I got this in an e-mail from my pastor, who asked that it be passed along. I couldn't think of a better place to do just that. It is truly inspired:
Dr. Robin Meyers
Oklahoma University Peace Rally
November 14, 2004
As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational
Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and
Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of
Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.
But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages
of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for
six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry
letters to the editor.
Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have
watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.
We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having
swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer
in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this
country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean,
what are we talking about?
Because we don't get to make them up as we go along,
especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited
tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does.
Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with
those in power who claim moral values are on their side:
When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your
deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and
that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are
some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching
the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.
When you live in a country that has established international
rules for waging a just war, built the United Nations on your own
soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules
you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something
immoral.
When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail
to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching,
or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount --
stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and
that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are
doing something immoral.
When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important
as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them,
you are doing something immoral.
When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then
question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight,
and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.
When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel,
which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate
ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so
the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you
are doing something immoral.
When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called
"enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention,
which your own country helped to establish and insists that other
countries follow, you are doing something immoral.
When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good
guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who
are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which
enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which
we are addicted instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are
doing something immoral.
When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay
for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an
enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the
necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.
When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country
that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like
it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks
of you, you have done something immoral.
When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to
turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the
Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something
immoral.
When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a
follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way,
not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed
to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the
corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make
higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a
toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth
belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.
When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that
our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to
resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral.
We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a
"compassionate conservative," using the word which is the
essence of all religious faith -- "compassion" -- and then show
no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no
patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing
something immoral.
When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of
the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick
can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in
her pocket, you are doing something immoral.
When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set
women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself
with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing
something immoral.
I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must
be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil
rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith.
I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but
oppose the war -- I heard that when I was your age, when the
Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong,
and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how
many people are going to die before these make-believe
Christians are removed from power?
This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim
of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only
people who can turn things around are people like you -- young
people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening
to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back.
It's your future to take back.
Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends
begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag
should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep
our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do
real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists.
So do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe
one thing: Life is precious. Every human being is precious.
Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of
charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is
the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith.
And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and
thus the greatest failure of faith. There's an old rock and roll
song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for?
And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study
war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares
and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb,
indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many
people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Maybe one day we will find out. Time to march again, my friends.
Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to
pray, and refuse to participate in the madness. My generation
finally stopped a tragic war. You can too!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(originally from:)
John C. Carr, Ph.D., Ch.Psych. (AB #1035)
Pastoral Psychotherapy & Education
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
http://www.geocities.com/crosbiecarr/index.html 
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