It must be something about the words Christian and pacifist. Both tend to make us think of other words like generous and kind.
But what happens when we examine the words of the Christian Peacemaker Teams that spoke to the media this week after three of its members were freed from captivity by British, Canadian and American men with guns?
“We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by multinational forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.”
Where is the generosity of spirit in this statement? Is it not painfully obvious to these pacifists that their own people were deprived of human rights? Were they taken by the dreaded coalition forces?
Am I missing something here? Iraqi terrorists kidnapped several member of the CPT, tied them and gagged them, executed one of them and threatened to execute the rest. Are these not human rights violations? Or do we reserve that judgment only for Americans and Brits?
The first press release issued by this pacifist group came before the lunch hour (eastern time) on Thursday. It contained not a shred of gratitude toward the special forces who rescued the three pacifists. Instead it contained a love bouquet to the kidnappers.
“Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. We refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance.”
Would a public thank you to the rescuers be defined as yielding to a spirit of vengeance?
In fairness, more than nine hours later and after countless complaints from rational Canadians, the CPT did alter their press release:
“We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them …
“We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues.”
Everyone is grateful that no shots had to be fired. But one wonders whether these pacifists would want these soldiers who performed the rescue to walk around Iraq without any weapons at all.
The pacifists may have good intentions. But if you or I are ever captured by thugs and murderers, we will need more than the intentions and prayers of pacifists to save our Canadian bacon.
May God and the reader forgive me if I am unable to love those who threaten to murder our citizens. My deepest feelings of affection, adoration and admiration are reserved for those young men who are willing to don the flak jackets, load their weapons, and lay down their lives, even for those who belittle them with their empty gestures and their silly news releases.
Would it be less than Christian to be faithful to reality?
These Christian peacemakers seem to have trouble apprehending truth or telling it.
They aren’t making peace. They are simply making noise and putting good people at risk in doing so.
Perhaps they should stick to making what they make best, Jell-o.
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