08193
March 11, 2008

Peace activists worship, pray, get arrested

42 arrested for civil disobedience in Hart Senate Office Building

by Matt Black
Special to Presbyterian News Service

Hundreds of people of faith gathered in Upper Senate Park in Washington March 7 to witness for peace in Iraq. Photo by Kirk Johnston, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship volunteer.

WASHINGTON — More than 40 religious leaders and faith-based peace activists were arrested in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon (March 7) for their non-violent witness to end the war in Iraq.

Hundreds of people assembled earlier in the afternoon for a public demonstration against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq, and thousands of worshipers gathered at noon Friday in 10 houses of worship here for services calling for peace and an end to the war in Iraq.
           
Following the noontime worship services, worshipers processed to Upper Senate Park for an interfaith witness near the U.S. Capitol.  In the midst of a driving rain, leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Unitarian traditions insisted that people of faith will be relentless in encouraging their political leaders to take bold, unequivocal action for peace.
           
Multi-faith delegations from the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership — which includes the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship — the organizing coalition of the afternoon’s events, met with high level staffers from both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s offices. 

The religious leaders expressed grave concern that there must be both a clear exit strategy from Iraq and a regional, multi-lateral effort at development and diplomacy to bring about genuine security. 

Among the Presbyterians in the delegations were the Rev. Vernon Broyles of the Office of the General Assembly; Rev. Clayton Thomas, associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, FL; and Elder Rick Ufford-Chase, former Moderator of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Participants in the March 7 Iraq peace witness gather for prayer in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. Forty-two were arrested, including 15 Presbyterians. Photo by Kirk Johnston, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship volunteer.

Of his visit to Senator Reid’s office, Thomas said, “I found it very powerful to hear from Reid’s office that our willingness to commit nonviolent acts of civil disobedience as an expression of conscience does penetrate the consciousness of our legislators.

“Even more powerful,” Clay continued, “was to hear Reid’s senior advisor speak those words even while our colleagues were in prayer and risking arrest in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. I find the Capital delegation and the Hart civil disobedience to be a nice confluence of word and deed.”

Participants consistently expressed five core convictions:

• The war in Iraq must end and diplomacy must replace the threat of war with Iran;

• We must provide far better support to our returning soldiers;

• We must commit to the long-term work of development in Iraq;

• There can be no equivocation in our renunciation of all use of torture;

• We must commit real resources to justice in our own communities in the U.S.

Among the forty-two people who were arrested were15 Presbyterians, including three pastors; Lois Baker, 86, a World War II Veteran, great-grandmother, and member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship National Committee; Will Covert, a Vietnam Veteran and member of Veterans for Peace; seven members of an 18-member delegation from St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Wayzata, MN; and three of six students who came from PC(USA)-related Hastings College in Nebraska.