Seek out the truth, and hold our military, political and media leaders responsible for basic honesty and integrity. U.S.-Americans often are in the dark about the extent of the casualties of our military actions, especially now that we’re several years into the war with Iraq. By now the number of Afghanis and Iraqis killed in the ongoing war is between 30 and 60 times the number of Americans killed in the Sept. 11 tragedy. At a minimum we need to believe some of the alternative and even mainstream news accounts about the stew of disinformation, deception and disrepute brewing among some of our senior political officials. Being knowledgeable about our country’s actions is part of good citizenship. And as President Theodore Roosevelt said, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” This isn’t about being a Democrat or Republican, conservative or progressive, but about making independent moral judgments.
Live responsibly by reducing our consumption of the world’s resources. We need to model a lifestyle that needs less defending by our military. Our standard of living that demands a disproportionate share of the world’s resources increases our perceived need for a military to protect us. As conscientious Christians, we ought to voluntarily reduce our consumption of oil and other goods so that our calls for justice in other parts of the world have integrity.
Serve our brothers and sisters at home and around the world. For those unwilling to participate in warfare for conscientious reasons, we need to work to find contemporary moral equivalents to the sacrifices of war. We should encourage all of those who believe in peace to participate in a one-year or multi-year service assignment, at home or overseas, through one of many faithful church agencies or through other worthwhile humanitarian organizations around the world.
In short, pacifist Christians can be good U.S. citizens in a conflict-ridden time by being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, impassioned peacemakers and hospitable friends to those we perceive as “the other,” whether they are our nation’s leaders, our Muslim sisters and brothers, or our flag-hoisting neighbors. In a complex 21st-century world, conscientious Christians can be good citizens by giving our first allegiance to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. We can live our lives in ways that are faithful to the gospel. And we can share Christ’s message of peace in a world often drawn to violence. Such a way of life is faithful to Jesus’ teaching, and that may be sufficient. But it also is a way of being that – we can humbly hope – is as relevant in a violence-prone world as are alternative responses.
More than 70 years ago, long before there was a war on terror, Lloyd Stone wrote “This Is My Song,” to the tune of composer Jean Sibelius’s “Finlandia.” The tune is number 73, “Be Still My Soul,” in our red hymnals, and in closing we’ll hear Stone’s 1934 version sung by Harmonious Combustion.
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
