WAR, NOT SEX, IS THE ISSUE

Most Churches Turn Blind Eye to Nation's Real Moral Crisis

By Richard B. Hays | Special to the Observer

Christians in the United States should stop fighting one another about issues of sexuality so that we can focus on the deepest moral crisis of our time: our responsibility for the destruction our nation has inflicted upon the people of Iraq.

Ignoring traditional "just war" criteria, the United States launched a pre-emptive war on Iraq that has killed at least 10,000 Iraqi civilians, more than three times the number of people killed in the tragic 9-11 attacks.

Additionally, more than 900 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Thousands more have been wounded and maimed on both sides of the conflict.

The justifications proposed by the president and other leaders have proven false: no weapons of mass destruction, no involvement by Iraq in the 9-11 attacks or in sponsoring al-Qaida. The systematic torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib prison is merely one painful symptom of the reckless manner in which our country has acted.

Remarkably, most churches in this country have turned a blind eye to these terrible facts or have remained silent. Instead, it seems all we can do is squabble about sex.

The recent general conference of my own denomination, the United Methodist Church, spent many hours debating the "sexy" issues of gay ordination and same-sex marriage, but it found only a few minutes to pass a resolution calling cautiously for an investigation of abuses of Iraqi prisoners. The larger ethical question of first-strike invasion was never raised at all.

Am I alone in believing that we are straining at gnats and swallowing a very large camel?

Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek when attacked. At the heart of Christian identity as his disciples is the call to be peacemakers. Yet we fail repeatedly. Scripture diagnoses our true condition: "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known" (Romans 3:15-17, quoting Isaiah 59:7-8).

Of course, how we should apply the New Testament's teachings to international affairs in a post-9-11 world is a complex question. At present, however, we are not having the debate at all. And, along with the rest of the nation, we seem paralyzed by the inability to admit that we have made a tragic mistake.

It has been left to secular voices, such as the muckraking provocateur Michael Moore, to raise moral qualms about the invasion. Consequently, President Bush (himself a Methodist) receives no guidance from his own church in these matters, and no political leader of either party has had the courage to call the nation to acknowledge its errors.

If we hear any religious discussion of the war in the public sphere, it is almost always self-justifying, seldom calling us to prayerful self-examination. Thus, the public, including the Islamic world, receives the impression that Christianity underwrites war-making. Because Christians have remained strangely silent, we are complicit in these actions.

The Jewish and Christian traditions offer an ancient wisdom about what we must do when we recognize we have wrongly harmed others: It is called repentance.

Instead of obsessively debating sexual politics, we should raise our voices together in calling the Church and the nation to repentance and peacemaking.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to pick up the newspaper and read, "Christians table sex debates, call nation to repent of war"? Perhaps if we can acknowledge our own failings regarding matters of war and peace, we will find it possible to return to our conversation about sexuality later in a more generous spirit.

During the past year, I have made lecturing trips to South Africa and New Zealand. In both countries, the first question repeatedly asked me by people in the churches, of all different theological stripes, was: "How can the Christians in America fail to speak out against this war?" In view of my own denomination's timid silence, I hardly knew what to answer.

If we could together seek God's mercy for the chaos our nation has unleashed, I dare to hope that we might in time be able to offer a better answer to the nations, as well as to the One to whom we must ultimately render an account.

Richard B. Hays is the George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. His book "The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation" was selected by Christianity Today as one of the 100 most important religious books of the 20th century.