Christianity and American State Violence in Iraq: Priestly or Prophetic? by Christopher A Morrissey

Author:Christopher A Morrissey [Morrissey, Christopher A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Sociology of Religion, Social Science, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351736275
Google: 0HhQDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 39207745
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

On the other hand, however, social movement scholar Barbara Epstein claimed (without any documentation, however) that faith-based groups were the core and largest component of the anti-war movement.37

Despite the successful turnout of the second “global superpower” of mass public opinion and the UN Security Council failure to authorize the war, the war seemed more and more inevitable, and even ostensibly secular organizations seemed to realize they were going to need some sort of miracle to avoid the war. As the administration’s weather-based deadlines for the onset of conflict approached, MoveOn.org and Win Without War seemed to turn to prayer and the value of spectacle in hoping, against all hope, to avert the conflict. They held a Global Candlelight Vigil for Peace on Sunday March 16, 2003. Beginning in New Zealand and rolling across the rest of the globe, nearly 7,000 vigils in 142 countries were conducted. In promoting the event the MoveOn website proclaimed, “Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Reverend Robert Edgar, and other religious leaders call for candlelight vigils around the world on March 16th to say yes to peace – and no to war with Iraq.” In the last days before the start of the conflict, religious leaders came to the fore in these last-ditch appeals to avoid violence.

Once the war started, more strident religious advocates also participated in the few national level attempts at civil disobedience. The Americans Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Voices in the Wilderness, and Pax Christi supported the Iraq Pledge of Resistance (a revived tactic from the 1980s Central American anti-war movement) in addition to other secular groups. The AFSC’s Peter Lems described to me how it worked once the war started.

I guess [it] really culminated with the actual attack against Iraq in 2003 and communities all over the country had agreed to have actions on that day. In Philadelphia, they were held at the Federal building where all the entrances were, the message was, it’s no business as usual today.

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