[Peace-discuss] Pastor Smith's comments

[Randall Cotton]

I'm not sure how this effort began to be described as a "picket". To
my knowledge it has always been a demonstration like the one at Main
and Neil. In fact, I originally proposed this as a substitute for the
evening "Main Event" demonstration we'd been holding on the 3rd
Saturday of the month. At the meeting this past Tuesday, where we made
a lot of progress on planning, the intention was clearly to make this
just another demonstration, this time with a different audience -
church congregations - with different signs and flyers tailored for
that audience.

It's my opinion (and others at the Tuesday meeting seemed to agree)
that it wouldn't be productive or for us to try to address church
leadership or demonstrate against a church (since we are not part of
the congregation). That is absolutely not the nature of the event as I
understand it.

The intent is to connect with churchgoers themselves, as they arrive
for or leave services, just in the same way we connect with passersby
at our other demonstrations, showing thought-provoking signs, handing
out flyers, engaging in conversation, urging them to join us and so
on.

R

PS: It seems to me that if the local Church leadership is explicitly
on record in opposing the war, they may actually *welcome* the
expression of anti-war sentiment. But at the same time I would say
it's not likely we would demonstrate at such churches anyway. The
point is to connect with a group of people who are much more likely to
be *for* the war than our usual audience at Main and Neil.

Main and Neil
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Illyes" <illyes at uiuc.edu>
To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Pastor Smith's comments


: It may be great fun to picket church-goers, but if it is
: seen as self-righteous, as Pastor Smith suggests, we make
: things better rather than worse with our fun. I think we
: need to be pretty careful in picking our churches, making
: sure that their local leadership is on record for war. I know
: several pastors who are very explicitly on record in
: opposing the Iraq disaster, and it would be hubris to picket
: their churches.
:
: Bob
:
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