Anti-American Pacifism Rules Religious Left

June 1, 2011 By 10 Comments

The once prestigious National Council of Churches (NCC), when still mainstream liberal prior to the 1960s, once advocated foreign policy realism, guided by churchmen and statesmen like John Foster Dulles.  Today, it touts far-left, simplistic, anti-American pacifism, unable even to endorse the elimination of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

At its recent board meeting in New York, NCC chief Michael Kinnamon saluted the pacifist heritage of the NCC’s Quaker and Mennonite members, ignoring that more than 30 of the NCC’s 37 member denominations come from traditions that affirm lethal force by legitimate governments.  The NCC now embodies the Religious Left’s preference for fantasy over both the Bible and the real world.

Embodying the Religious Left’s utopian dreams is the NCC’s 2010 study paper, “Christian Understanding of War in an Age of Terror(ism), which the NCC is still vigorously promoting.  At its General Assembly this Fall, the NCC will elaborate on its support for military “conscientious objectors”   Kinnamon proudly told his board that the NCC had backed conscientious objection since the Vietnam War. “We have struggled with this issue over the years, let’s struggle with it again,” he enthused.  And he warned:  “We are likely to hear repeated assertions out of the anniversary of 9/11 of our need for security.”  Evidently the NCC wants to be prepared to knock down any religious voices claiming America can and should defend itself against terror and aggression.

Maybe the NCC study on war and terror could be treated a little seriously if it at least admitted that groups like al Qaeda have committed and continue to threaten mass murder.  But Religious Left pacifists of today identify threats to peace only from within the U.S. or its allies.  “US military spending is more than 40% of the world’s total – equal to the next sixteen countries combined,” the paper complains.  “What future do we see for the cozy relationship between American Christians and the American imperial project?”  And it condemns the War on Terror as a “conflict with no clear beginning, without demarcated boundaries, against multiple (often invisible) adversaries… In this war, we soon encounter the limits of violence.”

This study paper opens with a “poem:”

“Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
His shoes and trousers
Are covered with blood –
But he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America”

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About

Mark Tooley is President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.theird.org) and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Follow him on Twitter: @markdtooley.

  • mattogilvie55

    I know I'm repeating myself, but I will say it again: There is no such thing as "the religious left." Leftwingers are not Christians. It is impossible.

  • jasonz

    Pacifists are usually no more than cowards hiding behind nobility. they are the first to demand and accept the freedoms America provided, but hate thoes that provide it. they live in a fantasy world where no reality of human existance may enter. they pretend to to be visionaries figthing for a better future, but they cant see past their own pathetic slogans at best and at worst have their own power grab agenda as their true motive. i say if these fools hate the methods we use to provide their freedom so much then let us deny them the rights they wrongfully feel they still have a right to. no right to free speech, or to assemble or to their religion after all are these rights that was created by imperialist America just opressive tools of the same imperialist regime they so despise

  • BS77

    Right….it isn't pacifism….it's accommodating evil…"Religious Left" is an oxymoron….it's like the "sweet smell of garbage".

  • Toa

    One thing I've always noticed about professed Pacifists: almost invariably, they tend to be easily offended and ill-tempered, often to the point of violence. As noted here already, "Pacifism" seems to be something like a protective badge to postulate moral superiority, and also fend off any reprisals for their often-obnoxious public outbursts.

    • tagalog

      I've noticed that too. I've often fantasized about testing their commitment to pacifism by punching one of them in the nose, but I'm afraid of getting sued.

      • Toa

        LOL- Anybody who's ever had an encounter with a loud-mouthed "Pacifist" has entertained that fantasy; and we've restrained ourselves for that very reason, among others.

  • Applemint

    Pacifists my foot. The left wing "chuches" in the S.F. Bay area support the Gaza Flotilla.
    The flotilla is backed by Hamas, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn etc…

  • StephenD

    This evokes a sort of C.S. Lewis quality about the entire movement as if it comes from old Wormwood himself; the provocateur of the young demons in their quest to "turn" as it were Christians away from the true faith. I would liken the NCC in short to "Claws in Velvet Gloves."

  • tagalog

    What's the difference between social justice and just plain old justice?

  • anon222178598

    “Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

    Hermann Goering

    If the German people in its historic development had possessed that herd unity [defined here by Hitler as racial solidarity] which other peoples enjoyed, the German Reich today would doubtless be mistress of the globe. World history would have taken a different course, and no one can distinguish whether in this way we would not have obtained what so many blinded pacifists today hope to gain by begging, whining and whimpering: a peace, supported not by the palm branches of tearful, pacifist female mourners, but based on the victorious sword of a master people, putting the world into the service of a higher culture."
    – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 396

    Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
    Psalm 34:14

    Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse (Romans 12:14).

    A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).

    But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:27-28).

    do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17-21).

    Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9).

    Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble (1 John 2:9-10).