Christians United for War

[laststeamtrain]

Christians United for War

By Philip Giraldi

December 24, 2009 "Anti War" -- As today is Christmas Eve, it might be useful for those of us who call ourselves Christians to recall the teachings of Jesus Christ regarding humility, charity, tolerance, and peacemaking. The Christian message should be particularly welcome to the American people who have borne the burden of nearly continuous warfare since 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 5,300 Americans and hundreds of thousands of foreigners at an appalling cost to the US economy. The message is particularly appropriate for Christmas 2009 because it appears that many so-called Christian leaders are urging the United States government to take steps that will inevitably lead to a new war, this time against Iran.

On December 10th a group calling itself the Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-Free Iran sent a letter to both political parties’ leaders in Congress as well as to the chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Relations committee. The letter, beginning "We write today as Christian leaders," preceded a December 15th vote in the House of Representatives in which 412 house members approved the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009, with only twelve votes opposed. The sanctions proposed by the House of Representatives and endorsed by the Christian leadership have correctly been seen by many as amounting to an act of war.

The Christian Leaders’ letter was signed by many prominent evangelicals including Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee, Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network, Chuck Colson, Gary Bauer of American Values, and Richard Land. Land, who appears to be the driving force behind the letter, is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. There are also several Catholics among the thirty-seven signatories, which is surprising as the Vatican has repeatedly expressed its repugnance towards the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. One signatory Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has an interesting moral compass. In defense of the Catholic priests who assaulted young boys he once explained "After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested." He has also stated that "Hollywood likes anal sex" and that the film industry is controlled by "secular Jews who hate Christianity." Donohue’s signature might be a bizarre mea culpa for his nasty comments about Jews because it aligns him firmly with AIPAC on the issue of Iran, but it places him in strange company with Hagee, who hates Catholicism and has blamed the Catholic Church for the Holocaust.

The name of the umbrella group, "Nuclear-Free Iran," is particularly ironic as Iran is in fact nuclear-free. But Tehran is directly confronted by 200 Israeli nukes and an undisclosed number of American bombs on board ships and planes in the Persian Gulf. If the Christian leaders’ letter is to be taken at face value, Israeli and American nukes are apparently to be judged, ecclesiastically speaking, by a different standard than those Iran might acquire. The letter also ignored that Iran shares a tough neighborhood with non-threatening but also nuclear armed India and Pakistan and made some questionable claims, starting with the flat assertion that Iran, guided by "extremist leaders," has a nuclear weapons program. It then went on to state that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, is destabilizing "democratic and Western leaning regimes throughout the Middle East," and it will "sell or give nuclear weapons to extremist groups." The letter claimed that Iran has "vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth" and concluded by calling for sanctions on refined petroleum products being sold to Tehran, to include not only the gasoline itself but also the ships transporting it and the banks and insurance companies enabling the transactions. It concluded "We speak out today on behalf of millions of Christians who believe that the interests of peace and security would best be served by our elected representatives sending a powerful signal that this tyrannical Iranian regime shall never threaten the world with nuclear weapons."

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So Richard Land and his friends are on record as supporting US interventionism, opposing elections when the wrong guys win, and using force to impoverish a civilian population in a country that does not threaten the United States in any way. America’s self-described Christian Leaders have again become enablers working with a Congress and media that have become addicted to war. It might be considered churlish to suggest that the Christian mission might better consist of helping the poor and saving souls without the added burden of advising politicians. It is indeed a tragedy when folks who call themselves religious leaders give the American public the usual Hobson’s choice when it comes to dealing with Iran. It is either war or more war. Not a very reassuring message at Christmas time and not exactly the legacy of the Prince of Peace.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24262.htm

[timeforpeace]

1. Sounds like the Obama Administration and war supporters here, huh?

[Goldstein1984]

2. I've heard it said, or seen it written, that if...

Jesus Christ were alive today, the last thing he would be is a Christian.

So many good ones, but the nasty type give them all a bad name.

Don't doubt it--we have the makings of our own Taliban, although they'd probably call themselves the Knights of something or other.

[avaistheone1]

3. +1

[winyanstaz]

4. Every single one of those so called "Christian leaders"...

will be burning in hell fire according to their own bible.
Just who would Jesus bomb, blow up and murder?
To go to war in God's name only proves your God has no real power.
If your God had any real power he would not need a human being to do the dirty deeds of killing people.
War mongerers are NOT Christ's people..they do the work of their own God, Satan.

[Vidar]

5. K&R.

[ck4829]

6. Kick