President Brenneman asked for our perspective on the choice of jointly putting the U.S. flag and the peace dove on the cover of the summer issue of the Bulletin.
    I did not see the peace dove until I read the note. I only saw the flag which is much bigger. The dove seems to be an add-on. It doesn't fit. I don't think it fits Keith Graber Miller's theology in his article, nor the theology of the Bible, nor the theology of the Mennonite Church. It is a little like trying to find Menno, p. 4, displayed on the back of the inside cover.
    I sometimes wear a “peace” flag, I mean a necktie. Usually seen is the word “peace” about 14 times in light blue on a dark blue background alternating with pictures of a light blue dove (full body, not just the head and a little of the front of the body as is on the Bulletin) about 14 times on the same dark blue background. I get fully 10 times as many complements or words of appreciation for that necktie as I do for all the others combined that I wear. And as Chaplain in 4 secular retirement homes (and one denominational one), I wear a tie 6 days a week.
    So I was not favorably impressed with your design, just as I do not send stamps with the flag on them if I can buy others. Nor do I pledge allegiance to a national flag. I would be favorably impressed with the Christian flag or some form of allegiance to our Biblical faith.


I loved the cover of the Goshen publication. The [designer] is to be commended for creating a flag that I can salute without hesitation or ambivalence.


I congratulate Keith Graber Miller on a well-written piece. After graduating from GC, I have met Mennonites who “accept the rhetoric of the (Christian) right,” as he put its, and I am always flabbergasted. Their Mennonite identity has been engulfed by this evangelical Christian identity, and they are almost unaware that the two are as different as night and day. Many Mennonite churches have very very little to say about their Mennonite heritage and just oodles to say about sin, hell, and other inexplicable obsessions.
    It was just a shock to me after being enveloped in the GC environment for so long so see that such a huge swath of the Mennonite population probably does consider itself American first, Christian second, and Mennonite a distant third. Church shopping, my wife and attended one Mennonite church that made a big deal about praying for “our troops and our leaders.” On our way out, we met the pastor and told him we were Mennonites looking for a home church, only to receive a blank stare and a lukewarm smile.
    I have no problem with praying for anyone in harm's way, but I wonder why we don't also pray for the innocent victims of war, or our teachers, lumberjacks, and coal miners. As Graber Miller argues, it is all part of this insidious civil religion. Glorification of soldiers is just a part of the machine that makes war seem like a quick and easy response to all problems.
    Thanks for this intelligent response to our jingoistic, propaganda-fueled culture. It's good to know that there still exist institutions for sane Anabaptist, pacifist thinking.


Thank you for inviting a response to several items in the Summer 2007 issue of the Bulletin.
    First, the cover. I find the bold, total cover of the 'stars and stripes' incongruous and jarring, including the quirky modification of one of the stripes to a 'peace dove'. What is this image supposed to convey? That there is some 'silver lining' for peace in the prevailing policies and practices of the US in the world? Or that what the US actually stands for in prevailing practice is compatible with the pursuit of peace? Or is it to suggest that, like the title of the article, “Faith and Patriotism”, and its suggestion, that we can really stand for both? That the two can be merged in some seamless, compatible whole? Does this not play into the current radically conservative effort to blur, indeed erase, the historic distinction between church and state, suggesting that we can be 'patriotic', in the prevailing sense of that term, and 'Christian' too? In short, I find the cover inappropriate and misleading.
    The six points of the article by Keith Graber Miller are all excellent. I wish he had clarified what he meant in the second paragraph in stating that “Others have too comfortably embraced the Left.” This is contrasted with those who “too uncritically accept(ed) the rhetoric of the (Christian) Right”. I think it's pretty clear what the “Christian Right” stands for but precisely what views of the “Left” does he have in mind? Just being opposed to the war in Iraq? “Left” seems to have no clear referent in this context.
    Finally, what is not mentioned in the article at all is the the complex but most fundamental issue of all with a host of significant ramifications: The ever rapidly increasing domination of every aspect of our society by the power of large corporations and a corresponding dimishment of the significance and rights of the individual. Eisenhower once warned of the threat to our basic values of the “Industrial Military Complex”. He perhaps had no idea that it would become the corporate dominated “Industrial Military Political News-Media Complex” that is taking us into the pursuit of Empire and World domination. We have 1,000 military bases scattered across every continent of the planet (except Antartica). We're spending billions of dollars to militarize space. Our military expenses now exceed that of all the rest of the world combined. We are now spending 12 billion dollars a month on the Iraq war and go on living our daily lives as though it's not happening. But try to address our deteriorating infrastructure, health care, education, mental health, etc. and the most pressing objection seems to be that we can't pay for it. Huh?? That we cannot afford this war is simply not on the radar screen of major reasons for stopping it. The most plausible explanation for this anomaly is that major corporations are making a killing (pardon the expression) on this war. There are now more private contractor personnel in Iraq than there are military personnel. The Dow Jones this week once again reached record heights. Many, many Americans - including me - are profiting from this. Democrats and Republicans alike are beholden to corporations. How else can they afford to get elected to office? The best documentation and clarification of these issues that I have found is the “Blow Back Trilogy”, a set of three recent books by Chalmers Johnson, a Prof. Emeritus at California University, San Diego, president of the Japan Research Policy Institute, and a government consultant. The books are “Blowback”, “The Sorrows of Empire” and “Nemesis.” I highly recommend them.