The Christian Peace Witness and Beyond: Get Ready for a Radical Christian Message

We should NEVER have been bowled over by the idgits of the right or looked even remotely like that's what happened. Personally, I refused to be intimidated, & you can always tell a bully when he turns tail! I think what startles people is the numbers-turnout in megachurches, but beyond that, examine what passes for their program[me] & one finds it very fragmented & uneven. It's also very anti-intellectual, more than the simplistic literalism at stake too. I was at a Philadelphia Free Library lecture a couple of weeks ago with Karen King making her presentation on "The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity." In the Q&A segment, a 30ish male got up & having no question, proceeded with a diatribe, "I am one of those christians..." as if he'd been mortally contaminated by scholarship, made a perfect arse of himself but got in his bornagain testimony if anyone didn't get to kill him first: rude & outrageous. I said to Prof. King during the book signing that she was much too nice to the chap, much nicer than I'd have been, not that she needed any reassurance from me after such a rightist intrustion. Sad & non-benevolent behavior indeed: will the right ever get it? They alienate with thier distasteful actions.

I find it hard to identify with many of your named examples above, much less that they are on our side, even though we need their more moderate & less strident voices for the shorterm if not the long-term. Shane Claiborne now lives & works in Kensington, one of Philadelphia's best known ghettoes [Rocky Balboa] which shares numberous similarities to Iraq, unfortunately. He may be followed at www.thesimpleway.org where much resembles a simple commune of decades ago without playing up the religious too much. Still, it's grassroots renewal in action, what seems to be needed across the board with so much sociality lost over the last few decades. I really thought we'd be further along at this point in my life, but it ain't necessarily so.

To be a good Christian when wrong you must apologize; Killing thousands of innocent people is not an apology; I am talking the Iraqi War; Remember we went there to find weapons of mass destruction; there was none to be found. Then the story changed we had to remove a dictator how was mean and killed Iraqi people. He is gone.

Due you remember when the Republicans wanted none of their tax dollars spent on abortion; that was considered murder. We owe the Iraqi people an apology; not more murder the Republican Party will never run out of excuse to kill Iraqis.

We must now assume that it is some thing else that they want; dare I mention OIL; Americans as long as we support this war we are participating in a planed MURDER plot. So disguised as some thing other than real truth; trying to steal the Iraqi OIL ; the killing of American troops to keep the American eyes, off the stealing Iraqi OIL. The Republican Plan; it is hard to see with tears in their eyes so get enough Americans killed to keep the tears flowing

The early church was uniformly against Christian involvement with violence - for the first 300 years after Christ died. It was a church fallen that became violent.

Check out www.thejesusgospel.com. It is a new Christian peace site.

Yes and all is true. But what I don't hear is what the plan is for peace and how do we supplant this plan into the middle east. Jesus knew and understood the Roman empire and its subjectification of oppression on its tenants, however his method was to engage in truth without any ulterive motive (oil). The government uses its military power to take what it wants and the government is made up of politicians and citizens who vote to put the government in charge. But I don't see those who are rightful citizens doing anything but complaining. What does RIGHT look like? And it ought to be spelled out with an actionable plan.