[Peace-discuss] A presence outside the church!

[jandurl]

Having been brought up in the Lutheran Church, attended Lutheran College and taught school in a Lutheran Parochial School System I feel compelled to comment regarding the silence of most of today's 'Christian' churches. I feel that my church has abandoned me. I did not seek to leave the church.the church has left me. Perhaps that is why I feel such a need to call some churches to reconsider their Biblical grounding: Jesus challenges the church to be about compassion, not about war and killing. I think he would want us to stand for peace. I found the entry below on the Internet and feel it has some thoughts regarding the church today. The documentary mentioned sounds like it may speak to some people's concerns regarding whether we should approach churches who have yet to declare a position regarding our government's current military engagement in Iraq. My feelings are "how can we not?" 
I look forward to having a personal presence outside some local churches..
with an invitation for anyone inside who is interested in joining those who are calling for Peace on Earth! And yes, we have attempted dialog with Church leadership and we were not welcomed........... Maybe the presence out side churches is not so much for those inside as it is for some of us outside waiting to see if we will forever remain abandoned.
My favorite quote from Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is as follows: "Abundant life is both"present possibility" and "future promise". It is available to those who thirst for alternatives to despair and violence, those who accept Jesus' invitation to be communities of subversive weeds growing in and at the edges of imperial gardens." 
Some of your fellow travelers feel called to be present outside some local churches.  I personally will not fault any who do not feel the same.  Hopefully our intent and call will likewise be respected.
Jan Kruse

The following is from an internet article about the National Council of Churches:
Muscular Christianity
The National Council of Churches (http://www.ncccusa.org) recommended a new documentary looking at the state of Christianity under Hitler. They noted that in the 1930s Germany thought of itself as a most Christian country and that Hitler was a blessing from God because he was bringing the word of God to the world. 

The church under Hitler: unified and defiant? Look again.

  The documentary film, Theologians Under Hitler, examines post-war Allied revisionism and the portrait of a German church unified, defiant against Nazism. Historical research uncovers a very different story. The film, scheduled for PBS release November 9 (check local listings), is an effort by producer Steven D. Martin and his company; Vital Visuals, Inc., to ask what this history teaches us about religious faith, institutions, ourselves and evil. Based upon the research of Robert Erickson, Ph.D. (Pacific Lutheran University), the film introduces the viewer to three of the greatest Christian scholars of the twentieth century: Paul Althaus, Emanuel Hirsch, and Gerhard Kittel, -- men who were also outspoken supporters of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In the Germany of the 1930s, the most renowned theologians were firmly in the camp of Hitler. 

  This film, based upon groundbreaking research, introduces the viewer to three of the greatest Christian scholars of the twentieth century: Paul Althaus, Emanuel Hirsch, and Gerhard Kittel, men who were also outspoken supporters of Hitler and the Nazi party. In 1933 Althaus spoke of Hitler's rise as "a gift and miracle of God." Hirsch saw 1933 as a "sunrise of divine goodness." And Kittel, the editor of the standard reference work on the Jewish background of the New Testament, began working for the Nazis to find a "moral" rationale for the destruction of European Jewry.
According to the film, religion was transformed from the meek and apologetic Christianity which many thought was too feminine to a muscular movement which attracted strong young men and those who found their brand of forceful and righteous anger attractive. The churches gloried in their patriotism, displayed national flags and honored the war heroes. And those who found this message compelling were strongly anti-intellectual. Too many brains and too much reason were seen as suspect. They compared Hitler to Jesus (favorably) and declared that the "Third Reich is God's Kingdom". 

Today, concerned Christian leaders are asking, can what happened in Germany happen again? And what could we learn from the experience of Germany?

There are some signs that our own religious tradition is displaying some of the same ominous traits. During the last days in the run up to war, there were many stories about how George W. Bush had come to believe that he was the arm of God, put on this earth to smite the infidels. 

Gary Wills wrote an op-ed before the start of the war worrying about how Christianity was being co-opted by the warriors. He wrote about the lengths the American Christian leaders had gone in justifying the upcoming war. Even Catholic priests found reason to beat the drums of war rather than listen to their Pope who was actively trying to stop the illegal war.

  The priests who do not bow to the War God are, in a chaplain's words that Dreher quotes with approval, reinforcers of the notion that ''religion is for wimps, for prissy-pants, for frilly-suited morons.'' This is what used to be called ''muscular Christianity,'' and Dreher thinks it is the only authentic form of his faith.
This year in May Harper's Magazine had several investigative pieces on the Christian Right. One of the movements they investigated was the most powerful Mega-Church in the US: the New Life Church, run by Pastor Ted Haggard. As Harper's reported, Haggard's New Life Church defines what it means to be evangelical: 

  ...[evangelicals are an] army of Christian capitalists.... "They're pro-free market, they're pro-private property," he said. "That's what evangelical stands for." 
  ...he describes the church that good Christians want: "I want my finances in order, my kids trained, and my wife to love life. I want good friends who are a delight and who provide protection for my family and me should life become difficult someday... I want stability and, at the same time, steady forward movement. I want the church to help me live life well, not exhaust me with endless 'worthwhile' projects." By "worthwhile projects" Ted means building funds and soup kitchens alike. It's not that he opposes these; it's just that he is sick of hearing about them and believes that other Christians are, too. He knows that for Christianity to prosper in the free market it needs more than "moral values" - it needs customer value.
  New Lifers, Pastor Ted writes with evident pride, "like the benefits, risks, and maybe above all, the excitement of a free-market society." ... He believes it is time "to harness the forces of free-market capitalism in our ministry."
Pastor Ted sees the New Lifers as the bulwark against Islam. 

  "My fear," he says, "is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state." 
  And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. "I teach a strong ideology of the use of power," he says, "of military might, as a public service." He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because "the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood."
If Pastor Ted is the leader of the fastest growing church and he wields the power on politicians that this article says, then I fear some American versions of Christianity have way too much in common with that of Hitler's Germany. 

Update: There is a faux-Christianity in this country that gets too much attention. Describing it as Christianity is a blasphemy on what Jesus actually preached.

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