Fw: Tellit It Like It Is

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:21 PM

Tellit It Like It Is

 

 

> > > > > Dr. Robin Meyers > Oklahoma University

> Peace Rally > November 14, 2004 > > As some of you know, I am

> minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open

> and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and

> professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most

> likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I

> have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most

> number of angry letters to the editor. > > Tonight, I join ranks of

> those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been

> taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose

> actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about

> so-called " moral values " as having swung the election to President

> Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a

> discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a

> moral value - I mean what are we talking about? > > Because we don't

> get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of

> faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and

> moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I

> take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

> > > 7 When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as

> if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and

> that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are

> some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith

> who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral. > >

> 7 When you live in a country that has established international rules

> for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to

> enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for

> the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral. > >

> 7 When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to

> acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn

> them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we

> must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the

> sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral. > >

> 7 When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as

> important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count

> them, you are doing something immoral. > > > 7 When you find a

> way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of

> someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing

> something immoral. > > 7 When you ignore the fundamental

> teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the

> weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the

> wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will

> get weaker, you are doing something immoral. > > 7 When you wink

> at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called " enemy combatants " of

> the rules of the Geneva Convention, which your own country helped to

> establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing

> something immoral. > > 7 When you claim that the world can be

> divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own

> nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists - and then

> launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the

> oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit,

> you are doing something immoral. > > 7 When you fail to veto a

> single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy

> and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a

> great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing

> something immoral. > > 7 When you cause most of the rest of the

> world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the

> world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what

> God thinks of you, you have done something immoral. > > 7 When

> you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record

> numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of

> discrimination, you are doing something immoral. > > 7 When you

> favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who

> said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you

> are doing something immoral. > > 7 When you dismantle countless

> environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to

> us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your

> favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and

> live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth

> belongs to > the Lord, not Halliburton. > > 7 When you claim

> that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is

> righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we

> claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and

> the enemy is us. > > > 7 When you tell people that you intend to

> run and govern as a " compassionate conservative, " using the word which

> is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no

> compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those

> who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral. > >

> 7 When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick,

> but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a

> doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing

> something immoral. > > 7 When you put judges on the bench who are

> racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround

> yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing

> something immoral. > > I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm

> a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I

> favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm

> tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the

> war- I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam War was

> raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is

> wrong - the only question is how many people are going to die before

> these make-believe Christians are removed from power? > > This

> country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this

> administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can

> turn things around are people like you - young people who are just

> beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to

> take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take

> back. > > Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your

> friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag

> should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths

> shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and

> real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists-so do all the faith

> traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is

> precious. Every human being is precious. > > Arrogance is the

> opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing

> that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a

> man of faith. And war - war is the greatest failure of the human race -

> and thus the greatest failure of faith. > > There's an old rock and

> roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good

> for? Absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That

> we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into

> plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb,

> indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have

> died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one > day we

> will find out. > > Time to march again my friends. Time to commit

> acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to

> participate in the madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic

> war. You can, too! > -- > > >

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