06109
Feb. 19, 2006

U.S. church group denounces Iraq war
 
by Jerry L. Van Marter
Ecumenical News International

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil— A group of religious leaders from the United States has issued a public letter criticizing the war in Iraq and acknowledging their churches’ inability to stop it.”

        “We confess that we have failed to raise a prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders from this path of preemptive war,” the U.S. conference of the World Council of Churches (WCC) wrote in a letter dated Feb. 18 to the Assembly of the church grouping. The U.S. Conference is a group of 34 member churches in the United States. There were no individual signatures on the letter. (For the full text, click here.)

        “There is division within our churches,” the Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, a member of the Orthodox Church in America and moderator of the U.S. Conference, told journalists at the Assembly. “We cannot speak authoritatively for any church, but we are responsible leaders elected by our churches and we feel compelled to speak.”

        Kishkovsky said that “around the world the U.S. Christian voices that are heard support President Bush and the war. We want the world to know that there’s a serious moral struggle going on, and in reality a majority of Americans does not support this war.”

        The Rev. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), said the letter was not intended to undermine U.S. troops in Iraq. “They are our sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters of our neighbors,” she said. “We honor their courage and sense of duty. But here in Porto Alegre, we meet the parents of other sons and daughters and neighbors whose lives have been torn apart by this war … and we have to tell them that we’re profoundly sorry.”

        The letter, in the form of a “confession,” also criticizes U.S. government policy, charging that it contributes to environmental degradation and growing poverty around the world.

        “An emerging theme as we visit our partners around the world is the growing sense that we’re being seen as a dangerous nation,” said the Rev. John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ. He said this is “not just due to the violence of the war, but the unchecked destruction of the environment and our wealth in the face of the earth’s poverty.”