Dear Church Family,

During Lent we think of Christ's' sacrifices. If I have seemed non-committed to you about the current military sacrifices our young men and women are making, it's because I have been too sick, saddened, angry and shocked to know what or how to say or pray about Iraq. Certainly I mourn for our military sons and daughters; I once wore the uniform and know what parents fear. Everyone prays for peace.

I read in the newspaper that there is a high percentage of mainline clergy who are pacifists, while a high percentage of the laity of their churches favor the war. I kind of wonder why this is so.

Here are several possibilities, mostly preposterous:

- Clergy are idealists and/or liberals;
- laity are realists and/or conservatives?
- Clergy more more pastoral,
- Laity are more patriotic?
- Clergy try to live out of compassion,
- laity try to live out of convictions?
- Clergy have been brainwashed in seminary, and by the institutional church?
- Clergy are influenced more by the Bible
- Laity are influenced more by the media,?

What do you think?

Perhaps it is a question of priorities, or rather prior loyalties that have become prime loyalties. This confusion happens because Christianity is a matter of faith, not heritage.

All American-born Christians were Americans first. All American Christians were also sinners first: Romans 3:23.

We came into Christianity by the faith in God's love… but in time of war we tend to return to our prior loyalties as our prime one. The question should be, which came first the chicken or the egg ... the cross or the flag?

Has Christianity survived because of the hard-fought-for-freedom in America? Or has America survived because Christians down through the centuries brought freedom, justice and love?

When America ceases to be a place of high morality, of freedom, of justice and of love for all, is it really still America?

Where do I stand?

I am against the war in Iraq for two reasons:

1) I am a life-long pacifist. As an Army medic with conscientious-objector status, I made the hard decision to be more willing to be shot at than to shoot back. Some of my C-O medic buddies died in Vietnam. I now vividly imagine civilians as well as military personnel lying dead in the sand; every day my imagination becomes reality.

2) Since September 11, 2001, I believe the actions of this administration does not live up to the high moral standards of Christianity and to our Constitution by its:

A) interrogating, (torturing?) and detaining of POWs and Arab immigrants, the administration is ignoring the Geneva Convention and our Constitution (Article 1 sec. 9 provision 2-3 and Amendment VI of our Bill of Rights)
B) snubbing the UN in the US's unilateral preemptive strike of Iraq, and any UN suggested cease fire.
C) setting up a homeland security - which has the potential to threaten our privacy and Amendment IV, closest thing we've ever had to Hitler's Schutzstaffel. The FBI is now "interviewing" 11,000 American Iraqis!
D) turning a deaf ear to protesters around the world, even insinuating they are unpatriotic - Not listening to our (former) European allies, in fact mocking France and Germany.
E) not only a lack of capture of Bin Laden, but a lack of follow-through in reconstructing Afghanistan. Finish one job first. Now our thin-spread-troops there are being attacked again.
F) using billions of dollars to invade Iraq and to bribe allies, while the economy of our own people suffers badly. Delaying the request for $75 billion 'til after a big tax-break had passed, at a time we have a DEFICIT!
G) numerous Hypocrisies, for example: trying to feed the Iraqis after starving them for a decade; attacking oil-rich dictatorships while other dictators in Africa and North Korea abuse their people; and, using fear and revenge to sell the American people on this war (these are the same techniques used by our enemies);
H) many of the Bush administration were themselves, or were closely connected to, Oilmen and Defense contractors who stand to profit from this war.

Certainly, I believe Saddam is a bully, and ought to be deposed! But isn't Bush also being a bully? I detest all bullies.

Sorry, laity, that's how I feel.

It is very likely you and I disagree about all this, but I love each and every one of you.

Pastor Wayne

Wayne is an ordained Elder of the United Methodist Church, a member of The Detroit Annual Conference, and has served several United Methodist congregations in Pennsylvania and Michigan. The focus of Wayne's ministry for over a decade has been with small, rural congregations.

Wayne is a person who takes "peacemaking" seriously as core to his Christian witness; he is also a person who takes his responsibilities as a U.S. citizen, seriously. Although a conscientious-objector, he served in the U.S. Army as a medic during the Viet Nam era as his way of trying to be true both to his discipleship and to his citizenship. As Wayne put it so well ... "I made the hard decision to be more willing to be shot at than to shoot back."