnic and tribal animosities, and mountains of debt. Sirleaf managed to get the international community to cancel almost all of Liberia’s debt and has encouraged international investment. Using Liberia mineral wealth, she has restored some of the infrastructure (most of the capital of Monrovia now has electricity and running water, again) and has helped to re-build schools and hospitals throughout the country. She signed into law a Freedom of Information Act, the first of its kind in Africa.  But, Liberians, like Americans, think presidents can achieve miracles overnight so Sirleaf is nowhere near as popular at home as she is admired abroad. After all, unemployment remains about 80%!  Also, though Sirleaf has waged battle against corruption, it has proven to be difficult to stamp out and several of her cabinet members have been fired for scandals.  Further, many believe she should have worked more on reconciliation between ethnic groups and less on rebuilding the institutions of government and the nation’s infrastructure.  So, Sirleaf is far from being assured of reelection next month (and she broke a 2005 campaign promise to serve only 1 term if elected). But whether or not she is reelected, the 72 year old Sirleaf is well-deserving of being a Nobel Peace Laureate.

  Leymah Roberta Gbowee (b. 1972-) is known as “Liberia’s Peace Warrior.” A mother of six (6) children, Gbowee is a human rights and women’s rights campaigner. Born in central Liberia, she moved to the capital, Monrovia, at 17–just as the first Liberian Civil War broke out! She trained as trauma counselor and worked with the child soldiers of Charles Taylor’s rebel army.  Surrounded by death and destruction, Gbowee realized that if the country were to ever have peace, it would have to be mothers who brought it–mothers tired of seeing their dreams for their children shattered by the horrors of war.  Gbowee formed the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace in 2002. She organized the Christian and Muslim women of Liberia to pray together for peace and to engage in nonviolent demonstrations for an end to the civil war.  Gbowee, a Lutheran Christian, spread her movement to the churches and mosques and they forced a meeting with then-president Charles Taylor, getting him to attend a peace conference held in Ghana in 2002. Together with fellow Lutheran woman Comfort Freeman, Gbowee founded Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), whose nonviolent actions finally brought an end to the Second Liberian War in 2003, the abdication and exile of Charles Taylor, and a transitional government that paved the way for democratic elections in 2005. Wearing white t-shirts (to symbolize peace), Gbowee and the women of WIPNET marched by the thousands throughout Liberia. They formed the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which has been used to spread the women’s peace movement to other African nations such as Sudan (now South Sudan) and Zimbabwe where the women are also using prayer and nonviolent tactics to petition for peace and human rights.

  Tarwakkol Karmen (1979-), a Muslim feminist and human rights activist in Yemen, represents the Nobel Committee’s acknowledgement of the “Arab Spring.” She is a journalist by profession and has chafed for years under press restrictions in Yemen’s dictatorship.  She is a senior member of al-Islah , the main opposition party in Yemen. In 2005 she founded Women Journalists Without Chains, an organization dedicated to democracy and freedom of the press.  As soon as Tunisia’s nonviolent movement toppled its dictator, Karmen pushed for a similar movement in Yemen. Photos of her heroes (Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela) adorn her home. In a country wear most women are forced to wear all-black niqueb,  or full head covering, Karmen wears an open-faced head scarf, usually white with flowers, as a symbol of women’s dignity and defiance to the dictator Salleh and the oppressive culture.  She insists that Islam itself does not demand the niqeb, but that it is a sign of outmoded patriarchal culture, instead.  She has pushed for laws against the wedding of women younger than 17 and against violence against women and children.  Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring, Karmen has led in march after march in Yemen’s capital, been arrested and beaten. Her life and the lives of her children have been threatened by the government, but she presses onward. To the nonviolent pro-democracy movement, Karmen is known as “The Mother of the Revolution,”–a revolution that is, at present, incomplete since Salleh clings to power by the use of massive violence against his own people–as he done for 33 years, now.  Karmen and her fellow Yemeni nonviolent revolutionaries are undeterred.  She has dedicated her Nobel Prize to the entire movement. (Many within the movement have proposed her for president in a post-Salleh Yemen, which would make her the first democratically-elected female leader in any Muslim-majority nation, if it happens.)

Largely because of its longevity and the large monetary awards accompanying it, the Nobel Peace Prize is the most widely recognized and prestigious peace prize –despite ambiguities in Alfred Nobel’s will and oddities in the Norwegian Nobel Committee that have led to some bizarre recipients (e.g., Teddy Roosevelt, Nicholas Murray Butler, Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, & Yitzhak Rabin) and even stranger omissions (e.g., Mohandas K. Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dom Helder Camara, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.).  The committee has too often neglected women. Prior to this year, only 12 women have won the Nobel Peace Prize in its over 100 year history.  But this year’s prizes are to be celebrated by all who believe in nonviolence, human rights, democracy, and the full equality of women.  I look forward to watching the ceremonies in Oslo this December and reading their speeches and lectures. I pray continued success to these brave women and the movements they lead.

 

A Brief History of Christian Peacemaker Teams

One of the most dynamic and creative organizations working for peace in the world is Christian Peacemaker Teams which works out of deep commitment to gospel nonviolence.  CPT works for peace by “getting in the way” of those who would make war.  They train teams of volunteers in the techniques of nonviolent direct action and the methods of conflict resolution (or conflict transformation) and send these teams into situations of conflict–wars, civil wars, armed buildups, undeclared wars, violent oppressions of workers, etc. The teams then attempt various ways of disrupting the conflict and working toward a just peace: sometimes physically imposing their bodies between armed belligerants, sometimes documenting violence and/or human rights abuses and publicizing them to the world, sometime trying to create space for dialogue, sometime accompanying indigenous human rights workers as “nonviolent bodyguards.”

Although it has become a broader, ecumenical Christian movement, CPT is rooted in the witness of the Historic Peace Churches (Mennonites, Friends/Quakers, Church of the Brethren). In 1984, at a meeting of the Mennonite World Conference, Mennonite theologian Ronald J. Sider challenged participants to give new life to the historic peace witness of Mennonites by being as committed to nonviolent peacemaking as members of the world’s militaries are to the violent defense of their respective countries.  Sider’s challenge fell on receptive ears. A series of conversations started among Mennonites (especially in North America) about ways in which “nonviolent armies” and “nonviolent reservists” could be employed.  By 1986, a retreat of 100 persons put out a call among Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren for the creation of Christian Peacemaker Teams–volunteers supported by churches, trained in nonviolent forms of conflict intervention, who would go to areas of conflict at bold risk of their lives. In 1988, Gene Stolzfus was hired as the first staff person.  By 1992, CPT had sent teams into Iraq, the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Haiti.  Later delegations went to the Chiapas region of Mexico, Bosnia, Winnipeg, MB (negotiating between First Nations and the Canadian government), Colombia and elsewhere.

In the middle of the second U.S.-led war with Iraq, CPT gained far more visibility when a delegation was captured by Iraqi insurgents and held for several weeks. One member was executed. The rest were freed by U.S. military action.  While peacemakers saw this action by CPT as heroic and many were attracted to such serious peacemaking, the rightwing media in both the U.S. and U.K. denounced CPT as naive tools of terrorists whose presence did more harm than good.  There were even calls for the U.S. govt. to investigate CPT for possible terrorist links and to put members’ names on “no fly lists.” CPT was not intimidated and continued its nonviolent peacemaking efforts in Iraq.  (Note: The Bush admin. was particularly hostile to CPT because of two things–first, Bush’s own claims to being a “Christian president” who was supposedly invading Iraq on God’s orders. Second, CPT had earlier been the first to document and publish the U.S. torture of prisoners at the notorious Abu-Ghraib prison.  The passing of the Bush era, however, has hardly led to an embrace of CPT’s convictions or methods by the Obama administration. Far from it.)

Initially, CPT was sponsored only by the 2 largest Mennonite denominations in the U.S. (now both merged into Mennonite Church, USA) and the Church of the Brethren. But CPT sponsors now include (to date): The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, The Congregation of St. Basil (Basilians, a Roman Catholic priestly order), Friends United Meeting (Quakers), On Earth Peace (the major peacemaking program of the Church of the Brethren), The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Every Church a Peace Church, Mennonite Church, Canada, The Peace and Justice Support Network (of Mennonite Church, USA), and Peace and Justice Ministries (of Mennonite Church, Canada).  CPT, which is expanding its regional offices in Mexico, Canada, and the UK, invites other Christian groups to sponsor this growing ecumenical peace witness.

Current CPT delegations include nonviolent peacemaking efforts in Iraq, Palestine, Coluombia, the U.S.-Mexico border, the African Great Lakes region (based in Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, but also including work in Uganda), and support for aboriginal justice in the U.S. (groups working for Native American rights) and Canada (groups supporting the rights of First Nations).  Additional sponsors, funding, and volunteers could allow for other delegations.  (Among the places which have asked for CPT type nonviolent intervention are Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Costa Rica, South Sudan.)

The specific Christian identity of CPT (even in its name) has both strengths and weaknesses: On the plus side, it operates out of a clear Christological center and supported by a specific spirituality. This gives its peacemaking efforts depth and its members unity. However, in areas where “Christianity” is identified with either Western (especially U.S.) military imperialism or with coercive missionary efforts or both, such preconceptions can get in the way of CPT’s peace efforts–as seen in its capture by Iraqi military dissidents in 2005.

The challenge remains:  What would happen if Christians developed the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking as armies devote to war?

A Brief History of Denominational Peace Fellowships (U.S.)

People connect to the work of peace and justice, if they do, at the heart of their personal identities. For most people, throughout history, the heart of their identities is intimately connected to their religious convictions. Even for the non-religious, some controlling philosophy or ideology substitutes for a religious identity.  So, denominational peace fellowships developed early in the 20th C. as ways for people to connect their faiths to their work for peace. Many of these denominational peace fellowships are directly connected to the Fellowship of Reconciliation and others have informal connections.  This history is for the U.S. scene, although there are denominational peace fellowships around the world..

The “historic peace churches” (Mennonites, Friends/Quakers, Brethren/Dunkers) have been normatively pacifist for centuries,but  they were actually slower to develop peace fellowships than other denominations. Further, because each had strands of tradition that included “separation from the world,” they were often hesitant to join ecumenical or interfaith peace groups.  Thus, the beginning of peace fellowships in the U.S. came from groups whose majorities were not pacifist–and could even be hostile to peacemaking activities.  The peace fellowships of Protestant denominations came first.  In the aftermath of World War I, a huge revulsion toward war swept through the U.S. and its churches, especially, but not only through its mainline liberal Protestant churches. It is safe to say that the years 1919-1940 constitute the period in which Christian pacifism came the closest to being the majority view of U.S. Christians.  (Non-Christians in the U.S. also adopted anti-war views in larger numbers than at any time since the U.S.-Mexican War of the 1830s. Pacifists and near-pacifists would not be in the U.S. in anywhere close to the numbers between the World Wars until thel late 1960s as the Vietnam War dragged on seemingly forever.) One strong motivation for the formation of denominational peace fellowships was the protection of the rights of conscientious objectors.  Most conscientious objectors to World War I were imprisoned for the length of the U.S. involvement in the war and the peace fellowships wanted to protect the rights of conscientious objectors if and when another war came. If you are not a member of one of the “Historic Peace Churches” (Mennonites, Friends/Quakers, Brethren), then participation in a denominational peace fellowship was one of the ways to show a military draft board that one objected to participation in war as a matter of religious conviction.

The earliest denominational peace fellowship was the Methodist Peace Fellowship which formed in the 1920s.  The founder of Methodism in 18th C. Britain, John Wesley, was not a pacifist (because he was too much a supporter of the Church of England as a state church), but he came close–considering war to be the most visible sign of human falleness and sinfulness.  American Methodists, however, had been strong supporters of the American Revolutionary War and the influence of Wesley’s views on war and slavery (which he condemned in the strongest terms) was slim in the years when American Methodism strove to prove itself as a truly AMERICAN denomination.  But the recovery of a Christian peace witness began with Methodist participation in the Abolitionist movement–thanks to the huge leadership of Quakers in that movement. After the Civil War, many Methodists saw pacifism as a natural outgrowth of Wesleyan emphasis on “holiness” or “entire sanctification.” (Indeed, numerous Wesleyan Holiness denominations split off from mainline Methodism out of a sense that the latter was losing this emphasis.  Many of these Holiness offshoot groups, e.g., Free Methodists, the Church of God [non-Pentecostal], the Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Brethren-in-Christ[a denomination that combined influences from Anabaptism and from Wesleyan Pietism], and the Evangelical United Brethren [a group that would, in the 1950s, merge with the Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church], were pacifist–at least at their beginnings.) The rise of the Boston Personalist movement in theology, and the Social Gospel, increased the rise of Christian pacifism among American Methodists until, by World War I, pacifism was ALMOST a majority view in American Methodism and the Methodist Episcopal Church was recognized as a “peace church” by the U.S. military. (The Methodist Episcopal Church–South, formed as a split in American Methodism over slavery, had fewer pacifists, but it was still a sizable minority.) The strength of the pacifist witness in American Methodism waned beginning with World War II, although numerous Methodist pacifists continue to this day. Still, the Methodist Peace Fellowship itself became increasingly weaker in the 1980s and died out altogether in the 1990s.  Organizationally, the witness of gospel nonviolence in the United Methodist Church has been maintained by the Methodist Federation for Social Action, but many of the more evangelical United Methodist pacifists avoid joining MFSA because of its perceived theological liberalism–especially its strongly inclusive stance toward LGBT folks and its support for legal and accessible abortion as part of its commitment to women’s procreative choice. (Both are stands largely rejected by evangelical Protestants, including evangelical United Methodists.) A “Pan-Wesleyan” peace fellowship began in the 1980s to fill the gap left by the death of the MPF. Methodists United for Peace with Justice began in 1987 as a response to the United Methodist Bishops’ pastoral letter, In Defense of Creation, which condemned nuclear weapons and called for the development of theologies of “just peace.” Membership is open not only to United Methodists, but to members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the African Methodist Episcopal Church-Zion (AMEZ), the Christian Methodist Church (CMC), the Free Methodist Church, and the Free Methodist Church. Because MUPJ takes no stand on LGBT issues or abortion, evangelical pacifists among these branches of the Methodist family are more likely to join it.

The oldest denominational peace fellowship in the U.S. in continual existence is the Disciples Peace Fellowship, founded in 1935 as  the peace fellowship of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is the more mainline liberal branch of the Stone-Campbell movement that grew out of the Second Great Awakening in 19th C. America.  Many early leaders in this movement, such as Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) and David Lipscomb (1831-1917) were pacifist.  As the movement splintered along both cultural and theological lines into the Churches of Christ, independent Christian Churches, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), pacifism was strong among all branches until World War II, though only the Disciples formed a denominational peace fellowship or took part in ecumenical efforts to end war or make peace. (Note, outside the U.S., denominations related to the Stone-Campbell movement are not divided along a liberal-conservative axis. In the UK and Australia, for instance, the Churches of Christ relate to the U.S. Disciples, as does the Evangelical Christian Church of Canada.) After World War II, pacifism declined sharply in all branches of the Stone-Campbell movement, though a strong pacifist minority remains in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  By contrast, the independent Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ have become some of the most militarist of all U.S. Christians, with few remembering the pacifist roots of many of their early leaders. (There HAS been an effort by Stone-Campbell movement historians to recover this early witness, the major result of which has been the beginnings of a peace studies program at  Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN (related to the Churches of Christ), though most of the professors teaching in the Institute for Conflict Resolution do not share the pacifism of David Lipscomb.) One strength of the Disciples Peace Fellowship is its program of “peace interns” who spread gospel nonviolence to youth at church camps.

The Episcopal Peace Fellowship began in 1939 and today connects with the global Anglican Pacifist Fellowship.

The denominational peace fellowship I know best, of course, is also the peace organization with which I have been most deeply involved:The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.  In its current form, BPFNA was founded in Louisville, KY in 1984 out of a meeting of Southern Baptist peacemakers with American (Northern) Baptists who belonged to the (Northern) Baptist Peace Fellowship which was founded in 1940.  The BPFNA is a grassroots Baptist peace fellowship that has members in at least 15 different Baptist denominations in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. It also has strong ties to the British Baptist Peace Fellowship (founded in 1941) and similar groups around the world.  One does not need to be a pacifist to be a member of the BPFNA, just committed to the call on all Christians to be peacemakers, but it is safe to say that BPFNA gathers together more Christian pacifists in Baptist life than any other organization. BPFNA has ties to the Fellowship of Reconciliation and is represented on the boards of Christian Peacemaker Teams, and Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.

Other Christian peace fellowships include: Adventist Peace Fellowship (formed in October 2001 as a recovery of earlier–mostly lost–pacifist convictions among Seventh Day Adventists and in response to American militarism following the attacks of 11 September 2001), Brethren Peace Fellowship (1946, the ecumenical and interfaith peace witness of the Church of the Brethren, one of the historic peace churches), The Catholic Peace Fellowship (1965, renewed in 2001, with a primary focus on protecting and spreading conscientious objection to all war among U.S. Catholics), Church of God Peace Fellowship (1964 with roots in the Interracial Fellowship founded in the 1930s and deeper roots going back to the initial pacifist witness of the Church of God [Anderson, IN–Non-Pentecostal] in the 19th C.), Lutheran Peace Fellowship (1994–members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the USA), Orthodox Peace Fellowship (founded during the Vietnam War and re-launched in 1984; connects Orthodox Christians globally in peacemaking. Pacifism is not required, but active work for peace is seen as “not optional” for Christians), Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace with Justice (founded in 2002 as The Pentecostal Peace Fellowship and quickly expanding to the Pentecostal and Charismatic Peace Fellowship, the current name was adopted to stress both the essential connection of peace and justice in the gospel, and to avoid confusion with another peace group listed below; early Pentecostals were pacifist but this witness was progressively lost after World War I. PCPWJ attempts to recover, deepen, and expand the radical nonviolence of early Pentecostalism.), Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (1940s).

Noticeably missing (considering the peace witness of their roots) is any peace fellowship of Moravians, the Evangelical Covenant Church, or the Evangelical Free Church, or the Church of the Nazarene.  Also noticeably missing (considering its many pacifists) is a peace fellowship related to the United Church of Christ.

Of the Historic Peace Churches, only the Church of the Brethren has a Brethren Peace Fellowship, but it is small these days and has no website. The peace witness of the Church of the Brethren is most strongly expressed organizationally in On Earth Peace, the official peacemaking program of the Church of the Brethren.  Likewise the Mennonite Central Committee (founded in 1920), which unites many different Mennonite and Amish groups in the U.S. and Canada on matters of missions, hunger and disaster relief, development aid, and peacebuilding, performs many of the functions of a grassroots peace fellowship in traditions that are not rooted in a historic peace witness throughout all parts of the Mennonite identity.  In the largest of these groups, the Mennonite Church, USA, there is also a Mennonite Peace & Justice Support Network, linking and supporting the peace work of Mennonite congregations, much like peace fellowships do in other traditions.  Among Friends/Quakers, the American Friends Service Committee , whose history I sketched briefly in an earlier post in this series, acts as a peace fellowship and is an official affiliate of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

After World War II, the horrors of the Holocaust (with its roots in centuries of Christian anti-Semitism) awakened ecumenical Christian pacifists to the need for interfaith peace work.  The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) broadened its identity and membership basis from Christian pacifists to interfaith pacifists–as did several of IFOR’s national branches such as the U.S. FOR. (Other branches, such as in the UK, remained specifically Christian.) This led to “denominational” peace fellowships connected to the FOR (USA) from other world religions, beginning with the Jewish Peace Fellowship (founded in 1941 to support Jewish conscientious objectors).  Today, such peace fellowships in other faiths include The Buddhist Peace Fellowship (1968), The Muslim Peace Fellowship (Ansar as-Salam, founded in 1994), and the Unitarian Universalist Peace Fellowship. (Both Unitarians and Universalists began in the 19th C. as liberal Christian denominations and several prominent Unitarians were among the founders of the U. S. branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. But UUs today do not widely consider themselves to be Christian, but an interfaith collection of “free congregations” with Christian roots. So, I list the UUPF in this interfaith section and not among the Christian denominational peace fellowships.)   To date, I know of no Hindu peace fellowship, no Jain or Sikh peace fellowship, no Ba’hai peace fellowship,  Other interfaith peace groups with less connection to the FOR and Christian denominational peace fellowships will be profiled in future posts.

A Brief History of the War Resisters’ League (WRL)

In this series on the histories of peace movement organizations, we have been so far been examining those whose roots were in opposition to the First World War: The Fellowship of Reconciliation (1914 in UK, 1915 in U.S., FOR International in 1917, French and German branches in 1919), The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (1915 U.S., 1917 International), The American Friends’ Service Committee (1917).  The War Resisters’ League, the oldest pacifist organization in the U.S. without a religious foundation, also grew out of the experience of World War I.  (I have phrased this very carefully.  It would be accurate to call the WRL a “secular” organization, but to many people this suggests a hostility to religion or religious persons that is not a part of the WRL. As we will see, the major founder of the WRL, Jesse Wallace Hughes, was a profoundly religious person and people of faith have always been involved and are still, including in the leadership.  But neither any particular religion, nor religious faith in general, is a predicate for membership.)

Jessie Wallace Hughan (1875-1955) was one of the founders of the U. S. chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1915, but, from the beginning, she thought the name of the groups was too wimpy, and, though a devout Unitarian, she chafed against the leadership of the F.O.R. by ministers who focused on forgiveness.  She wanted an organization that pushed forcefully for an end to war and militarism  and which boldly confronted the causes of war (which she saw rooted in the injustices of capitalism). Hughan was an American educator, a socialist activist, radical pacifist and a perpetual Socialist Party candidate for various public offices in New York city and state.  In 1915 she helped to found the Anti-Enlistment League to discourage enlistment in the armed services as part of efforts to keep the U.S. out of World War I.

Many U.S. pacifists were imprisoned for resistance to the war. After the U.S. entered WWI, the Bill of Rights was practically suspended. Any verbal or written opposition to the war was prosecuted as “subversion,” including of clergy who refused to promote the sale of war bonds to parishioners.  Members of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Brethren, Quakers) were sometimes given better treatment, but other conscientious objectors, especially Jews, African-Americans, socialists (especially after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia), union leaders, and anarchists were given very harsh sentences and many were also treated harshly by other prisoners without intervention by authorities.

Out of these experiences, Hughan and others founded the War Resisters League in 1923 as a pacifist organization for those who, for one reason or another, did not feel at home in faith-based peace organizations such as the Fellowship of  Reconciliation (although the F.O.R. supported the formation of the WRL  and many were members of both organizations–which traded leaders, too).   At that time, the F.O.R. was an ecumenical Christian organization, not interfaith, and the Jewish Peace Fellowship did not exist until 1941.  The U.S. was not so pluralistic religiously in those days that any felt the need for such later organizations as the Muslim Peace Fellowship (Ansar as-Salaam), or the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, but the WRL was a haven for secular and non-Christian pacifists, along with those who felt that the Christian peace groups of the day were not radical enough in their opposition to war.

The WRL’s basis for membership has remained the same since its founding in 1923, “The War Resisters’ League affirms that war is a crime against humanity. We, therefore, are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of all causes of war.”  When Gandhi began his “experiments in truth” in South Africa and India, the WRL was even faster than the F.O.R. to take notice.  Along with socialist economic philosophy, most members of the WRL strongly adhere to Gandhian nonviolence.  For some, the philosophy and tactics of Gandhian nonviolence form a de facto substitute for a religious faith.

The WRL has been deeply involved in most of the anti-war movements of the 20th and 21st C., but it has also been involved deeply in most of the nonviolent domestic struggles for justice, including the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement, labor struggles, the environmental movement, and struggles for fair trade against globalized top-down free trade.  The WRL publishes a journal, WIN, an annual peace and justice calendar, and has become famous for its yearly tax pie charts that show the actual amount of the U.S. budget that goes to support past and present wars (the official budget hides part of the military budget under Veterans Affairs and Social Security) which is over50%.  The WRL pie chart has been used by numerous peace groups to promote war tax resistance and protests against the bloated nature of the U.S. military budget. (Even using the official figures, the U.S. spends more on its military than the next 25 nations COMBINED!)

The WRL’s current projects include an anti-recruitment effort called Not Your Soldier (which I think is not as effective as the AFSC’s counter-recruitment efforts), and a major effort to target war-profiteers called the Bite the Bullet Network.  The latter targets the military industrial complex which Bob Dylan rightly called the “masters of war.”

The WRL is a major component organization of United for Peace with Justice, the umbrella peace organization working to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The WRL is also a national chapter of the London-based War Resisters’ International which grew out of a Dutch organization in 1921.  In 1931, the WRI and its chapters adopted the broken rifle as its symbol. (This has major significance for me.  I have only ever held nominal membership in the WRL, unlike my greater involvement in the F.O.R., the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Witness for Peace, Every Church a Peace Church, and Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace with Justice.  Mostly, I just subscribe to the WRL newsletter and buy the occasional calendar and T-shirt.  But because I became a pacifist as a military conscientious objector, the broken rifle has always been a deeply-loved peace symbol for me,–a modern equivalent to beating swords into plowshares and a symbol of my deliberate break with my military past.)

Famous members of the War Resisters League, other than Jessie Wallace Hughan, include Dave Dellinger (1915-2004), Ralph DiGia (1915-2008), Grace Paley (1922-2007), Igal Roodenko (1917-1991), Barbara Deming (1917-1984), A. J. Muste (1885-1967) (after Muste’s retirement as head of the Fellowship of Reconciliation), and the architect of the 1963 March on Washington, Bayard Rustin (1912-1987).  The WRL continues to be a major force for peace and justice.

Update:  Although I deeply appreciate the work of the WRL, I have not been involved with them except, as I said, on the edges.  The major reason for this is that I believe ultimately nonviolence depends on a spiritual commitment. As a Christian (i.e., one who believes Christianity is actually TRUE ), I think Christian faith provides the best spirituality for pacifism and nonviolence, but it is not the only one.  Most, if not all, major religions have a nonviolent strand and resources for equipping believers to respond to injustice, oppression, and violence with nonviolent direct action and peacemaking rather than with reactive violence.  Secular commitment to nonviolence must rely either on a strictly moral commitment without any spiritual underpinnings or a pragmatic belief that nonviolence usually ‘works.’  But it doesn’t always work  and such a pragmatic or rational view is not enough to keep one nonviolent in the face of oppressive violence: If you see your family murdered before your eyes, for instance, can a purely rational or secular commitment to nonviolence hold?

So, while I agree with the WRL that war is a crime against humanity and am grateful for their work, I distrust their lack of a spiritual foundation.  It is significant to me that the current leadership of the WRL includes Frida Berrigan, daughter of the radical Catholic pacifists Elizabeth McAlister and the late Philip Berrigan, and Fr. G. Siman Harak (a friend of mine), who is a Jesuit priest.

Scott H. Bennett, Radical Pacifism:  The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963 (Syracuse University Press, 2004).

A Brief History of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

We turn to the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).  As with groups in our previous installments (F.O.R. and WILPF), the AFSC began as a specific response to World War I.  The Religious Society of Friends (nicknamed the Quakers) began as a Christian movement out of radical Puritanism in the mid to late 17th C.  Although it’s founder, George Fox, seems to have been a pacifist since his conversion, the Friends as a whole did not adopt the Peace Testimony as a defining characteristic until 1660.  Since that time, Friends have been a powerful force for peace and justice–making an impact well beyond their numbers. (There are less than 1 million Friends/Quakers worldwide–the majority in Africa.)

Especially in the U.S., the 19th C. was a troubling one for Friends–leading to several schisms between various Yearly Meetings.  This fragmented the peace witness after the Civil War, but numerous Friends played key roles in the development of the international peace movement in the late 19th and early 20th C.  When the U.S. decided to enter World War I, Quaker Meetings formed the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in order to give young Quaker men an alternative form of national service to war. During AFSC’s very first year of existence, it sent women and men to France (along with British Friends) where they worked and cared for children who were refugees because of the war. They also founded a maternity hospital, repaired and rebuilt homes destroyed by the war, and provided returning refugees with the necessities to rebuild their lives.

Over the years, AFSC has been open to hiring non-Quakers, but everyone associated with AFSC must share the Quaker belief in nonviolence and peacemaking rooted deep Quaker convictions about the dignity and worth of all persons (Quaker evangelists–called Publishers of Truth–were instructed to answer “that of God in every person”), in the power of love, service, and nonviolence, and in the ability of the Light (a biblical symbol of God) to speak to all people.  Quakers see their responsibility in opposing war, militarism, and other systems of domination as a calling to “Speak Truth to Power.”

The AFSC continued its work after the end of WWI.  Some major highlights from the early years (1917-1938) include:

• Feeding 1 million starving children in Germany and Austria in 1919.
• Feeding and reconstruction work in Poland, including buying 1000 horses from the Polish army to lend to farmers for plowing in 1920.
• Distributed food, milk, and clothing in famine relief in Russia in 1920-1921. (This work in famine relief saw the rise in leadership of a Friend in business named Herbert Hoover who went on to become U.S. president–and then see his famine relief experience prove fruitless during the Great Depression–though he remained convinced that the New Deal’s programs were the wrong answer.)
• 1925-1934, helped with poverty relief among Native Americans, African-Americans and immigrants in the inner cities, and poor whites in Appalachia.
• 1937, provided relief to both sides of the Spanish civil war.
• 1938, sent a delegation to Germany to rebuke the new Nazi government for its treatment of Jews and worked to get it to allow Jews to leave the country.

As WWII loomed near, Friends, along with Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, managed to get Congress to pass exemptions to the draft for conscientious objectors to war (although the law limited this to those whose pacifism was “based on religious instruction”) and for COs to perform “alternative service of national importance” in work camps run by the peace churches.  Many other WWII -era Conscientious Objectors, religious and otherwise, went to prison, instead.  During these years, the AFSC worked to try to maintain a consistent peace witness around the world in the midst of war.

• 1941, provided medical help to civilians on both sides of China’s civil war.
• 1942, provided alternative service for conscientious objectors to war in mental hospitals, conservation programs, and training schools.  Provided relocation help for Japanese-Americans and worked to protect the property of Japanese-Americans interred for the duration of the war.
• 1943, sent food to relieve severe famine in India.
• 1944, led the reconstruction efforts in post-war Europe and Asia.

In 1947 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to both the AFSC and the British Friends Service Council on behalf of Quakers everywhere.

• As the Cold War began, the AFSC published Speak Truth to Power(1955) as a pacifist alternative to the arms race.
• 1961, sent volunteers to work in developing countries.  This began earlier and, along with similar programs run by Brethren and Mennonites, was the inspiration for John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps program.
• Following the 1962 ceasefire between France and Algeria, AFSC worked in Algeria to develop garden and poultry projects, milk stations, and clinics to fight poverty-related diseases.
• 1965 –worked to place 7, 000 African-American children in previously all-white Southern public schools and pushed to keep school desegregation a front burner issue. (Friends had pioneered here.  Even during the days of slavery, Friends schools were open to everyone. When segregation laws in many Southern states forbade teaching white and black children together, Friends founded numerous private schools for African-Americans because of the horrible quality of the state-run “Negro schools.”  Rosa Parks attended such a Quaker primary school.)
• 1966, provided free medical aid to civilians in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and areas held by the NLF. (This led to official investigations of the AFSC by the House Un-American Activities Committee which, thankfully, no longer exists.)

And on and on it goes.

Today, the AFSC has programs seeking economic justice both globally and in the USA, programs on immigration rights, equality for LGBT persons, the Wage Peace campaign to end the war in Iraq and rebuild Iraq justly, a program to combat the militarization of American Youth (including counter-recruitment), work for fairer patterns of international trade, programs to end weapons build ups and the international weapons trade (especially work to end nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and work against weapons that mostly harm civilians, such as landmines), programs for debt cancellation and debt relief in Africa, a program for a just two-state peace in Israel-Palestine, reforming the U.S. criminal justice system (including abolishing the death penalty and ending police abuse).

A glance at these many programs shows that the AFSC’s peace witness is not just a negative peace (the absence of war or armed conflict), but a positive peace built on the presence of justice and human reconciliation.