"Go, and Make Peace"

The Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
June 08, 2008
Northern Hills Fellowship

Reading

Peacemaking CSAI

“The Congregational Study/Action Issue adopted at the 2006 General Assembly started with the question: "...should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war...and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?"

A Congregational Study/Action Issue (or CSAI for short) is an invitation for the member congregations of Unitarian Universalist Association (or UUA for short) to take a topic of concern and confront it, reflect on it, learn about it, respond to it, comment on it, and take action—each in their own way. A CSAI is NOT a statement—it is a question. The original text is intended to frame the issue and a statement is developed over four years scheduled to be voted on at the 2010 UUA General Assembly.

The UUA’s Commission on Social Witness, which oversees the CSAI process, created a Peacemaking Core Team to assist congregations as we deliberate the Peacemaking CSAI. It is made up of volunteers and representatives of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office and the UU Service Committee.

Although some interpreted the Peacemaking CSAI as a call for debate between the “Just War” and “Pacifism” theories, the Peacemaking Core Team believes that the heart of peacemaking is seeking to find solutions that encompass all truths, rather than creating a competitive battle between two positions.

Therefore, the Core Team is following the spirit of the rest of the text of the CSAI in inviting congregations to engage in a full exploration of violence and peacemaking on all levels. Physical, psychological, and institutionalized violence permeate many aspects of our lives. The process of disengaging from all forms of violence is no simple matter. But both just war advocates and pacifists would agree that we need to work with all possible speed to reduce violence and war throughout the world.”

Sermon

Go, and Make Peace Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne

When They Sleep by Rolf Jacobsen:
“All people are children when they sleep.
There’s no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
--God, teach me the language of sleep.”
:::
Our 6th principle asserts “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” With the horrible news of Genocide in Darfur and war raging in Iraq, delegates to the 2005 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly felt we must embody our 6th principle’s goals by expanding the ways we can act as responsible global citizens. They passed a resolution to include our international engagements as part of the 2006 General Assembly theme which was to be “Toward Right Relationships.” The 2006 General Assembly, called GA for short, passed an “Action of Immediate Witness” which reads in part:

WHEREAS "The Declaration of Peace" (DOP), a nationwide interfaith, nonviolent campaign launched in May 2006, has been endorsed by over thirty religious and secular organizations; …

WHEREAS the UUA has consistently joined peacemaking campaigns, which have promoted reconciliation over war, redistribution of wealth over the proliferation of weaponry, and non-violent resistance over acquiescence to militaristic government policies; …

THEREFORE be it resolved that the UUA General Assembly of 2006: Endorses "The Declaration of Peace" Campaign; Urges all Unitarian Universalist leaders at the international, national, district, and congregational levels to support individual and congregational participation in interfaith campaigns to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq; and Urges all Unitarian Universalists to promote increased support for U. S. military personnel and their families.

The 2006 GA also adopted the congregational study/action issue Jim just read about. It asks us to say what we think about whether the UUA should “reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war” and “adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means.” If you would like to learn more about how the GA Social action process works and how it decides what issues to ask us to discuss, you are invited to our Town Meeting hosted by MJ Pierson and me here in the sanctuary at noon. I will be preaching on different aspects of Peacemaking at least a few times next church year, and again I hope today will kick off more in depth discussions of the issues within the congregation.

:::
I had just arrived in Chicago to begin my four years of theological school when the attacks on 9/11 blasted us into a new world. In the months following that and during the lead up to the Iraq War, we seminarians and our professors debated what would be appropriate responses to war from us as individuals, from our school, and from our congregations. Some claimed UUism was thoroughly anti-war, but others pointed to the Vietnam era when many UU congregations experienced divisions because some members felt their ministers were too focused on that war. I don’t believe we can claim we are clearly a “peace church,” at least not in the same way as the Quakers, who have a long history of pacifism. UUs hold a wide range of opinions on war, from complete Pacifists through those who believe war is sometimes justified.

Looking for evidence as to whether UUism could be considered a historical peace church, I read the biography of John Haynes Holmes, a Unitarian minister and social activist, who is remembered for his pacifism and for helping found the NAACP in 1909, and as a founder and later chair of the ACLU. In the years before World War I, he helped found the American branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Union Against Militarism, and the War Resistance League. Members of these groups were primarily pacifists. In the same period, former President and Cincinnati native William Howard Taft, then an active leader in the American Unitarian Association, founded an organization named the League to Enforce Peace, which welcomed both pacifists and advocates of preparedness for war.

Taft’s biographer on a UU History website relates: “At the 1917 [American Unitarian Association General Conference, equivalent to our current day General Assembly] John Haynes Holmes proposed a resolution in favor of reconciliation, peace, and social justice. Taft denounced Holmes's proposal and introduced a pro-war resolution which passed nearly unanimously. The AUA having taken this stand, many Unitarian churches throughout the country eventually dismissed pacifist ministers. One of these, ironically, was the First Congregational Unitarian Church of Cincinnati. Its minister, Alson H. Robinson, was a victim of the Unitarian pro-war tidal wave initiated by Taft, the congregation's most famous son.” Holmes, then slated to become chairman of the General Council of Unitarian churches, hearing his pacifism denounced by powerful Unitarian leaders as treason, resigned his ministerial fellowship with the Association.

So, in at least two 20th century wars, UUs were divided in their sentiments on war, but maybe the pendulum is swinging toward peace. The UUA has issued no less than 80 resolutions and statements having to do with issues of war and peace since our first GA in 1961. By this evidence, it would seem we are a peace loving church. However, just reading the resolutions would leave out the fact that all of them were products of lively debates. As UUs we continue to search for our truths, and we aren’t bashful about expressing our differences of opinion on how to make peace. It remains to be seen if we will transform ourselves into a “peace church.”
:::
Many of the debates over issues of war and peace are between backers of Pacifism and backers of Just War theory. So we can join the discussion, I’ll give brief summaries of each theory. I’ve taken these from a study guide produced by the UUA for small groups like our new Covenant Groups.
Just War theory as we know it today comes from St. Thomas Aquinas’s attempts to justify the use of force by the early Holy Roman Empire. He acknowledges war is unholy, but claims there are times in which war is justified in order to retain peace. There are two overarching themes in Just War theory- Justice of War, the criterion which must be met to justify going to war, and Justice in War, the rules of fair conduct by soldiers and leaders in a war.

The following points are the “equation” that makes a war just.

1) Just cause
The reason for going to war needs to be just. Justifications include recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong.

2) Comparative justice
While there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to override the presumption against the use of force, the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other.

3) Legitimate authority
Only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war.

4) Right intention
Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose—correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.

5) Probability of success
Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success;

6) Last resort
Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.
Pacifism, in the Judeo-Christian tradition comes from the commandment, “Do not Kill.” In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, divinity inhabits all living beings and must not be destroyed. Pacifism originally meant rejection of war and non-participation in the military, and it has evolved to embrace non-violence as both a personal credo and a political ideology. Leo Tolstoy’s writings about the futility of war, and his work on non-violent resistance inspired many modern pacifists including Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hear Edna St. Vincent Millay’s pacifism in her poem, Conscientious Objector:

I shall die, but that is all I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear
the clatter on the barn floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba, business in
the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the
girth.
And he may mount by himself: I will not give him
a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders with his whip, I will
not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him
where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him
the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should
deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are
safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

According to Paul Rasor, who will speak on Peacemaking at our General Assembly in a few weeks, Just War and Pacifism actually have much in common; they are both anti-war traditions. “Both seek to limit the use of violent force, and they will be on the same side in nearly all cases. More importantly, both pacifism and just war share several core commitments that are also reflected in Unitarian Universalist theological principles. By recognizing these commonalities, we can move beyond old divisions toward a position that integrates the two traditions.”
:::
A new approach to preventing war, called Strategic Peacebuilding, incorporates the pacifist commitment to seek peace at all times, and accepts just war’s use of force to protect innocent lives. “It asserts that war and violence are always preventable if the groundwork has been done to build a culture of peace, a culture that addresses the needs for understanding, justice, and mutual respect that, if unmet, would otherwise lead to violence.”
The questions of whether to use force and how to ethically employ it are vitally important and will be debated every time we are involved in conflict. But, as we have learned all too well from the ill-advised Iraq war, there is more to war than making a case to start it or even having a plan for ending it. If we are to reduce the tragic consequences of armed conflict in the world, we must work harder to create peace. We must study peace and increase awareness of ways to avert the catastrophe’s of war and genocide. We must pay attention to what’s going on in the world around us, and anticipate the solutions to problems as they arise between peoples. We must also put into place processes for peacefully resolving conflict, for reconciling parties after conflicts, and for promoting dialog to grow mutual understanding and reduce prejudice and hatred.

The violence which is the immediate experience of those in a war zone, grows out of societies that accept violence as part of their structure. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us we must work to stop wars, and we must also end structural injustices, such as racism and poverty if we are to ever have a chance of living in harmony. Peace building is more than just the rejection of military participation. That’s why our Congregational Study/Action Issue is not focused solely on the question of war and is looking more broadly at preventing violence in all of its forms. Practicing nonviolence means personally rejecting racism, sexism, and homophobia, and working to change institutions that foster such inequalities.
Eisaku Sato, in his 1974 Nobel Prize acceptance speech reminds us why this is necessary for peace:

“If the attainment of peace is the ultimate objective of all statesmen, it is, at the same time, something very ordinary, closely tied to the daily life of each individual. In familiar terms, it is the condition that allows each individual and his [or her] family to pursue, without fear, the purpose of their lives. It is only in such circumstances that each individual will be able to devote [her or] himself, without the loss of hope for the future of [hu]mankind, to the education of [their] children, to an attempt to leave upon the history of [hu]mankind the imprint of [her or] his own creative and constructive achievements in the arts, culture, religion, and other activities fulfilling social aspirations. This is the peace which is essential for all individuals, peoples, nations, and thus for the whole of humanity.”

If Peacemaking is such a huge issue, and the problems to be solved of a global scale, how can we, as a church, participate in peace making? Rev. Frank Carpenter chaired a group of volunteers to look for actions that individual UU congregations were taking to help build a culture of peace. They compiled a list of peacemaking success stories that a congregation of less than one hundred, with only three or four active committee members on their peacemaking task force could do to make a difference. I’ll highlight just a few. One church hosted a community peace service, the planning of which created many networking opportunities for a diversity of groups in their community. Another church created a covenant incorporating the concepts of loving-kindness and “appreciative inquiry” which they credit with allowing the congregation to grow. This is something our Committee on Ministry has begun to work on here, and we will be asking your opinions about it in the fall. St. John’s has an active peace committee and is taking several steps to make themselves a peace church. I encourage you to talk to our fellow UUs over on the next ridge to learn more about their projects. My hope is we will plug into the resources and energy coming together throughout our UU Association, and find inspiration to be peace makers.
:::
Of course, building awareness and capacity for making peace begins with each of us individually. We each could stand to learn more about peace, but rather than exhorting you to go and do more in your already busy lives, I will leave you in peace this morning.

I close with Wendell Berry’s Sabbath Poem I:

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

1.http://www.uua.org/documents/washingtonoffice/peacemaking_just_war_pacifism.pdf
2.Rasor, Paul. Prophetic nonviolence: Toward a Unitarian Universalist theology of war and peace, www.UUA.org (Boston: Spring 2008).
3.Worksheet on Just War, Pacifism and Strategic Peacebuilding, Small Group Ministry Discussion Guide on Peacemaking, www.UUA.org (Boston: 2008).
4.Sturtevant, Elwood. “ministER’S musings,” TJ Tapestry, Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church (Louisville: June 2008) 2.
5.Sato, Eisaku. “Nobel Prize acceptance speech(1974),” The Words of Peace, 3rd ed. Newmarket Press (New York: 2000) 8.
6.Carpenter, Frank. Et.al. Peacemaking Action Resources Working Group, Peacemaking Success Stories, UUA (Boston: February 2008)