Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, I heard a conversation on National Public Radio between senior news commentator Daniel Shore and a female listener. She asked him, don’t you think it would be smarter not to attack Afghanistan because that would thwart the plans of Osama bin Laden to ferment a war between East and West? Shore did not directly address her question. Her merely said that, politically, President Bush could not, not respond military.

This conversation crystalized for me the unprecedented choice that September 11 offered the world, a choice between violence and nonviolence, a chance to find another way. This was true, not because September 11, 2001 was any more disastrous than September 11, 1973 when the CIA helped engineer the over throw of Chile’s democratically elected government, resulting in the initial death of over 3,000 Chileans followed by decades of death and disappearances under the dictator Pinochet.

It was true because a small group of radically committed individuals focused world attention by attacking the wealthiest nation on earth, destroying or badly damaging two of its most prominent symbols  – the center of world trade and the center of the mightiest military force in history – and killing 3,000 persons.

The human community held its breath. While some of worldwide stature, such as Pope John Paul II, prayed that, “the leaders of nations do not let themselves be dominated by hate and the spirit of retaliation....,”(1)  President George W. Bush stood center stage. Would he and his administration respond in kind or would they seek another way?

Unfortunately, Shore was correct, because the context out of which this administration, or any other administration, was elected and from which the choice would be made was that of an eye for an eye, at the very best. The choice was no choice.(2)

In addressing the September 11, 2001 tragedy, Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, noted, “First, we must understand that nonviolence is not a strategy that we can use in a moment of crisis and discard in times of peace. Nonviolence is about personal attitudes, about becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Because, a nation’s collective attitude is based on the attitude of the individual. Nonviolence is about building positive relationships with all human beings – relationships that are based on love, compassion, respect, understanding and appreciation.”(3)

THE FAILURE OF THE JUST WAR DOCTRINE
For too long now, the Christian churches have held the Just War doctrine as the bottom-line, public-policy option while reducing nonviolence to a personal calling. Some say that the churches’ adherence to the Just War floes from the wedding of church and state begun under Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Others suggest that this adherence grew out of the
church’s desire to have common ground upon which to influence Christians and non-Christians alike. Still others argue that the Just War is a government’s only practical choice given its responsibility to protect its citizenry. This latter position was sited following the attacks of September 11, 2001 despite the movement, for example, of the institutional Catholic church since Vatican Council II (1962-65) toward a more nonviolent approach to war.(4)

Whatever the rationale for adhering to a Just War, it failed miserably as public policy in the recent Iraq war. Even though most mainline denominations determined that the pending Iraq war did not meet Just War criteria(5), they could not, or would not, initiate a broad based campaign to stop it. In fact, once the war began, they fell silent. After all, if a war is unjust, then it is, by
definition, a war of aggression and deserves unreserved condemnation before, during and after the fact. If the Just War doctrine could not be used effectively and with integrity against this war, then it fails as public policy.

IT IS TIME: A CAMPAIGN FOR NONVIOLENCE
Clearly, it is time for the Christian churches to promote nonviolence as THE public policy option in affairs of war and peace, and to do so deliberately, systematically and comprehensively. What else does the Christian community have to offer if not its faith in the nonviolent Jesus? The world has enough articulate and persuasive Just War theorists. While Jesus called upon his
followers to love God with one’s whole heart, mind and soul and one’s neighbor as one’s self, this guidance is found in the Hebrew scriptures.(6) Nonviolence is Jesus’ unique teaching.

Consider the future response to war if the following actions were taken:
    •   all Christian institutions of higher learning established peace studies programs, similar to
     those of DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois and Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana,
     in order to critically research the causes of aggression and war and to explore theoretical
     and practical ways of conducting nonviolent resistance to oppressors.
    •   the most profound spiritual guides offered ways to understand the spirit of the nonviolent
     Jesus in a manner that touched our hearts and minds -- as does Walter Wink, for example,
     in his article “Can love save the world”(7), Dorothy Day and Nancy Schreck in her article
     “The Faithful Nonviolence of Jesus”.(8)
    •   the brightest minds helped us formulate thoughtful ways of understanding and practicing
     nonviolence in current times, such as the hundreds of examples Gene Sharp presents in
     his classic study The Politics of Nonviolent Resistance.
    •   we all upheld, as examples for our children, those who live lives of faithful nonviolence
     in times of both war and peace, as did Rachel Corrie, a 23 year old American who was
     crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to block the destruction of a
     Palestinian home.
    •   local churches invited some of those who practice nonviolence to be regular presenters,
     even at official moments of worship.
    •   homiletic services provided regular guides on integrating the nonviolence of Jesus into
     our Scripture reflections, such as those presented in Pax Christi-USA’s Advent and
     Lenten booklets.(9)
    •   church conferences designed a year long campaign to preach and teach nonviolence an all
     local parishes, churches and schools.
    •   all Christian denominations funded, staffed and promoted nonviolent peace teams, as
     does the Mennonite church with its Christian Peacemaker Teams.(10)
    •   families encouraged children to “serve” their country by joining peace teams such as the
     Nonviolent Peaceforce(11) and the Christian Peacemaker Teams.
    •   we all frequently recalled the words of Dan Berrigan that the reason we don’t have peace
     is that the peacemakers are not willing to suffer the same consequences as those asked of
     soldiers.

Who knows, ten or twenty years from now, when another president is faced with such a
challenge as the events of September 11, 2001 – when the whole world stands watching to see
what might be his/her response – who knows if that president might choose a nonviolent
alternative, because the Christian churches had helped lay the groundwork and had created the
milieu to find another way. Who knows, if that moment might be the time when the world turns
around.

It is time to begin.

ACTIONS
1. Participate in a local action for peace during this third anniversary of September 11, 2001.
2. Share this leaflet with your faith community and try to initiate some one or more of the actions
for promoting your church take a stance for nonviolent public policy.
3. Take courage, a just and loving world is possible if we work to make it happen.

NOTES
1. “Pope prays for victims, urges end to ‘spiral of hatred and violence’”
http://www.ucc.org/911/091401b.htm
2. “Catholic Bishops’ Conference President Issues Statement on Military Action”
http://www.usccb.org./comm/archives/2001/01-175.htm
3. “Terrorism and Nonviolence” (if the following link doesn't work, try copying it to your browser)
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2001/09/00_gandhi_terrorism.htm
4. For a good overview of the Church’s development see “After Sept. 11: Catholic Teaching on
Peace and War”, Origins, CNS documentary service, May 30, 2002, Vol. 32: No. 3.
5. “Statements from Religious Leaders About Iraq”
http://www.salsa.net/peace/churchleaders.html
6. See Dt. 6:5; Lv. 19:18
7. http://www.futurenet.org/20spirituality/wink.htm
8. See http://www.catholicmission.org.au/WMD2003_student7-9.pdf
9. See the Catholic Worker website http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/ and put in the
search word “pacifism”.
10. See Pax Christi-USA http://www.paxchristiusa.org/
11. See Christian Peacemakers Teams http://www.cpt.org/
12. See Nonviolent Peace Force http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/