In Defense of “Yes, But” Rhetoric: The Case of the Suleimani Assassination
by John Whitehead
The U.S. government’s assassination of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani began the year 2020 with violence, and the possibility of more violence.
The assassination, in retaliation for Suleimani’s alleged involvement in attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq (and supposedly to prevent further attacks), threatened to escalate into open war between the United States and Iran. Peace activists and others responded with criticism and protests against the United States’ actions; I and other Consistent Life Board members have participated in some of these protests. This reaction was encouraging and may have contributed to the danger of war decreasing somewhat.
Criticizing Suleimani?
One piece of anti-war commentary provoked by the Suleimani assassination disturbed me, however. The commentary was an unusually direct articulation of an unfortunate attitude I have encountered among a few critics of American foreign policy. Further, this attitude reflects a kind of partisanship that can be displayed by activists for other causes, as well.
In his newsletter Nonzero, journalist Robert Wright lamented certain media commentary on the Suleimani assassination. Wright, who opposed the assassination, wasn’t concerned with pundits who supported the killing. His main complaint was that too many people, while criticizing the U.S. assassination, also engaged in criticism of Suleimani. Condemnation of Suleimani for having “blood on his hands” prompted Wright’s concern:
[P]eople who note the blood on Suleimani’s hands go on to raise doubts about the wisdom of assassinating him. Condemning Suleimani seems to be a ritual that commentators and politicians must perform before condemning, or even questioning, the killing of Suleimani.
Thus: “Suleimani was responsible for unthinkable violence and the world is better off without him. But…” (Rep. Adam Schiff). Or “Suleimani was a terrible man who caused terrible violence in the world. But…” (Rep. Jerry Nadler)
Even a scathing critique of the assassination by Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council was objectionable to Wright:
Or this doozy of a first-paragraph disclaimer in a generally excellent New York Times op-ed by Barbara Slavin: “Few tears will be shed in many parts of the world for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, whose Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ruthlessly spread Iranian influence and contributed to the deaths of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians, as well as hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq, over the past decade and a half. But…”
He goes on to say,
I think the compulsory recitation of his crimes has a big downside. Even when it precedes a critique of heedless American militarism, it can wind up reinforcing the narrative that sustains that militarism.
Wright points out, quite correctly, that the United States also has a great deal of blood on its hands and has committed more crimes than the Iranian regime has. He also makes the reasonable argument that the U.S. bears the larger share of blame for hostility between the two nations. Many of Iran’s actions can be understood as attempts to protect themselves against the U.S.
Yet how is recognizing any of this incompatible with recognizing Suleimani or other Iranian officials’ responsibility for violence or human rights violations?
Wright asserts that criticizing Suleimani fosters a simplistic view of Iranian leaders as evil:
[F]rom the point of view of warmongers, depicting a country’s leaders [as evil and implacable] is a twofer: it makes violence against them seem justified, and it makes exploring their perspective—an exercise that might undermine that justification—unlikely…
The various kinds of moral disclaimers that critics of Trump’s killing of Suleimani engage in—he has blood on his hands, but; the world is better off without him, but; the killing was morally justified, but—also, in some small way, help sustain the image of Iran that has brought us to the brink of war.
While much of Wright’s analysis is well taken, his conclusion about the dangers of criticizing Suleimani strikes me as questionable. Wright isn’t claiming such negative comments were false, that Suleimani was actually innocent of wrongdoing and didn’t have blood on his hands. Within the same newsletter, he acknowledges (I think sincerely) “There’s no denying that Suleimani does (or did) have a lot of blood on his hands. He is responsible for many deaths, including the deaths of innocent civilians.”
His position seems to be (to put it in my own words) that condemning Suleimani will complicate the larger picture of American guilt for the conflict with Iran, and make it harder to empathize with the Iranians. So we shouldn’t talk about Suleimani’s misdeeds, even though they’re real. Such talk apparently undermines opposition to assassination and war.
This seems misguided to me. Moreover, this misguided thinking isn’t unique to Wright, although he is more matter-of-fact about it than other anti-war commentators. Self-identified “rogue journalist” Caitlin Johnstone made essentially the same argument as Wright, except with regard to Bashar Assad’s Syria rather than Iran. Glenn Greenwald, a well-known critic of the American national security state, has also responded to criticism of human rights violations by anti-American regimes and groups by changing the subject, either emphasizing America’s many crimes or attacking his ideological opponents for supposed hypocrisy.
To be sure, unqualified, passionately asserted claims have advantages. They’re simple, forceful, and provocative. They attract attention, and can sometimes serve as effective rallying cries to action. The importance and urgency of a cause—in this case, stopping a war—seems to demand a firm, unequivocal stance that makes no concessions to the other side.
Also, in a political environment where everyone tends to express themselves this way, there’s a strong incentive to follow suit. Facing aggressive advocates of hawkish American policies, anti-war advocates can easily be tempted also to go on the offensive, to bring up America’s many crimes, to accuse the hawks of hypocrisy, and generally not to yield an inch. More qualified, measured statements tend to get drowned out or come across as wishy-washy.
The Trap
Such uncomplicated rhetoric has two major flaws, however.
- Preaching to the Converted
The first is that such rhetoric does little to convince those on the other side. In this case, I doubt a foreign policy hawk who supported the assassination, and perhaps outright war with Iran, would be moved to rethink that position by someone who refused to even acknowledge crimes by Suleimani or the Iranian regime.
Such a refusal’s most likely effect would be to undermine the credibility of the anti-war advocate, who could come across as an apologist for the other country’s regime. Or at least the anti-war advocate would seem unwilling to acknowledge information that didn’t clearly promote the anti-war cause.
Even someone who isn’t a hawk, who’s on the fence about assassination or other aggressive actions, might react skeptically if an anti-war advocate seemed to be ignoring inconvenient facts. (A more fruitful approach might be to point out the tremendous cost and disastrous long-term consequences of escalated conflicts with Iran or other nations.)
By contrast, the kind of “Yes, but” approach Wright objects to might actually get someone not already converted to the anti-war cause to listen. A “Yes, but” approach establishes at least some common ground with the unconverted. It also shows the anti-war advocate is careful and reasonable enough to recognize complexity. Indeed, at one point in his commentary, Wright even acknowledges the rhetorical value of such recognition.
- Ignoring Complexities
The second flaw with these kinds of unqualified claims is perhaps more abstract but no less significant. They take a toll on the person making them.
Deliberately ignoring qualifications, complexities, or facts because acknowledging them might somehow hurt your cause is a good way to undermine your own intellectual and moral integrity. Insisting on a simplistic, partisan view of an issue while dismissing inconvenient facts can become a habit, and a very bad one.
It’s especially dangerous when the inconvenient facts being ignored are deaths or suffering that don’t fit into the preferred partisan narrative.
Falling into this trap is a hazard for all activists, not just those opposed to war but those working on all the issues covered by the consistent life ethic. A commitment to that ethic should involve recognizing every person’s shed blood, whoever’s hands might have shed it.
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For more of our posts from John Whitehead on foreign policy, see:
Rejecting Mass Murder: Looking Back on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Wages of War, Part 1: How Abortion Came to Japan
Wages of War, Part 2: How Forced Sterilization Came to Japan
Fifty Years of Protesting for Peace
by Lisa Stiller
Fifty years ago I was running from tear gas on the university campus in Madison, Wisconsin. Massive protests had erupted opposing the Vietnam War. Classes were often canceled as students clashed with police and the National Guard during the two years I attended school there. I was right out front, making protest signs, putting up posters, and handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to students protesting outside of buildings.
The following year I was among the first people to approach the 14th Street bridge in Washington, DC. We were arrested and ended up in RFK stadium, continuing our antiwar chants as people threw us food, soap, and warm clothes. I became a draft counselor, hopefully helping many kids avoid the draft and the war. And three years after that I stood with a group of Quakers from New York in front of the White House for a summer during a three-month-long, 24-hour protest against the Vietnam War. We danced to “Lord of the Dance” in DC’s daily summer thunderstorms, fed people who passed by, and talked to people from all points on the political spectrum.
During the 1980s, I participated in protests against aid to the Contras in Central America, aid which was funding violence against civilians. In 1988, I initiated an anti-Contra protest at the Democratic Convention in Atlanta, which I attended as an Oregon delegate for Jesse Jackson. (I supported his economic policies to address poverty and his advocacy for peace and equality.)
And in 1990, I found myself marching around downtown Portland protesting the first Gulf War. Every day we gathered and marched. I don’t remember how long this lasted, but eventually that war ended and the protests ended.
Twelve years later, with the threat of war with Iraq looming, I helped organize protests down the strip in Las Vegas, in front of casinos, and on the university campus, and spoke out very publicly against the war. The Catholic Workers started a weekly peace vigil near downtown Las Vegas. I moved to Reno and three months later, on Veterans Day in 2003, got a letter from my son; he had joined the Army and was in boot camp. I began speaking out again, even louder, organizing more protests and meetings with our elected representatives. The Quakers began a peace vigil in front of the Federal Building every Monday. It’s still going on today.
On December 2nd, 2009, I was at the rally and peace march at West Point Military Academy in New York when President Obama announced the troop surge in Afghanistan. I participated in the half-mile candlelight march to the gates where we sang peace songs and people blocked the entrance. There was media there from all over the world talking to the protesters, and it was all over national news.
Now, over 10 years later, it’s happening again, with a war with Iran looming on the horizon, due to an act of violence by pro-military forces in our government. I organized the Beaverton, Oregon, protest, and the next night went to the Cedar Mill protest. We held signs and waved at cars, holding out hope that sanity in our administration would prevail this time.
For now, it has. The violence our president and his supporters began could have escalated into a deadly conflict that once again killed hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands, of people. The conflict still could escalate. There have already been 176 lives lost as collateral damage from Iran’s retaliatory fire.
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a War Powers Resolution, and we’re all praying the Senate will follow. These resolutions are an effort to rein in the administration from recklessly and unilaterally waging war. With the impeachment process ending, I’m hoping Congress will turn its attention back to putting a stop to the president’s ability to wage endless war.
But this is not enough. We haven’t learned to begin with peace, with the aim of ending with peace in our words and actions. The Iran nuclear deal was a first step towards making the world a little safer, but for whatever reason, our leaders once again opted for confrontation and military action. And our president has helped put together a “peace plan” for the Middle East that will not begin or end with peace for Israel and Palestine.
The U.S. Congress just approved a new military budget of $738 billion. Meanwhile, nutrition programs, health care, housing, and environmental budget proposals keep getting slashed. There seems to always be money for war and the military and never enough money for people.
We need to do better than this. In the words of Isaiah 2:4, “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
And in the words of Pete Seeger, “When will we ever learn?”
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See more of our posts from Lisa Stiller:
The Adventures of Organizing as a Consistent Lifer
People Are So Much More Than Their Circumstances
Adventures as a Delegate to the Democratic Party Convention
The Frustrations of Being a Consistent Life Activist
Intolerance Knows No Partisan Boundaries
Purple Sash Revolution
by C.J. Williams
Past and present converged at Nancy Pelosi’s office in Washington D.C., January 22nd, 2020. It was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Women across the nation were celebrating the centennial of women’s suffrage.
And a large crew of women — myself included — were tying it all together with a purple sash and a brash but respectful statement:
Dear Speaker Pelosi, stop obstructing justice.
That frigid Wednesday morning, we gathered from across the nation on the steps of the House offices. The crowd swelled. Women donned our purple sashes, emblazoned with the statement: Equal rights for preborn women. And as the crowd swelled, so did the media.
So did our statement.
The event, spearheaded by Brandi Swindell, and Stanton Healthcare, was promoted well ahead of time as the #PurpleSashRevolution. Pelosi has repeatedly refused to allow a vote, or even discussion, of the Infants Born Alive Protection Act. The fact that more than half of those infants are women seems to escape her. So does the point that that those early suffragists didn’t suffer handcuffs, verbal abuse, and constant excoriation by the press so that a woman representative could promote another system wherein violence, using people as property, and rights based on the oppression of others could be ensconced again in our legal framework. Abortion itself, late-term, mid-term, and in the first few weeks of pregnancy, does just that.
Medical murder post-abortion is just the gruesome logical follow-through. House Democrats, under Pelosi’s leadership, have blocked the bill from receiving a vote more than 80 times.
Before the press conference got well underway, a few of us also raised the concern that contrary to the nonviolent principles of her suffragist forebears, Pelosi has never used of her influence to remove the President’s unchecked executive authority to use nuclear weapons.
C.J. Williams & Danielle White Versluys
Over 20 young women myself included, spoke to the press. Statements came from Camille C., of Students for Life, as well as from event organizers and abortion survivors.
“We are going to Speaker Pelosi’s office to call for an end to infanticide and demand she allow a vote on protecting children born alive from late-term abortions,” Brandi Swindell of Stanton International said as we headed into the building, “It is unconscionable that Speaker Pelosi is refusing to allow a vote on this critical human rights issue.”
In line with the civil rights activists of the near-past, and the suffragists of the further-past, we trekked inside and peacefully sat in front of Nancy Pelosi’s door. “We pray that Nancy Pelosi embrace the fundamentals of her feminist forebears…of her Catholic upbringing,” Rev. Pat Mahoney prayed as over 40 men and women jammed the stairs behind us.
“Why are you doing this?” a man — an aide? — asked me. He didn’t stop to give me his name. But he got my reply, “We’re obstructing her door until she stops obstructing justice.”
Within moments of sitting down — while some women prayed, and others sang — the D.C. police shouted out a first warning. Then, in split-second succession, warning two and three came. Legs flew and protesters who couldn’t or wouldn’t risk arrest scrambled for the corners of the hall.
Nine of us marched out proudly in handcuffs. Nine of us put our lives on the line for our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.
Nine of us made a peaceful statement with more than words — with our bodies, time, and presence: violence is never a just solution, and we’ll sit on your porch til you’re just too darn fed up with us not to choose to protect the lives of our most vulnerable from violence.
“Participants [wore] purple sashes to stand in solidarity with our founding sisters who heroically worked to empower and inspire women by securing the right to vote and strongly embracing human rights and equality,” said Swindell, tying the past to our present. ”Suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton stood against abortion and rejected the notion that abortion violence is a way to advance women’s rights.”
March for Life 2020
Comment: The Fundamental Reason Roe Must be Overturned
by Richard Stith
Roe v. Wade has done much more than legalize abortion up to birth. By making abortion a constitutional right, our Supreme Court has validated and legitimated abortion.
In a presumptively just society, like ours, an individual citizen has a right to rely on the Supreme Court’s judgment. It seems to me perfectly reasonable for an abortion-minded woman to think that she doesn’t need to worry about the biological data, or the moral debates, since abortion must be okay. She could think, “If abortion were really killing a little baby, those nine wise guys on the court (who are a lot smarter than me) would never have permitted it for a relatively minor (or no) reason.” That’s how I would reason if I came upon a bridge that looked somewhat unstable, but which had been certified as safe by the Army Corps of Engineers. At least if I were under pressure, I would almost certainly trust the engineers and not do any further investigation myself before using the bridge.
By contrast, legislatures that approve abortion along the lines of Roe, such as New York or Illinois, have much less credibility. Someone considering abortion is much less likely to defer to their judgment.
Only if Roe is reversed are many of our fellow citizens likely to face up to their own consciences in all seriousness.
Photos and stories from the March for Life 2020
Top: Rehumanize International at their meet-up before the March started.
Bottom: Franciscan peace activists.
Richard Stith:
At the end of the pro-life March, there was a small band of counter-protesters stalwartly standing for choice in the midst of a sea of pro-lifers, who were trying to tell them they didn’t belong there. I went over to one young woman who had a “Shout your abortion” t-shirt on, and I opened with my favorite greeting “We’re glad YOU got to be born!” She responded with a broad smile. Then I went over to a man who had just told the pro-lifers that they thought women were mere incubators. I also told him I was glad HE got to be born. He responded with a smile and a thank you.
I truly believe that this greeting, uttered orally or placed on a t-shirt, is a wonderful way to reach out to the other side. It’s friendly and yet, if they think about it, it makes them realize that if they’re happy to be born, others would also be happy to be allowed to be born.
Note that it is important to say I’m glad YOU “got to be” born, rather than I’m glad you “were” born. The words “got to be” imply that they existed prior to birth and made it to birth.
Rosemarie & Richard Stith, Tony Masalonis, Rachel MacNair
Rachel MacNair:
I had exhilarating conversations with so many people. One that shows how crucial it is for us to be there was in a session on Elections at the Students for Life conference held the day after the March (a perfect place to leaflet about our Peace & Life Referendums project). One presenter occasionally referred to watching out for what the Left would do. I went up to him afterward and introduced myself as a member of the pro-life Left. He was delighted and acknowledged he was well aware a pro-life Left exists.
Actually, I don’t care for the Left/Right distinction at all; I don’t find it helpful. But for those who insist on the dichotomy and use that vocabulary, the Left is where I go.
And in this election year when dividing up into two “sides” is worse than usual, it’s important that we be there for the bridge-building. Just as we’re the most credible people to present a pro-life case in peace-movement venues, we’re also the most credible people to offer peace and justice ideas to pro-life activists, especially since so many are eager to hear them.
Amanda Putman, a student in Denton, Texas, came by our table with this sign she had made.
John Whitehead:
Representing the Consistent Life Network (CLN) at the 2020 March for Life involved many good and memorable experiences. The two most striking encounters came at the very beginning and the end of the day of the March.
Kristen Day and Lesley Monet at the DFLA breakfast
I had the great pleasure, the morning of the March, to attend the breakfast sponsored by CLN member group Democrats for Life of America. The featured speaker was Lesley Monet, the international director of the Family Life Campaign of the Church of God in Christ. The Church of God in Christ is a major network of black churches in the United States, and its work includes pro-life activism. Lesley spoke about this pro-life work, as well as this work’s connection to her personal experience. Lesley is the child of a single mother who carried her to term despite difficult circumstances and subsequently arranged for a couple to adopt Lesley.
Several remarks from her talk made a particular impression on me. She noted that black women of child-bearing age make up a disproportionately large percentage of the women having abortions, accounting for roughly a third of all abortions. Lesley also noted that black Americans’ political affiliation tends overwhelmingly to be Democratic. These figures were not news to me, but the conclusion she drew from them was pointed and striking. Ending abortion in the United States should involve the black community and (although Lesley identifies as an independent) should also involve the Democratic Party.
Lesley also made valuable comments on the importance of persistence and working with other groups, even those very different from our own. Persistence requires you to communicate your message repeatedly and to try to get people, especially politicians, to listen. Working with others requires not merely getting past philosophical disagreements but cultural or stylistic differences. We are most naturally comfortable working with people like ourselves, but that is something we need to get past to build a coalition for a common goal.
John Whitehead & Destiny Herndon-de-la-Rosa
The other most memorable encounter I had during the March for Life came at the very end of the day. I was staffing the Consistent Life exhibit table at the March for Life expo. I was tired and the event seemed to be winding down. Then a man stopped by the table.
He was an older white man, from Kentucky, and I reflexively thought “He doesn’t seem like someone who will be interested in our message.” Still, I gave my standard speech about who we were and what the consistent life ethic was. He listened, and then we got to talking.
The man was a retired Marine, who had served during the Vietnam era and recalled getting hostile reactions to his uniform and military service. His son had also served in the military and done two tours of duty in Iraq. In short, he did not fit the stereotypical profile of a peace activist. Yet his son’s experiences, combined with his own observations, had recently led the man to an anti-war stance.
He described his extreme skepticism about whether American intervention could bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, as well as his equally extreme disappointment in contemporary politicians of both parties. The approach he now favored was to bring the troops home.
I was surprised, to put it mildly, but also touched to hear his reflections and grateful he shared them. He also shared, in passing, that his wife and priest had managed to change his position on the death penalty to opposition. We chatted for a while, and I gave him some Consistent Life literature. Meanwhile, he gave me a much-needed reminder that you never know who might support a consistent life ethic.
American Solidarity Party
Tony Masalonis:
While in DC, our CL Network contingent was of course not about to miss the international day of protest against war with Iran on Saturday. Talks at the White House rally reminded us that Iran is one of the world’s most cultured and educated nations, and stressed how much would be lost by wreaking devastation on their country.“An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons
Compiled by John Whitehead
We remember this time of year the life and public ministry of Martin Luther King. Although famous for championing racial and economic justice and nonviolence, an aspect of King’s thought that has received relatively less attention is his opposition to the ultimate tools of violence, nuclear weapons.
Historian Vincent Intondi, in his work African Americans against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement and related writings, has recounted some of King’s most memorable statements on nuclear weapons. Drawing on Intondi’s research and on other speeches and writings of King’s, we present several significant statements he made on these weapons that threaten all life:
In an early paper, probably written for a course at Crozer Theological Seminary, King commented on how nuclear weapons’ invention had created the need for a new approach to international relations:
During the five years in which scientists harnessed the power of the atom as a weapon of war, man’s scientific progress leaped forward at least 500 years…Man’s social progress has failed to keep abreast with his scientific progress. Unless man by his will can bridge the gap, he is doomed to destruction.
Many, therefore, stand looking at the world’s calamity as at a gigantic spectacle, feeling that the problem is well-nigh insoluble. I do not see how we can take that position, however, if we perceive what the gist of the world’s problem really is: a lack of world brotherhood. I am convinced that if our civilization is to survive, we must rise from the narrow horizon of clashing nationalism to the wide horizon of world cooperation…World brotherhood is no longer a beautiful ideal, but an absolute necessity for civilization’s survival. We must come to see that all humanity is so interwoven in a single process that whatever affects the man in Russia also affects the man in America.
“Science Surpasses the Social Order,” 1951
After his rise to prominence as a civil rights leader, King commented
I definitely feel that the development and use of nuclear weapons should be banned. It cannot be disputed that a full-scale nuclear war would be utterly catastrophic…Even countries not directly hit by bombs would suffer through global fall-outs. All of this leads me to say that the principal objective of all nations must be the total abolition of war. War must be finally eliminated or the whole of mankind will be plunged into the abyss of annihilation.
“Advice for Living” column, Ebony, December 1957 (quoted in Intondi, African Americans against the Bomb, 63-64)
Speaking before the War Resisters League, he connected the struggle for racial equality with that for peace and against nuclear weapons:
Not only in the South, but throughout the nation and the world, we live in an age of conflicts, an age of biological weapons, chemical warfare, atomic fallout and nuclear bombs. It is a period of conflict between the mammoth powers . . . It is a period of uncertainty and fear. Every man, woman, and child lives, not knowing if they shall see tomorrow’s sunrise . . .
We must no longer cooperate with policies that degrade man and make for war. The great need in the world today is to find the means for the social organization of the power of non-violence . . .
As you know, the establishment of social justice in our nation is of profound concern to me. This great struggle is in the interest of all Americans and I shall not be turned from it. Yet no sane person can afford to work for social justice within the nation unless he simultaneously resists war and clearly declares himself for non-violence in international relations.
What will be the ultimate value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and White, are merely free to face destruction by strontium 90 or atomic war . . .
Today the choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.
Speech to War Resisters League, February 2, 1959
During a subsequent trip to India, King gave a radio address in which he declared
The peace-loving peoples of the world have not yet succeeded in persuading my own country, America, and Soviet Russia to eliminate fear and disarm themselves . . . It may be that just as India had to take the lead and show the world that national independence could be achieved nonviolently, so India may have to take the lead and call for universal disarmament.
Farewell Statement for All India Radio, March 9, 1959 (quoted in Intondi, 64)
In his book The Strength to Love, King identified the danger of nuclear war as rooted in mutual fear and competition among nations:
Witness our frenzied efforts to construct fallout shelters. As though even these offer sanctuary from an H-Bomb attack! Witness the agonizing desperation of our petitions that our government increase the nuclear stockpile. But our fanatical quest to maintain “a balance of terror” only increases our fear and leaves nations on tiptoes lest some diplomatic faux pas ignite a frightful holocaust . . .
Our deteriorating international situation is shot through with the lethal darts of fear. Russia fears America, and America fears Russia. Like-wise China and India, and the Israelis and the Arabs. These fears include another nation’s aggression, scientific and technological supremacy, and economic power, and our own loss of status and power.
The Strength to Love, 1963 (quoted in Intondi, 66-67)
Later in his public life, after he had become an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, King continued to warn about the dangers of nuclear weapons:
I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy. And if something doesn’t happen to stop this trend, I’m sorely afraid that we won’t be here to talk about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many more years . . . If somebody doesn’t bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody’s going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere. And then another one is going to drop. And don’t let anybody fool you, this can happen within a matter of seconds . . . They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia right now that can destroy a city as big as New York in three seconds, with everybody wiped away, and every building. And we can do the same thing to Russia and China.
Sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, February 4, 1968
In an address given a couple days later, King again brought together the causes of racial justice and peace:
We have played havoc with the destiny of the world and we have brought the whole world closer to nuclear confrontation . . . [T]he alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a great suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world will be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat will be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not envision. We have to see that and work diligently and passionately for peace.
I am still convinced that the struggle for peace and the struggle for civil rights as we call it in America happen to be tied together. These two issues are tied together in many, many ways. It is a wonderful thing to work to integrate lunch counters, public accommodations, and schools. But it would be rather absurd to work to get schools and lunch counters integrated and not be concerned with the survival of a world in which to integrate. And I am convinced that these two issues are tied inextricably together and I feel that the people who are working for civil rights are working for peace; I feel that the people working for peace are working for civil rights and justice.
Speech to Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, February 6, 1968 (quoted in Intondi, 80)
Much has changed since King’s time, but the evils of racism, poverty, war, and nuclear weapons are still all too present. We would do well to listen to his words today.
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For another of our posts on Martin Luther King, see:
Where Does Martin Luther King Jr. Fit Into the Consistent Life Ethic?
For more posts with African American perspectives, see:
Is it Too Late? 1971 Speech of Fannie Lou Hamer
Historical Black Voices: Racism Kills
For more posts on nuclear weapons, see:
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality
of Nuclear Weapons
The Reynolds Family, the Nuclear Age and a Brave Wooden Boat
Abortion and War: Breaking through the Euphemism Barrier
Sarah Field
by Sarah Field
Have you ever noticed the similarities between pro-abortion and pro-war arguments? It seems that whenever we want to justify killing people, we just automatically adopt similar conversational rules in order to maintain a veneer of respectability.
Of course, it’s important to be clear that one is not supporting killing in general. For example, it is important for abortion to be safe for the mother. It is important to minimize casualties on our side of a war. One doesn’t talk about the healthy, viable babies that are aborted, nor the civilians killed as part of certain strategies. One always talks about the lives saved – never the lives taken – unless they are rape babies, babies that appear to have disabilities, an established enemy leader, or terrorists. Other victims of violence, for whom we cannot establish a sense of fear, are simply erased.
One way to accomplish this is to avoid talking about those who will be killed as fellow humans. They are a vague “fetus” or “blob of cells” in one case, a vague “enemy” or “collateral damage” in the other. The conversation must never be allowed to drift in the direction of their shared humanity. For example, when we talk about those who “died for our freedom” we only mean those who fought on our side – not those who died at their hands. We leave abortion figures out of statistics like “leading causes of death.” Certainly the lives that they were living or might have hoped to live in the future are meaningless.
In both cases, absolutely horrible atrocities are committed, be it blowing homes and families to smithereens or dismembering viable unborn babies alive, but the rules of polite conversation forbid us to talk about them. Focus on the inspiring goal, not the ugly methods used to get there.
So naturally, the emphasis is on maintaining the status quo for – or better yet “liberating” – those for whom one kills. After all, how can a woman pursue a career if she can’t control when she has kids? (Abstaining from sex is never mentioned as an option – it is simply assumed that men and women alike must be free to have sex without consequences!) Or how can a country continue to be powerful on a world level if it can’t prevent other countries from getting in the way? (But never mind whether we were running into difficulties because we were in someone else’s territory to begin with.) How can we expect to spread democracy – let alone American notions of human rights – around the world without using the military to “take out” those who resist our efforts? (All the good guys really want to be just like us, right?)
So we wave flags, praise the heroism of those who take our side, and talk about everything that someone in our preferred demographic might suffer if the right to kill is taken away. But again, it’s never the right to kill. It’s just the right to defend the status quo. By violence, if necessary, but we don’t talk about that.
And finally, it is extremely important when having such conversation to never talk about the suffering your position has caused people on your own side. Don’t talk about PTSD and people who feel guilty for being part of unspeakable atrocities –talk about heroes. Don’t talk about abortion regrets – talk about people (female or male) who are happy they sacrificed the life of their unborn child on the altar of their career. If someone mentions that not everyone feels good about hastening the death of a fellow human being, simply imply that “judgmentalism” is the reason these people suffer, not the deeds themselves.
And if all else fails, remind everyone that people who disagree with you are not really defending human life. They are merely anti-woman or unpatriotic.
Now that I have drawn this analogy between two of the evils addressed by the Consistent Life Ethic, I would like to point out one other snare to avoid. As important as it is to recognize how these rules and euphemisms are used to stifle conversation, it is also important not to make similarly stifling rules on the other side. Can pro-life people talk about what to do when a woman’s life is actually in danger? Can those who want to see the end of war talk about what to do when there is a real holocaust going on? Can we ever find common ground with people with different views on abortion and/or war in areas like the need to better support mothers or to cultivate responsible diplomacy to prevent conflict?
I believe that the Consistent Life movement can and does attempt to address these concerns. But let’s be sure to hold each other accountable.
Sarah Field believes she can learn something from everyone she meets. She has previously contributed to the Imago Dei Politics and American Solidarity Party blogs.
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For similar posts on the dynamics of violence, see:
Abortion and Violence against Pregnant Women
When “Choice” Itself Hurts the Quality of Life
Northern Ireland’s New Colonialism
Maria Horan
by Maria Horan
Throughout the twentieth century, much of Northern Ireland’s oppressions have been orchestrated in true colonial form from Westminster in London. But a new wave of violence has been re-established in the past months with legalized abortion being undemocratically forced on the North, as a small number of pro-abortion members of Parliament (MPs) have been striving to take advantage of Northern Ireland’s vulnerability, with its current lack of a sitting Parliament since January 2017.
Until October 2019, Northern Ireland was exempt from the United Kingdom (UK) 1967 Abortion Act, except when there was a threat to the mother’s life. There is clear evidence that 100,000 lives have been saved due to this law. The Secretary of State is obliged to introduce a regulatory framework for abortion in March 2020, so until then, abortion in Northern Ireland will be completely unregulated. Right to Life issued 18 facts about the new law, including that it allows abortion up to 28 weeks for any reason, such as sex selection and disability, and that no parental consent is needed for girls under 15.
Various British MPs have flown in and out of the North to speak to abortion advocates such as Amnesty UK but have arrogantly chosen to ignore the pro-life stronghold there. In the 2011 Census, 82.3% of Northern Irish residents described themselves as Christian, compared with 59.4% in England. However, just as the Republic of Ireland’s Catholicism and unique culture was oppressed for many years while under British rule, this is now occurring in Northern Ireland, with British MPs ignoring the North’s strong religious backdrop and voting against the will of the Northern Irish population.
During the Troubles, those living in Northern Ireland were punished for being the wrong religion with threats, violence, and even death. Now, those living in NI will be punished for being pro-life.
In its push for abortion in NI, Amnesty UK has been using gimmicks for a law change such as sending a letter signed by UK “celebrities” to then-Prime Minister, Theresa May in 2018, with just two out of the 67 signees actually coming from the North. An Amnesty survey in October 2018 claimed that 75% of the UK public wants the law changed, despite the fact that Northern Irish citizens were asked different questions from the rest of the UK. Amnesty made the (unlikely) claim that 66% of NI residents stated that in the absence of a devolved government, Westminster should reform the law. The Amnesty results are in sharp contrast to a ComRes survey also conducted in October 2018 that stated that 64% of Northern Irish residents were opposed to Westminster imposing an abortion law on them.
Over the past year, the colonial attitude towards Northern Ireland also became more apparent in pro-abortion MPs such as Diana Johnson and Stella Creasy forcing abortion on the North. When Diana Johnson’s Ten Minute Rule Bill for abortion ran out of time in October 2018 (despite being passed by 208 to 123 votes), in June 2019, London MP Creasy enlisted the help of pro-abortion House of Commons speaker, John Bercow to give her the time to tag on the decriminalization of abortion in the North to a completely unrelated bill, which was passed by 332 to 99 votes. It was voted against by all Northern Irish MPs who were present in Westminster and no voting opportunity was given to Northern Irish citizens. As independent crossbench peer Lord Alton stated, 100% of those who voted for abortion in the North were from constituencies outside that region, while 100% of those who voted against it were from the North.
Creasy then claimed that Northern Ireland should not be consulted on their own new abortion law, demonstrating a patronizingly colonial attitude towards the North. She was not remotely interested in the thousands of Northern Irish who gathered outside the Northern Irish parliament in Stormont for NI Voiceless, who marched in the Rally for Life in Belfast in September, and the more than 47,000 people who signed Baroness O’Loan’s petition opposing the new abortion law. Nor was she concerned about the medical professionals who do not want to be forced into participating in abortion, as per the new law.
Sinn Féin’s use of abstentionism means they refuse to take their Westminster seats, because they do not recognize the UK Parliament’s right to legislate for any part of Ireland, as embarrassingly demonstrated by Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald’s England Get Out of Ireland poster in New York on St. Patrick’s Day 2019 (pictured). However, when it comes to abortion, in true colonial style, Sinn Féin is happy for the British to take over and make the decisions for them.
Councillor Dr. Anne McCloskey, of the new pro-life republican political party Aontú, stated: “[Irish Republicans] looked on in disbelief and anger as our supposedly Republican representatives [that is, Sinn Féin] traveled cap in hand to Westminster to ask them to legislate in our country. To beg English MPs to impose their laws on our land.”.
Niamh Uí Bhriain has noted that Sinn Féin is happy to surrender Irish sovereignty when it comes to abortion. The pro-life group Precious Life has since protested both Sinn Féin and the SDLP due to these political parties’ betrayal of preborn children: both parties refused to take their seats in Stormont on October 21st, when the final attempt was made to prevent this law from coming into force.
However, the real reason that Creasy and her colleagues are interested in Northern Ireland is that abortion advocates have been trying for years to decriminalize abortion in the UK, which will remove all legal safeguards and make women even more vulnerable than the current law. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) has launched a campaign called We Trust Women to push for this change in law, which would allow for the possibility of abortion to birth for any reason.
BPAS CEO Ann Furedi praised Andrew Cuomo’s horrific New York State abortion bill in January and has openly admitted that this is essentially what she wants in the UK. Such a law must apply to all of the UK so potentially, abortion in the UK will be completely free from restrictions next year.
And predictably, in an attempt to win votes in the UK election on December 12, the Liberal Democrats had announced that if elected, they planned to decriminalize UK abortion for any reason to 24 weeks, and the Labour Party had planned to make it legal to birth for any reason. However, neither party was elected.
Just as in the United States, now that the true agenda is out in the open for all to see, it may have encouraged British voters to re-think the real agenda of the abortion industry, which clearly cares little for women and their children.
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For more of our blog posts from Maria Horan, see:
Sinn Féin and the New Legacy of Violence
The Referendum on Abortion in Ireland: The Violation of Rights
The Early Christian Tradition
Remarks from Rob Arner at the Warminster March for Life, November 2, 2019, at the Warminster Planned Parenthood center where they do abortions. Slightly edited.
It’s wonderful to be with you this afternoon for the first of what will hopefully be an annual event at this facility, until such a time when the hearts of our culture have been opened to love and this event is no longer necessary. A little about me – I’m a theology and ethics professor and director of admissions and financial aid at Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Montgomery County, and I also teach religion at Temple University. I have a strong, loving wife Lori and three terrific kids, 10, 7, and 5 years old. I am also on the board of the Consistent Life Network.
My message for you today comes out of the Christian tradition. You may have heard people in the media saying Catholics and other Christians have hitched our pro-life convictions to a specific political agenda. That we’re being made use of by certain politicians for cynical political gain, or that our beliefs about the sacredness of human life are only concerned with the unborn. Some say about us, “You’re not pro-life, you’re only pro-birth,” as if our concern for the lives of the innocent and vulnerable stop at the moment of birth.
But I want to tell you, the Christian roots of the pro-life movement are far, far older than Roe v. Wade in 1973. They are far broader than only caring for the lives of the unborn, and they are far, far deeper than partisan politics of the left or the right can ever truly comprehend.
No, my friends, Christians are pro-life because the Bible tells us from the very first chapter that we’re made in the image and likeness of God. Every person, male and female, of every race, nation, social class, level of ability, or stage of development, is a genetically unique and irreplaceable being of fathomless value. This is the pro-life message of the Christian tradition, and it’s our call to proclaim it boldly in all places where human life is threatened or demeaned.
I want to share with you some of the voices of ancient Christianity, some of the first Christian writings from after the time of the apostles that demonstrate that the church has stood up for the weak and vulnerable, including the unborn, during all eras of its history, not just the modern one. While it’s true the Bible itself doesn’t address abortion directly, other influential early Christian writings from the first three centuries of the church’s existence most certainly do.
I want to help bring those voices to life for you for two reasons:
- To show conclusively that Christians have always been pro-life, and
- To help you better understand your own pro-life convictions with the help of those in the tradition who have gone before us.
Setting the Scene
The ancient Roman Empire, out of which Christianity emerged, was not a culture that valued life. The emperors routinely executed their rivals and political prisoners by crucifixion or beheading. Likewise, when a Roman citizen wanted to watch a sporting event, they didn’t go down to Citizens Bank Park to watch the Phillies play baseball like we might. Instead, they would go down to the Coliseum and watch a gladiator match. This was essentially two slaves who were forced to fight to the death while the audience cheered. That was what passed for “sports” in ancient Rome.
Likewise, both prenatal abortions and postnatal infanticide and exposures of unwanted or “defective” children were widely practiced in ancient Greece and Rome. Although apparently more widely practiced among the rich, abortion was a cultural practice that transcended socio-economic status. Wealthy families aborted pregnancies because of concerns about dividing their estate among too many offspring, while poor families aborted out of fear of being unable to support large families.
Particularly among the upper classes, women would also seek abortions out of concern for the preservation of their sex appeal and “youthful beauty.” Many times, abortions were also practiced to conceal evidence of adultery. The emperor Domitian had an affair with his niece Julia, and ordered her to abort the pregnancy to hide it, a procedure which resulted in the young woman’s death.
Roman families would also take babies who had been born alive, and if there was something “wrong” with the baby – it appeared deformed, or was the “wrong” gender, they would leave the baby on a mountainside to die. This practice was known as the “exposure” of infants. One distinctive practice that set the early Christians apart from their pagan neighbors was that the Christians would routinely patrol the areas where babies were known to have been left. If they found the babies alive, they’d take them in and adopt them.
Early Christian Writers and Pro-Life Convictions
In the Didache, an early Christian discipleship manual from the late 1st or early 2nd century, the moral formation section is known as the “Two Ways,” – a “Way of Life” and a “Way of Death.” Under the “Way of Life”, the teaching on abortion is simple and unequivocal: “You shall not murder a child by [means of] abortion [φθορᾷ, phthora], nor kill one who has been born.” Later, the Didache lists those who belong to the “Way of Death,” among whom we find, “murderers of children, who abort the mold of God” (Did. 5.2).
A version of the “Two Ways” section of the Didache is also present in the Epistle of Barnabas, from around the year 100, which reiterates the command against abortion, but puts it in a different context: “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay the child by abortion [phthora]. You shall not kill what has been born” (Ep. Barn. 19.5). In this version, “the fetus is seen not as part of its mother, but as a neighbor” (Gorman, 49). Thus deliberate killing of the fetus or born child is seen as a gross violation of the neighbor, whom the Christian is obligated to love.
The great Latin apologist Tertullian, writing around AD 197, discussed abortion at length, refuting the pagan rumors that Christians kill and eat children in their Eucharistic feasts. Noting the common nature of abortions and exposures among pagan society, Tertullian throws the charge of child-murder back in the faces of his accusers and points out that they are the real child-killers. He concludes, observing the impossibility of Christians eating children because
with us, murder is forbidden once for all. We are not permitted to destroy even the fetus in the womb, as long as blood is still being drawn to form a human being. To prevent the birth of a child is a quicker way to murder. It makes no difference whether one destroys a soul already born or interferes with its coming to birth. It is a human being and one who is to be a man, for the whole fruit is already present in the seed. (Tertullian, Apol. 9:6-8)
The two great theologians from Alexandria in Egypt, Clement and Origen, each commented briefly on abortion in their weighty theological books. Clement’s very long Paedogogus references abortion in the context of a discussion on marriage. He addresses the destructive effects of abortion on the human psyche, commenting that “women who resort to some sort of deadly abortion drug kill not only the embryo but, along with it, human kindness [philanthrōpia]” (Paed. 2.10.96.1). His concern is both for the child and for the psyche of those who procure abortions. In his judgment, abortions can lead to a callousness of the heart that impedes the Christian imperative to love one’s neighbor. Later, in the apologetic Against Celsus, Origen explains that the Christian God “certainly requires us to bring up the offspring and not to destroy the children given by providence” (Origen, Cels. 8.55). He views children as divine gifts and blessings, the destruction of which is an affront to God, the giver of life.
I think you can now see that the early Christian opposition to abortion is clear and unequivocal from the time of the Didache onward. Abortion is seen as an issue of violence and is condemned by most writers as a failure of neighbor love and as murder. Concern for the fetus as a creature of value distinguishes Christian attitudes from those of Greek and Roman moralists. In seeing abortion as fundamentally an act of killing a human being, early Christianity opposed it in the context of what Gorman calls a “consistent pro-life ethic” (Gorman, 90). The same writers who condemned abortion also condemned Christian participation in bloodshed in any form.
Lactantius, a Christian writing from the first decade of the 4th century concludes a wide-ranging discussion of Roman bloodshed, covering infanticide, killing in war, the death penalty, and the gladiatorial matches, with this summary statement: ”Therefore, in this command of God, no exception whatsoever must be made. It is always wrong to kill a man whom God has intended to be a sacrosanct creature” (Inst. 6.20). Within this overall teaching prohibiting all bloodshed, the early Christian condemnation of abortion becomes a subset of a total ethic that valued all people as God’s creation, and prohibited their slaying by those whose lives had been touched by Christ.
So you see, my friends, the early Christian reverence for human life is as old as the faith itself. We’re a people who defend the needy and vulnerable, because that’s the kind of God our God is. It’s written into the deepest logic, history, and tradition of the Christian church. In our name of “Christian,” we share the name of Christ, the crucified Messiah, who poured his life out for the life of the world. It’s in his name that we take our stand for justice in this world, and it’s following in his steps that we lay our own lives down for others.
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For more of our blog posts from Rob Arner, see:
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
The Real Meaning of Mother’s Day
Dorothy Day and the Consistent Life Ethic: Rejecting Conventional Political Paradigms
Where Does Martin Luther King Jr. Fit Into the Consistent Life Ethic?
Political Homelessness is Better than a Wrong Political Home
Note: As with all political commentaries, this post reflects the viewpoint of the author, who chooses to use a pen name. We encourage and publish a wide diversity of views.
by Ms. Boomer-ang
People with a consistent life philosophy should be wary about efforts to recruit us into conservative movements. Rejection by liberals is not a sufficient reason for embracing conservatism. If leaving what one does not love means leaving all existing political homes, it is okay to have no political home. One can either accept that homeless status or urge the building of a new political home where one does belong.
Many conservatives campaign on pro-life slogans, but once elected focus on attacking public services, discriminating against non-conformists, promoting environmental degradation, cruel law and order policies, and military aggression. Conservatives’ non-negotiable policies include such things consistent life movements should either be open-tent about or outright reject. Of course, correspondingly, many liberals campaign on environmental protection and immigrant-welcoming slogans, but once elected focus on promoting abortion, death-hastening, and incentives to submit to them.
What spurred this essay were Carol Crossed’s review of Defending the Unborn on this blog (April 2016), and a fall 2016 article in a local pro-life newsletter urging readers to vote for “pro-life candidate Donald Trump.”
In the 2016 election, from a pro-life viewpoint, Hillary Clinton was a known “evil.” But the pro-life newsletter presented Trump as a known “good.” Actually, from a pro-life viewpoint, he was and is an unknown. To vote for an unknown over a known evil is understandable. But the newsletter portrayed him as a known good-guy, as if to shame everyone who did not vote for him, and that is inaccurate. Not voting for either candidate was a valid action in that election. (I took that action.)
A later edition of that same newsletter praised Republicans for not only accepting pro-lifers but also trying to lower property taxes. Reducing property taxes can threaten some public services, and the pro-life movement should be open-tent about that issue.
It is simplistic to call Trump pro-life. For most of his life, he was proudly pro-abortion. Maybe he felt he had to stop antagonizing pro-life people, in order to run for president as a Republican. But he still gloried in the sexual exploitation of women, which is one source of unwanted pregnancies. (In fact, were not some of the reasons Hugh Hefner and his male-condoners promoted abortion to allow a man to exploit a woman sexually with fewer unwanted consequences and to reduce a woman’s society-accepted justifications for rejecting sexual advances?) Candidate Trump also mocked handicapped people.
And with President Trump, what do we get? Eliminating child deduction from income taxes! Proclaiming that what John McCain said during his last year doesn’t count, “because he’s dying.” (As if one should hope he would die speedily.) Putting people with alleged histories of having fun sexually exploiting women into high positions. (Though if a Democrat had nominated someone like Brett Kavanagh, at least before the #MeToo movement, would people who objected to him be mocked as “religious right”?) Separating refugee children from their parents and confining them in bad conditions. Calling for parades showing off our big weapons. (Around the time of the 1976 Bicentennial, a newspaper letter noted approvingly that our parades, unlike those in other countries, did not show off big military weapons. This was American exceptionalism; this was one reason why America was great.)
Carol Crossed’s review provides us with examples of conservatives and Republicans promoting abortion and, before Roe, liberals and Democrats opposing it. One example was “a liberal Democrat whose statement for unborn protection was coupled with opposition to the Viet Nam War and the death penalty.”
Post-Roe, I personally have had acquaintances whose support of abortion and euthanasia is part of their military hawkishness and support of the death penalty. Now the media acknowledges the existence of pro-abortion conservatives and Republicans, but almost never mentions pro-life people who are “liberal” on just about every other issue. An exception was the Village Voice—both in its willingness to print Nat Hentoff columns and its printing this century of a letter from someone else who said her (I think it was a her) opposition to abortion and opposition to the death penalty were part of the same philosophy.
Several conservative policies and goals pressure people to believe they have “no choice” but to submit to abortion and death-hastening. These include welfare family caps, the repeal of tax exemptions for children, pushing private schools (which increase the cost of raising children), and allowing health insurance premiums to rise drastically while cutting coverage (along with promoting discount plans that do not cover life-accepting treatments for the severely ill and disabled).
Monica with baby Maura
Wanting to belong to something is very real. Parties too small to win elections can still have influence and provide political homes for their adherents. For consistent-lifers uncomfortable with both the Democratic and Republican parties, a post on this blog (December, 2017, by Monica Sohler) recommended the American Solidarity Party. This Party’s platform has many admirable points, and for consistent lifers who are religious Christians it could be the right thing. But I’m looking for something whose tent is open to non-Christians, pagans, atheists, and agnostics (and as something more than conversion-material), as well as devout Christians. Something which holds that certain principles are right, whether or not God ordered them.
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For posts on similar topics, see:
The History of Framing the Arguments
Pro-Life Voting Strategy: A Problem without an Answer
For posts on conservatives in the consistent life ethic, see:
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty
Making the Case for Peace to Conservatives
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons
On Praying for the Military
Julia Smucker
The following is a letter CLN board member Julia Smucker addressed to her church at the request of one of her pastors after raising these concerns in person. As a nonsectarian organization, we welcome perspectives from various faiths, as well as secular ones, that affirm consistent-life principles.
Since attending my current church, I have noticed that the Prayers of the Faithful often include a prayer for members of the military, usually with a reference to them “protecting our freedom.” For Christians, who belong to a universal faith, confess Jesus Christ as the one true lord and savior, and believe in the inviolable sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death, this language should raise some concerns.
It is well and good to pray for the safety (both physical and spiritual) of our loved ones and others who may be in harm’s way. This can be a meaningful way of joining the particular concerns of our parish community to the prayers of the universal Church – as long as we never lose sight of the fact that this is what we’re doing, recalling that our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world are likewise praying for the needs of their own communities and the safety of their own loved ones. Whenever we turn the attention of our prayers beyond ourselves, it is this catholicity that we should look to, and not to any idols of militarism, nationalism or exceptionalism that would supersede it. In other words, whatever we pray for our country or members of its military should be things that Christians anywhere in the world could pray for their own, without contradiction between their prayers and ours. For that matter, whatever we can pray for members of our own country’s military, we should be able to pray the same for people who participate in the armed forces of any country in the world.
When nationalistic language creeps into our liturgy couched in quasi-religious terms, it becomes something even more dangerous. This is because the language of the American national mythos uses terms like “freedom” and “sacrifice” in ways that are radically contrary to Christian understandings of them. The national mythos finds heroism in military might, including both the willingness to risk one’s life and the willingness to take life. This is the militaristic understanding of sacrifice that is credited with protecting freedom, generally understood in an individualized sense as doing what one wills, and delineated by citizenship. But for Christians, there can only be one sacrifice that truly guarantees our freedom, and that is the self-emptying sacrifice of the Lamb of God who became obedient to the point of death, who laid down his life freely rather than being defended by the sword or calling down legions of angels, who conquered death not by inflicting it but by submitting to it. And the freedom gained by this sacrifice is not merely individual liberty but the freedom to love as we were created to love, without being enslaved to fear or dependent on violence; the freedom to be servants of all (a more Christian understanding of service that’s also obscured by referring to members of the military as “servicemen and women”); a freedom meant for the entire world regardless of nationality or citizenship. For Christians to look to any other sacrifice for our freedom is not only settling for a much lesser freedom; it is a turn to a false god.
Contrary to the story nationalism tells, Christian tradition teaches us that all human life is sacred. Even putting aside questions of justification that might seem to override it, if we truly believe in the sanctity of all human life, from conception all the way to natural death, what we absolutely cannot do is sacralize the countless unnatural deaths that occur in the name of “protecting freedom” through military combat. If all human life is indeed sacred, then all killing of human beings is cause for lament and penitence, not for celebration or praise.
Those human beings who participate in the military, combatants and otherwise, certainly do need our prayers, because of the moral, psychological and spiritual dangers no less than the physical ones. In addition to post-traumatic stress and moral injury, widely recognized as consequences of exposure to or participation in violence, peace psychologist Rachel MacNair, who I work with on the board of the Consistent Life Network, coined the term Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress for a form of PTSD caused by perpetrating violence and has studied its effects on people who have participated in various forms of violence such as war, abortion, and executions – all things that, in the phrasing of the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes, “do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury.” Because of this, I pray for soldiers and veterans in the same way I pray for abortion workers and executioners.
In this vein, I’ve heard one liturgical prayer for military members that I’ve been able to join in good conscience: “That no harm may come to them, and that they may cause no harm to others.” This is what I pray in the place of any congregational prayer offered for the military. Whatever the wording of our liturgy, it is crucial that it be conducive to a soundly Christian formation of conscience, and that it be orthodox both in the sense of right belief and (doxa meaning glory) of right worship: giving glory where glory belongs.
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For a post on a similar topic, see:
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity