Antiwar sermons infuse King services

Pleas and protests against war, issued again by the pope and by demonstrations in U.S. cities, punctuated some Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances in mid-January--and appropriately so, said speakers who echoed a similar stance by the late civil rights leader during the Vietnam War.

At an ecumenical service at Washington's National Cathedral on January 20, a service that followed two days of protests against U.S. threats to invade Iraq, religious leaders took turns reading words against war that King preached at the cathedral days before his assassination in 1968. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, urged the audience of about 3,200 to "hear how prophetic these words are for today."

Jim Wallis, convener of Call to Renewal, urged President Bush to create a "faith-based initiative" that would disarm weapons of mass destruction through means other than war. "Today we pray to God and plead with our national leaders to avoid the destructiveness of war and find a better way to resolve the very real threats involved in this conflict with Iraq," he said. "We believe that it is possible, and we believe we can still stop this war before it starts."

After the cathedral service, many went to a candlelight vigil at the White House. John Chane, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, joined Edgar and Wallis in leading the procession. Religious organizations also were involved in protests earlier in the weekend, including one that brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to Washington on January 18.

"The massive turnout at this rally proves that Americans won't tolerate politicians waging unjust wars in their name," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and cochair of the January 18 event. Earlier, the American Muslim Political Coordination Council urged Saddam Hussein to resign as Iraqi president in order to allow internationally supervised elections and "to clear the image of Islam, a religion incompatible with dictatorships." The statement also urged Bush to avoid military action.

Bush visited First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Landover, Maryland, to mark the King holiday January 20. He did not address the possibility of war but instead spoke of King's faith commitment during remarks at the predominantly black church. The brief talk came just days after the Bush administration filed a U.S. Supreme Court brief opposing an affirmative-action plan at the University of Michigan. Many African-American leaders--including Secretary of State Colin Powell--say they still strongly support affirmative action.

In his annual New Year's message at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II criticized the looming U.S. war against Iraq. His new statement came as the United States beefed up its deployment of troops in the Persian Gulf region and lawmakers expressed pessimism that a war against Hussein could be avoided.

"War is always a defeat for humanity," the pontiff declared to envoys from 174 countries with which the Vatican has diplomatic relations. "International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between states, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are the methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences."

Archbishop Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Vatican's former permanent observer at the UN, had told a news conference December 17 that the Vatican would consider a preventive war against Iraq "a war of aggression."

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church, interviewed by Religion News Service in January, sharply criticized the Bush administration's foreign policy, notably the "axis of evil" phrase Bush used one year ago. "Quite apart from the bombs we drop, words are weapons, and we have used our language so unwisely, so intemperately, so thoughtlessly ... that I'm not surprised we are hated and loathed everywhere I go," he said. "I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States."

COPYRIGHT 2003 The Christian Century Foundation
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