A must read

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/kohls6.html

The

Ninth of August

by Gary

G. Kohls <gkohls

On the

9^th of August, 1945, an all-Christian B-29 bomber crew took off from Tinian

Island in the South Pacific, with the blessings of its Catholic and Protestant

chaplains. In the plane's hold was the second of the only two nuclear bombs to

ever be used against human targets in wartime. The primary target, Kokura,

Japan, was clouded over, so the plane, named Bock's Car, headed for the

secondary target, Nagasaki. St. Mary's Urakami Cathedral, a massive Nagasaki

landmark that the bombardier had been briefed on for weeks before the bombing,

was briefly seen through the thin clouds and targeted as ground zero.

The

Urakami Cathedral was the oldest and largest Christian church in the Orient,

and Nagasaki was the oldest and most influential Christian community in Japan,

having been founded by Francis Xaviar in 1550. The Nagasaki Christian community

was legendary in the history of Oriental Christianity because of its two

centuries of catacomb-like existence during the horrible persecutions by the

Imperial Japanese government including mass crucifixions of faithful Christians

who refused to give up the faith. Despite the persecutions, and the outlawing

of Christianity

(as a capital crime to be a Christian for 250 years), Nagasaki Christianity

survived and ultimately flourished until 11:02 am, August 9, 1945.

What

Imperial Japan could not do over two centuries of brutal persecution, fellow

American Christians did in 9 seconds. The Cathedral was destroyed by the

plutonium bomb (named Fat Man after Winston Churchill), thousands of Nagasaki

Chrristians were mortally burned, carbonized or vaporized and the subsequent

radiation-induced disease and deformities among the survivors and their progeny

continues to this day as a gruesome testament to the horrors of nuclear war.

But Nagasaki Christianity's spirit lives on.

On the

9^th of August, 1943, Franz Jaegerstaetter, a devout Austrian Christian

pacifist, was beheaded by German Christians for refusing to fight and kill in

Hitler's army. Because of his conscientious objection to war and killing, he

had been abandoned by his bishop and pastor, as well as by his family and

friends, all of whom had tried to convince him to do his patriotic duty and

kill for " Volk, Führer und Vaterland. " They all tried to convince him

that his commitment to Christian nonviolence was futile. Instead, being

obedient to his God rather than to men, he died by guillotine at Brandenburg

Prison, at the hands of obedient baptized Christian soldiers, whose belt

buckles read * " Gott Mit Uns " * (God

With Us). And yet Jaegerstaetter's spirit lives on.

*On the

9^th of August, 1942,* Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Jewish Catholic

Carmelite nun, was murdered by fellow German Christians at Auschwitz. *Gott Mit

Uns* was stamped on their belt buckles too. The German Christian churches had,

by their collaboration or by their silence, endorsed the Nazi?s rabid

nationalism, militarism, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and

" legal " right to kill other children of God. Ironically, two years

later, Sister Teresa's Carmel in Cologne was incinerated during the massive American

and British saturation bombing of various civilian targets, making it a moot

point precisely which Christian warriors killed her, Nazis or Allied. Teresa

has since been sainted in the Roman Catholic Church, and her spirit lives on.

The

509th Composite Group, whose responsibilities were to deliver the two

radioactive weapons of mass destruction, had two Christian chaplains. The

Catholic chaplain, George Zabelka, spoke of societal attitudes at the time:

" The whole structure of secular, religious and military society told me

clearly that it was all right to "let the Japs have it. God was on our

side. " Father Zabelka knew what his bomber crews were doing to innocent

people and their defenseless cities in the summer of 1945, and yet " I said

nothing. " He regretted that silence for the rest of his life.

Father

Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, the foremost apostle of Christian nonviolence in

America today, has dedicated his life and ministry to raising the consciousness

of the church to the truth of Jesus' nonviolent teachings. McCarthy says:

Today, as for most of the last 1700 years,

most Christians continue to justify as consistent with the spirit of Christ

those energies, understandings, and emotions which lead inevitably to August 9.

Today most Christians still do not

unequivocally teach what Jesus unequivocally taught on the subject of violence.

Today most

Christians still refuse to proclaim that

violence is not the Christian way, that violence is not the Holy way, that

violence is not the way of Jesus.

Every

summer, to call the Christian community to repent and to return to the truth

that violence is not the way of Christ, Father McCarthy leads a fast from solid

foods for 40 days, breaking it on August 9. In August 1995 he was at Nagasaki,

leading one of the 50^th anniversary events.

It is

suggested that fellow peacemakers remember all the victims of past August

Ninths in their prayers on the upcoming 60^th anniversary commemoration. It is

hoped that conscientious Christians consider a day-long fast in remembrance of

the hundreds of millions of war dead, the hundreds of millions of physically and

psychologically traumatized survivors of war violence, and the billions of

spiritually dead victims, both soldier-perpetrators and their civilian victims,

innocents who continue to suffer from the starvation, homelessness, poverty,

sickness and hopelessness that follows every war.

/July

15, 2006/

Gary

Kohls, MD [send him mail <gkohls], an associate of

Every Church a Peace Church <http://www.ecapc.org/>, is a practicing

physician in Duluth, MN.

Copyright

© 2006 Gary G. Kohls, MD

 

My response to this post on one of the groups I belong to:

All that Jesus taught by word an example was Unconditional

Love.

The men that created the christian religion distorted his

teaching for power & control over people.

The men that created both the old & new testaments made

second class citzens out of half the people - WOMEN. Because women are the

life-givers, nurturers. If women were equal, men wouldn't be able continue

their murdering, conquering ways.

Wake-up people you're being used!

As a guide to Truth - measure everything against

Unconditional Love.

 

Radiating

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE & Truth

To

ALL who share our circle – our universe, our love, our trust.

May

I always be found worthy.

Gratitude

& Thankfulness to All of Us

a

SoaringHawk

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the

first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with joy &

glory.

 

Thank you for YOU, ALL!