TruthBook Religious News Blog

Stephen Rohde
Constitutional lawyer, Lecturer, Writer and Political Activist.
June 25, 2009 11:06 AM

Today is Torture Accountability Day. Across the country, people and organizations are urging the Obama Administration to keep its promise that no one is above the law by launching criminal investigations against any former Bush Administration officials who played any role in authorizing and committing torture during the "War on Terror." One of those organizations demanding accountability is Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, many of us feared what America would do in retaliation. For years we had pleaded, cajoled and threatened warring nations around the world, from the Middle East to Northern Ireland to Kosovo, to settle their ancient differences through peaceful negotiations and international treaties, not through escalating war, renewed violence and ever more bloodshed.

On Sunday, September 23, 2001, I found my way to an interfaith service at All Saints Church in Pasadena convened by Rev George Regas. I was deeply moved by the scriptural readings, prayers and songs presented by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others. I had not expected to be so touched by this outpouring of spiritual faith in peace and justice and the rejection of war and violence.

The outgrowth of that healing event was the creation of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace ("ICUJP"), which has been the center of my personal efforts since September 11 to contribute to greater understanding and lasting reconciliation between people of all nation alities and beliefs. This year, I was very proud to became Chair of ICUJP.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: ICUJP, interfaith, justice, peace, Stephen Rohde, war

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Friday, June 05, 2009

Praying for peace, our soldiers and our enemies

Sunday, May 31, 2009
By Joe Orso

A certain prayer that church people everywhere seem to say always causes me to pause.

I heard it again last Sunday attending my parents’ church in St. Louis on the day before Memorial Day.

After reading a story about Jesus and giving a sermon, a deacon prayed a petition asking God to protect all of the American soldiers in harm’s way.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with praying for American soldiers...

This is a thoughtful and timely article examining prayer, and our motivations for prayer...please click on "external source" for complete article

Labels: church, intercessory prayer, Joe Orso, soldiers, war

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Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day — bivouac of the dead: hallowed, haunted Gettysburg

May 24, 3:57 PM

Memorial Day was first celebrated in 1868 as way of honoring the Civil War dead on both sides of this country’s bloody and painful war of brother against brother. Union and Confederate dead lie in common ground in our national cemeteries and remind us of the cost of war, and the cost of the union of this country.

Memorializing, or keeping memory of our war dead in a sacred way, is a deeply spiritual practice and one that shows us the true spirituality of humanity apart from any particular brand of religion. A special day of remembrance sprang up organically when some southern women decided to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead, Confederate and Union, on a day set aside for this. Originally the day was called Decoration Day because of this, and it so inspired the nation that it became the national holiday we now know as Memorial Day.

Please click on "external source" to read this poignant article about Memorial Day and its meaning

Labels: MaryEllen O'Brien, Memorial Day, peace, spirituality, war

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Monday, March 31, 2008

A God of War? Presidential Faith and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Lyn Boyd-Judson

The religious values held by George W. Bush have undoubtedly informed his foreign policy decisions. This simple fact should give every American voter pause.

For the past eight years, many like-minded Americans have rejoiced in the current president's conservative Christian worldview and its foreign policy consequences, rather than recognizing that this worldview is a profoundly disturbing element of his presidency. They take comfort in the belief that their president receives God's guidance in political matters, both domestic and foreign. Their logic is that if good and evil exist in our world, the tension between the two manifests in the political realm and plays out in our foreign policy.

In contrast, those Americans - both secularists and liberal Christians - who find the current president's claims of divine guidance profoundly disturbing argue that one of the key principles on which the U.S. was founded is freedom from religion in state institutions. They argue that the founding fathers were deists who advocated a natural religion based on human reason rather than divine revelation. They understand that one's religious beliefs or worldview can never truly be divorced from decision-making, but they also hold that these religious assumptions should constantly be re-evaluated by rational and factual criteria when applied to matters of state. So when it is reported that President Bush says he receives divine guidance on matters of U.S. foreign policy - for instance, that God told him to invade Iraq? - these Americans believe that all citizens, Christian or otherwise, should be profoundly disturbed, because an unjust war can never be a divine war.

This contrast between American Christian worldviews is starkly apparent in the recent media reports of controversial comments made by religious leaders connected to the current presidential candidates. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has made inflammatory remarks about the U.S. government, suggesting that the U.S. is racist on the home front and that its foreign policy is unjust, aggressive and foments Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens. John McCain has close ties to pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. Parsley has claimed that Islam is a false religion that America should destroy, and John Hagee has called for bombing Iran to hasten the Christian apocalypse.

Several political pundits describe the current politico-cultural divide in the U.S. as a rift between God-fearing Christians and "secular" (read atheist) liberal intellectuals from (pick your coast). Of course, this distinction is inaccurate and misleading. The divide in American political culture over God is not so much about whether Americans believe in God as it is about how the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God? want to define his purpose in our political world. In this sense, the divide in American political culture over a presidential God is an argument between the politically left-leaning Christian who embraces a God of peace, inclusiveness, forgiveness and social justice, and the politically right-leaning Christian who embraces a God Almighty whose main attributes are judgment, the strength to vanquish enemies, and the righteous impulse to devalue - even destroy - all things not Christian. Again, which presidential God will shape the foreign policy decisions made in the Oval Office?

As Americans, regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, it is our duty as voters to reflect deeply on what we value in foreign policy initiatives, why we hold these values, and how we express them in the public sphere. We need reasonable voices speaking to reconcile the factions in the religio-political divide - a divide not over whether a candidate knows God, but over how Americans want to define the role of a candidate's God in a president's foreign policy. While religious values can certainly inform our moral impulses, the distinction between an exclusive or inclusive God is where war and peace often hang in the balance.

Labels: Americans, Barack Obama, Christianity, George Bush, John McCain, Lyn Boyd-Judson, politics, religion, war

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Soldier to soldier

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the January 30, 2008 edition

A few years after the Vietnam War, I left active duty and joined the Army Reserves. As a battalion chaplain, I noticed an interesting pattern with some of the other vets. It seems that they were returning to the military for no other reason than to sort out their war experiences with others who knew what they'd gone through.

Many of them had been exposed to such assaults on human sensibilities that sights and sounds were seared on their minds, haunting them. These soldiers had done whatever they could to get through their tour of duty, but when they got back home, they didn't leave behind the mental impressions and the emotional turbulence.

Often when I talked to a vet, he wanted to know if I was a vet too. Empathy helps. Certainly my tour in Vietnam broke open my shell of self-interest and evolved a greater sympathy for the sufferings of those around me. And I was so grateful for others whose sympathy let me know that I wasn't alone in encountering feelings I'd never experienced before.

Ultimately, I found that my sympathy was most helpful when I recognized something else we had in common: that we were children of a loving God, dwelling in a spiritual reality that was untouched by the imprint of war.

In a sense, all of us who have witnessed suffering that has pushed us to the margins of human stability are on a walk to Emmaus. The Christ is with us, doing what it has always done. The Christ, so fully expressed in Jesus, is the ever-present spiritual reality of being making plain to disturbed and disoriented human thinking our well-being in God's love.

Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy glimpsed and then explored this reality that healed her in her desperate search for meaning in life's tragedies. She shared in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, 'The kingdom of God is within you.' This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility" (pp. 573-574).

As you sympathize with soldiers struggling to recover, let your sympathy evolve into a prayer that acknowledges the presence of spiritual reality making itself known to them in a peace that is untroubled and unafraid.

Labels: Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, peace, veterans, war

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Friday, October 19, 2007

History of Religion Video

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, religion, video, war

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Religion in the news

By Jay Lindsay, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 17, 7:13 AM ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - National Guard Capt. Jeffrey Cox watched soldiers lose sight of God in the violence and daily grind of the war in Iraq.

He's hoping they can find their faith again in an Episcopal monastery along the Charles River.

Prodded by Cox, the Society of Saint John the Evangelist is offering a "healing retreat" weekend in October to help soldiers returning from war adapt to life back home and reconnect with their faith.

The retreat aims to give soldiers space to reflect, worship and share their experiences.

"I'm not saying a weekend is going to solve any problems, but what it can do is it can give people a respite," he said. "Not only are they able to talk about their heart and their mind, but they're able to talk about their soul."

Cox, who is studying to be an Episcopal priest, was a social worker for troops in Iraq and is now a contractor for the Army's Wounded Warrior program, which assists severely injured or disabled soldiers. War can wear out faith, he observed.

War "seems like, at times, the absolute opposite of what our natural being is," Cox said.

The retreat, which is not affiliated with the military, is open to anyone affected by war, and members of other faiths are welcome, Brother Roy Cockrum said. His hope is that those who attend find a place of rest where they know that God and others care about them.

"We want to make the space available, to see if what we have to offer is valuable," he said. "We suspect it is, and we suspect there's a great need for healing out there."

The society was founded in England in 1870 and has 22 brothers today, including 18 living in Cambridge and at a retreat center in West Newbury. Among the Cambridge residents is Thomas Shaw, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

Over the stone walls of the compound — which is modeled after an early Christian monastery — rowers slide along the Charles River. Inside, day lilies grow on a courtyard strewn with bark shed by towering sycamore trees. Its Spartan rooms offer little more than a bed and silence.

The monks dress in long, brown robes and take vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience. One of their chief ministries is hospitality, and Cox has experienced it firsthand. He went on retreat there after serving in Iraq for a year beginning in October 2005.

The stress of living in a war zone is about more than the violence, Cox said. Often, it's the wait for your next mission, for the next phone call from family, for the day when you can go home. It can leave people feeling lost and spiritually adrift when they return, he said.

"Some places are unsure about how to address the soul," he said. "What we're going to do, is we're going to use the wisdom of the monks and the wisdom of each other to address it straight on."

The monastery can fit about 16 people for the free retreat Oct. 4-7. A "healing service" will be open to the public on Oct. 6, and Cockrum says he will share the liturgy used there with the wider church.

Applicants will be chosen based on their explanation of why they want to come. The weekend's agenda will be open-ended, with plenty of time to talk and worship. If a run along the Charles is more appealing, that's fine, Cockrum said.

"It's not about fixing anybody," he said. "It's about creating a space that's apart from and separate from the business of their lives, where they have a chance to reflect and pray if they care to."

Cockrum said he'll know whether to plan a second weekend after he sees how the first one works. But he does hope their group's efforts spark other religious communities to do more for people damaged by war.

"If we could actually spark other people to get involve with this, that would be great," he said.

Labels: God, Jay Lindsay, Jeffrey Cox, retreat, Society of Saint John the Evangelist, war