The Episcopal

Diocese of Lexington

War and the Guarding of Our Souls

The Advocate, February 2003

I believe in America. My belief in my county has nothing to do with an attitude of “my country right or wrong.” Which is more jingoism than patriotism. It has everything to do with what America stands for. Or should. That is what is truly patriotic.

The reason I believe in what America stands for is things like “all men are created equal.” I believe in America because the opening words of our Constitution are “We the people.” I believe in America because of its vision of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” I believe in America because, in the end, we recognized that “separate but equal” was inherently unequal. I believe in America because we once committed ourselves to put human beings on the moon and didn’t stop until we had. And in fact we didn’t stop learning and exploring even then. And the Columbia disaster won’t make us stop either. I believe in America because we once committed ourselves in a burst of enthusiasm and optimism to the ending of poverty, and even if we did stop before we had, I think we will do so again. I believe in America because of the Statue of Liberty.

That is the America I want to give to the rest of the world, and example of what can be; a haven for the tired, the poor, the persecuted; a place with liberty and justice for all; a place where the creed we profess is the creed we live. The America I believe in is the one the rest of the world wants to believe in, too. The Statue of Liberty was a gift, after all, from the people of France.

It is for all these reasons that when America is preparing for war, as it is now, I want to get on board. I want to support the defense effort. I want, as a bishop of the Episcopal Church, to bless what we seem about to do. It is with great regret that I find that I cannot.

To make war is to align ourselves, no matter how good or noble our objective, with destruction. Destruction is never God’s pleasure. Destruction is antithetical to the creative nature of God. Sometimes, in the world we live in, destruction is sadly necessary. But destruction is never an instrument of God’s will. It is what must be overcome to do God’s will. We must be careful about such transgressions of God’s will for the purpose of doing God’s will.

War uses death as an instrument of power. Neither death nor power used in that fashion can ever be an instrument of the God of Jesus Christ who lived that we human beings might no longer die and who became weak that we might become children of God. Life is ultimately God’s gift to us. Death destroys God’s gift and so is never God’s will. And, of course, it is not only combatants that will die in a war with Iraq. It is the innocent as well, just as it was the innocent who were lost in the collapse if the World Trade Center on September 11. No death glorifies God. That is certainly true of many of the deaths that will result, if the news reports are accurate, in the massive unleashing of overwhelming violence that seems to be our strategy in Iraq, even if that strategy is calculated to cause the fewest deaths overall. Death never serves God’s purposes. We cannot inflict it without placing our very souls in the gravest of dangers.

In the case of this war, it needs to be said, the defensive nature of a preemptive strike is not at all clear. I understand our fear has a basis in reality. What it hope is that we will act out of something more reliable than fear. Before we employ the powers of death and destruction, what I hope for is more than a reflex to the wrong done to us on September 11, more than a desire for revenge. I hope that the power at our disposal will be kept at bay until we can with confidence conclude paradoxically that death and destruction, in the circumstances we are given, are the only way we have to serve the interests of love and life. That is a hard case to make, and it is a case that I have not yet seen made. As a bishop, it is a case I must insist on because any case less than that puts our souls at peril.

Peace is always what God intends. And God never said that making peace would be without risks. To live peacefully when others do not is dangerous work, but it is also life giving work. The reason is that peace is more consistent with creation than is destruction. Peace is more consistent with what gives life than is war, which gives only death. Peace, I have no doubt, is God’s will for the world because it is consistent with God’s own life. And the interests of peace are what I hope my country will choose to serve because peace is in the interest of God. I do not think we can trade peace to gain our safety without running the risk that we save our lives and lose our souls. And the guarding of our souls is the concern of a pastor.

Agape,