[Peace-discuss] Christianity and War - from Alex Cockburn

[C. G. Estabrook]

Against Saviors

My brother Patrick called on Christmas Day, from his home in Canterbury 
[England]. Opposite his house is St. Dunstan’s church, containing the head of 
Sir Thomas Moore, retrieved by his daughter Margaret after her father was 
beheaded in 1535 for refusing to sign the Act that declared Henry VIII Supreme 
Head of the Church in England. Patrick’s house is as old as St. Dunstans and 
contains a right of way, through which custom decreed that pastoralists could 
lead their sheep. One of these days I’ll rent a flock and ratify the right, just 
in case the brother has any notion of privatizing the whole of his premises.

Patrick reported that he and his family had gone along that morning to listen to 
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, give his Christmas sermon. He said 
it was pretty good. I looked it up online, and the brother was right. It was a 
bracing critique of “great man” theories of change, specifically citing 
excessive hopes, now vested in Barack Obama.

“In recent weeks,” the Archbishop  declared, “we've seen some of Barack Obama's 
advisers and colleagues warning about the level of messianic expectation loaded 
on to the president-elect.

“The gospel tells us something hard to hear – that there is not going to be a 
single charismatic leader or a dedicated political campaign or a war to end all 
wars that will bring the golden age…

“There is a savior, born so that all may have life in abundance, a savior … 
hidden in the form of poverty and insecurity, a displaced person … whose 
authority does not come from popularity, problem-solving or anything else in the 
human world. He is the presence of the power of creation itself.

“It is not the restoring of a golden age, not even a return to the Garden of 
Eden; it is more – a new creation, a new horizon for us all…

“And our own following of the Word made flesh is what gives us the resources to 
be perennially suspicious of claims about the end of history or the coming of 
some other savior exercising some other sort of power. To follow him is to take 
the risks of working at these small and stubborn outposts of newness, taking our 
responsibility and authority.

“We can't pass the buck to Caesar Augustus, Barack Obama or even Canterbury City 
Council – though we may pray for them all and hope that they will play their 
part in witnessing to new possibilities.”

Not bad at all. The last year the liberals and a lot of the left here have 
passed the buck entirely to Obama.

http://www.counterpunch.org/