The Geneva-based World Council of Churches, as part of its “Decade to Overcome Violence (DTOV),” sent a delegation of “Living Letters” to Washington, D.C to confer about American “violence.” They met with U.S. church officials in the United Methodist Building on Capitiol Hill, where they advocated greater gun control and opposition to the Iraq War.
While ostensibly just opposing violence, the church officials were sometimes openly partisan in their politics.
| In response to the observation that the NCC is seen as left-leaning, NCC President Michael Livingston replied, “Well, it is what it is, and it’s that way in the Bible!” (File photo) |
National Council of Churches lobbyist Brenda Girton-Mitchell admitted that “we [the NCC] are viewed as more Democratic leaning… we try to not [encourage that view]… but it [the NCC and its policy stances] is what it is.” NCC President Michael Livingston interjected, “Well, it is what it is, and it’s that way in the Bible!” He asserted that the NCC’s left-leaning positions were not merely Democratic or Republican opinions, but were scripturally mandated.
Girton-Mitchell also commented that, although she had been working at the NCC for much longer, it was not until 2004 that “we started getting calls… [from politicians asking] how to understand how to use faith language in public discourse…” She claimed, “There’s a different climate on the Hill,” suggesting that politicians were more interested in using faith to connect with potential voters since that election.
The WCC’s “Decade to Overcome Violence” aims to eliminate global violence between 2001 and 2010. As part of that program, a delegation of “Living Letters” came from Lebanon, Brazil, Pakistan, and South Africa. Besides gun control and the Iraq War, they are also examining the U.S. role in international arms sales.
Democratic Faith Working Group staffer Acacia Salatti rejoiced over “the change in conversation about what is a faith issue” that has occurred in recent political and religious dialogue. Among the newer “faith issues” of which she approved were ending poverty and “stewardship, taking care of God’s earth.” Salatti mentioned her excitement over the caucus’ meeting with activists, such as Jim Wallis of Sojourners, about how to make poverty a key item for the 2008 presidential election. The Democratic Faith Working Group, a congressional caucus, contains “about 43 members give or take,” according to Salatti.
Speaking for the Democratic members she represents, Salatti said, “In the past three years, there’s been this growing synergy, I call it the perfect storm, between politics, policy, and faith.” Although “Democrats have a strong tradition of working with social justice issues,” Salatti said many Democratic politicians have struggled to connect with Christian voters. It was “very troubling” to Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi when people had asked her: “How can you be a Democrat and a Christian?’”
Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence urged tighter gun control laws and insisted that “the government must have a monopoly on force” to maintain domestic security. He compared his fight for gun control to David and Goliath but said the “media is one of the few constituencies” thatsympathize with the gun control cause.
Everitt recommended Joan Burbeck’s book, which explains that, “Guns are a kind of a token or idol [which] became a sort of a token to reassign blame to this [stereotyped] kind of dark skinned burglar [and] a way to reassert the power of white males.” Everitt lamented, “There was not a single positive proposal that Congress considered for the past six years,” except possibly one, which he did not name.
“I think it is important to understand the tremendous cultural and philosophical divide” between those who advocate stricter gun control and those who oppose it, Everitt said. He claimed that among “hardcore gun owners, it is a profoundly, virulently anti-government attitude” that motivates their gun ownership. He decried the NRA belief that “if our government becomes tyrannical they have a right to take over that government, our democratically elected government!”
Everitt suggested that American nationalism should imply greater trust in the government, because, “If we love to say that we’re the freest country, then why [do]… our elected representatives… talk about getting government out of people’s lives? If you’re so proud of democracy then acknowledge that government had some role in that.”
Rev. Makue of South Africa responded, “Yes… the right wing out there wants to de-legitimize government… [If we give in to them] we are playing into the hands of the forces of chaos.” He said, “Lest we forget that there is the whole world out there that is watching democracy in the United States.”
Scott Stedjan of Oxfam, formerly of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, addressed the United States role in international arms sales. He said it was important to “work on the demand of weapons as well as supply.” Although the “U.S. has the most extensive legal regimes” in place to prevent weapons sales to human rights violaters, he worried that the nation is “violating its principles to establish security in a post- 9/11 world.”
Antonios Kireopoulos, the NCC’s Associate General-Secretary for International Affairs and Peace, and Elizabeth Ferris of the Brookings Institute spoke against the Iraq War. Ferris cautioned about rapid troop withdrawals from Iraq, because in all the discussion and protests about the war, she said she has heard very few people address what an immediate withdrawal would do to the Iraqi people.
Kireopoulos stressed the NCC’s anti-Iraq War record. He recalled that the NCC and its member churches have been “against this war since well before its beginning.” While he acknowledged that critics had charged the NCC and “church leaders” with “not listening to congregants,” he insisted that church leaders must instead “teach” and “speak prophetically.” Kireopoulos suspected that the recent “turn of public opinion” against the Iraq War “is in part because of the education churches have done on what are the moral concerns with this war.” He credited the NCC’s electronic coordination for the “largest global protest ever was started.”
Boasting that the NCC had warned the war would be “disastrous,” Kireopoulos concluded, “And of course it’s turned out to be disastrous.” He said that while many congregants of NCC member churches “did support the war, that was because of the fear of 9/11; it was a manipulation of that fear by this government.”
After the Washington, D.C. visit of the WCC’s “Living Letters” delegation, they planned to take their ostenisbly anti-violence message to New York, Philadelphia and New Orleans.
No comments yet
