Nonviolent Orthopraxis and Just War Theory

Justin Whelan

Via Waging Nonviolence (an awesome blog) comes this interview with Sant’Egidio leader Andrea Bartoli on peacemaking, nonviolence and just war theory. It’s a great read:

NS: Since Augustine, Catholic tradition has upheld just war theory. Does Sant’Egidio see itself, like the Catholic Worker movement in the United States, as a challenge to that tradition? Or does its approach to peacebuilding fit within the just war framework?

AB: Augustine discusses peace about 2,500 times and war a couple of dozen. Everybody discusses what Augustine said about just war, but they usually fail to recognize that he speaks about just peace much more. Sant’Egidio focuses on the parts of Augustine that focus on peace. War is a possibility. War is a human choice. But from our perspective, the Christian position cannot be but a peaceful one, both in terms of being peaceful ourselves and in terms of being peacemakers. We don’t begin with theories. We work for peace because, to the poor, war is the worst of all conditions—Andrea Riccardi called it “the mother of all poverty.” Rather than holding a theoretical argument in favor of, or against, war, we need to be bound to practice. We’re more concerned with orthopraxis than orthodoxy. We want to be orthodox, but we have an even greater desire to actually practice the gospel.

I love that last line!

Anzac Day Weekend 2010 Conference ‘Putting an End to War’

Justin Whelan

This conference will be held from 23-26 April, starting with Friday dinner and an evening session and ending probably soon after Monday lunch at the Australian Quaker Centre, “Silver Wattle” 1063 Lake Road Bungendore, NSW.

The conference is entitled “Putting an end to War” – a 3-day workshop on personal resistance to war and military action. We will consider the Beatitudes as a call to radical action, reflect on celebrations of ANZAC Day, and hear about individual witness such as being a human shield, intervening in armed conflict, entering prohibited military areas and refusing to pay war taxes. Recent actions in Pine Gap, Talisman Sabre, Iraq and Palestine will be some of our examples.

Speakers include: Gerry Guitton “Walking the Way of Peace”, Simon Moyle “Radical Action’, Helen Bayes “Getting in the Way – Christian Peacemakers”, Waratah Gillespie “Out of Love Courage Grows”, Helen Gould “War Tax Resistance”, Doug Hynd “Reflections on Anzac day”.

For full details of program, accommodation costs etc check the web site: http://www.aqc.quakers.org.au

Obama’s Nobel War speech: What if?

jarrodmckenna

Keep watching Mark Van’s “Jesus Manifesto” for the unedited cut but in the mean time,

Over at Jim Wallis blog God’s Politics I’ve been asking “What if” Obama took a different direction at Oslo

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaM94mieeLg]

click on the text to read full article and view Cornel West video:

This got me thinking, “What if.” What if instead of Reinhold Niebuhr being Obama’s favorite theologian, it were Martin King, Dorothy Day, or John Yoder? What if Obama, like Gandhi and King, looked to Jesus’ example not as an ideal but as a practical program for transformation? What if Obama had made a study of the few places nonviolence was tried against Hitler (like in Denmark) and successfully halted Hitler’s armies and saved the lives of 7,000 Jews? What if instead of merely quoting the Balkans, Obama made a real study of the nonviolent movement “Otpor!” that brought down Slobodan Milosevic? What if Obama fought terrorism by taking the billions in his war budget (which exceeds that of George W. Bush), and invested it in grassroots community development, health care, and education in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (and at home)? What if Obama saw what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the love ethic of Jesus” as the pragmatic and realistic way forward? What if a head of state could risk being guided by Christ’s example embodied by Gandhi and King?

killing for Jesus is like shagging for celibacy

jarrodmckenna