| Head of churches’ council seeks to avert
war
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
New York
Why is it, wonders the Rev. Robert Edgar, that he can meet a full
hour with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, hand deliver a message from
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to former President Jimmy Carter, and
prepare for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and yet “I
can’t get in to talk to President Bush.”
Back from recent trips to Baghdad and Berlin and about to travel
to Moscow in early March, Edgar pondered the question Feb. 14 at the
Interchurch Center here, headquarters of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the USA. A former six-term Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania
and a United Methodist minister, Edgar has been general secretary of the
council for three years.
The council represents some 140,000 U.S. congregations of
Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican believers, numbering 50 million Christians.
As a Christian body, its membership is second only to the Catholic church,
which counts some 64 million adherents.
In a question-and-answer session with NCR and a dozen
representatives of Protestant churches, he detailed the council’s
opposition to a U.S.-launched preemptive strike against Iraq, designed to
topple Saddam Hussein and rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. After a
six-month effort to change hearts and minds in Congress and in congregations,
council leaders have taken their campaign to European religious and political
leaders.
On Feb. 17 a five-member delegation met with the new archbishop of
Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and on Feb. 18 took its concerns to British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s chief ally in the struggle with Iraq. On Feb.
26 another NCC delegation, which was to have included a Catholic
representative, hopes to meet with Pope John Paul II and to brief
Vatican officials on the churches’ objections to war.
Each of the delegations has emphasized that America’s
religious leaders -- including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops --
oppose war with Iraq, favor the continuation of the work of United Nations
weapons inspectors and are committed to a peaceful solution to the crisis. The
U.S. bishops’ Nov. 13 statement opposing the war is posted on the NCC Web
site.
“Preemptive war is immoral and illegal,” Edgar said.
“It is theologically illegitimate and profoundly violates our Christian
beliefs and religious principles. As disciples of the Prince of Peace, we know
that war is completely antithetical to Jesus’ teachings.”
In mid-February Fr. Stanley DeBoe of Silver Spring, Md., was part
of the NCC’s five-person delegation to Paris. DeBoe’s Trinitarian
order began in Paris in 1198, with its mission to facilitate the payment of
ransoms and the return of prisoners, both Muslim and Christian, during the
Crusades. DeBoe co-chairs the ecumenical group Churches for Middle East
Peace.
The NCC delegation met with French Foreign Ministry officials,
church leaders and the press and held an ecumenical prayer service for peace at
the Madeleine Church in central Paris, which drew 500 worshipers.
Although Edgar was not part of the Feb. 10-11 delegation to Paris,
he noted the group’s surprise that “the general impression in France
is that the churches are all behind Bush.” What perplexes European church
leaders is that Bush, a United Methodist, is a member of a church that’s a
member of the NCC, Edgar noted. The United Methodists and the NCC are opposed
to waging war against Iraq. Yet Bush is pushing ahead. How is that possible?
asked European Christians and the French and German media.
Edgar, along with two other U.S. church leaders and 13 from Europe
spent an hour with Schroeder at his Berlin office Feb. 5. The chancellor
explained Germany’s outspokenness against the pending war as the actions
of “a good ally.” A good friend doesn’t let a good friend make a
big mistake, Edgar said, paraphrasing Schroeder.
On March 2 Edgar will meet in Washington with visiting European
church leaders.
In the weeks prior to the Persian Gulf War, Bush’s father,
President George H.W. Bush, an Episcopalian, met with his church’s
presiding bishop, Edmund Browning, at the White House. President Clinton held
frequent sessions with the Rev. Phillip Wogaman, pastor of Foundry United
Methodist church in Washington, which the Clintons attended.
So why can’t Edgar see Bush or at least be given the courtesy
of a reply to his letters requesting a meeting? Edgar suspects the president
wants to “keep his own counsel.” Moreover, the White House is aware
that Edgar and many in the religious community question the morality of a U.S.
invasion of Iraq and of the half-million casualties that the World Health
Organization estimates would result from such a war.
In late December Edgar led a 13-member NCC delegation to Iraq.
“We came as humanitarian inspectors, not weapons inspectors,” he
said. The group asked “pointed” questions of Tariq Aziz, Edgar said,
regarding human rights in Iraq, and opportunities for dissent and criticism of
the regime. “We wanted to be clear with the American people and the Iraqi
government that we do not support authoritarian governments,” Edgar
said.
The group focused its trip on the faces of children -- Syrian
Orthodox, Chal-dean Catholic and Muslim. The delegation brought back photos of
some 800 Iraqi children. In the birthplace of Abraham, the group worshiped with
Iraqi Christians and prayed with Muslims. Members attended a New Year’s
Eve Mass at a Catholic church.
Edgar said he left Baghdad convinced that a war against Iraq would
make the United States less secure, not more secure, and would put both Israel
and the United States more at risk of terrorism. “So-called smart bombs
can do dumb things,” he said, such as missing their targets and destroying
homes, water and sewage treatment plants, schools, churches and mosques.
“War is rarely the final solution. The unintended
consequences are unknown and almost always graver than the war itself,”
Edgar told NCR, referring to a key point made by Carter in his speech
accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.
Edgar was one of 49 U.S. religious leaders who sent a letter to
Bush Jan. 30 seeking “with the utmost urgency” a face-to-face
meeting. When this request and many previous entreaties failed, Edgar launched
a full-page ad in The New York Times, in an effort to rally
“faith-based opposition” to this war. The ad showed the president
bowed in prayer and carried the headline: “President Bush: Jesus Changed
Your Heart. Now Let Him Change Your Mind.”
In addition, the NCC and United Methodist church launched a $1
million television campaign. In it United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, the
denomination’s top ecumenical officer, states that the
administration’s proposed war “violates international law …
God’s law and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Such a war will only create
more terrorists,” said Talbert in 30-second spots that have aired on Fox
Cable News and CNN.
Is the council’s campaign likely to deter the warriors in
Washington? Edgar believes “war is not inevitable and can be averted, even
at this moment.” He urged church people, especially those skilled in Old
and New Testament studies to “be courageous” and speak out. “The
Old Testament prophets never held a majority; they never took a vote; they
simply raised their voices.”
Patricia Lefevere is an NCR special report
writer.
National Catholic Reporter, March 7,
2003
|
