War is a force that gives Americans meaning through their history, largely because powerful impulses in American religion have historically sacralized war’s religious, redemptive force.
“You cannot build a country if you don’t have reconciliation and forgiveness,” said Aref Ali Nayed, head of the stabilization team of the National Transitional Council (NTC). “Reconciliation has been a consistent message from our president and prime minister on, down to our religious leaders and local councils,” he told Reuters in an interview.
All Saints and St Michael’s Garrison Church has communion wine – the only alcohol on the base – and votive candles. But the military association is never far away. The bibles have camouflage covers and, again, the cross is made from shell casings.
Witnessing inhumanity and indecency is very challenging. What people are asked to do here can lead to big questions. I’m not suggesting everyone will become an evangelical Christian but people start to ask questions and that’s a start. What all of us would prefer is a thought-through faith. This is a place where people do that for the first time.
It is now early Monday there, and the rule of Moammar Gadhafi, without which the world has not known itself for 42 years, appears to be on the crest of collapsing while rebel supporters are converging upon a main square of Tripoli.
While their charge is explicitly to be noncombatants, some chaplains to our armed forces nevertheless return from their tours bearing a kind of scar.
Fought with an all-volunteer force (and private contractors!), our current wars have not ignited a political firestorm of opposition as the Vietnam War did. Few Episcopalians serve in the U.S. military, as, similarly, do few children of politicians and few graduates of elite colleges and universities.
A visit to Normandy, alive with German tourists, prompts a question: If a secularized Europe is on the cusp of a more perfect union in which they beat most of their swords into plows, what message does the Church have to proclaim? Do we believe only in some deferred, post-death form of justice or do we believe that Jesus’ message of love and justice will someday prevail on earth?
Escalating violence against civilians in Sudan’s disputed South Kordofan State is leading to a major humanitarian catastrophe with an estimated 300,000 people besieged, cut off from relief aid, and unable to escape fighting, according to a number of aid agencies and witnesses in the region.
O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. – Book of Common Prayer