| WHAT CAN I DO? - Organize a prayer vigil in your local church.
- Write to your US Senators and member of Congress.
- Add prayers for peace to your daily prayer life.
- Write to President Bush.
- Share your concerns with others in your church and community.
- Be a person of peace in all that you do in your life.
| Blessed are the peacemakers - Youre blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. Thats whenyou discover who you really are, and your place in Gods family.
Matthew 5:9 The Message At the fall meeting of the Baltimore-Washington Conference Council on Ministries, the council voted unanimously to go on record in opposition to any preemptive strike by the United States against Iraq and to share this motion throughout the annual conference. The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church states, War is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ. We therefore reject war as a usual instrument of national foreign policy and insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to resolve by peaceful means every dispute that arises between or among them; that human values must outweigh military claims as governments determine their priorities; militarization of society must be challenged and stopped; that the manufacture, sale, and deployment of armaments must be reduced and controlled; and that the production, possession, or use of nuclear weapons be condemned. (The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, Para. 165C) Because this statement is the basis of our understanding as United Methodist people, we applaud the U.S. administration for seeking United Nations Security Council enforcement of its disarmament resolutions toward Iraq. We do not believe that peaceful means have been exhausted and we do not believe that war would achieve a safer or better world. In the midst of war and the rumors of war, we must speak for the vulnerable who have no voice. We plead for the children and the families of Iraq who continue to suffer from the economics of sanctions and from life under the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein. They would suffer even more if the United States were to launch a preemptive attack. Bishop Felton Edwin May, in a recent letter to United Methodist senators made a strong case against preemptive strikes. He said: It would be theologically, ethically, and morally inappropriate for the nation under God to take direct military action against Iraq at this time. Only as a last option should we move ahead militarily. Indeed, the precedence that we will be establishing in the world with a doctrine of preemptive attack is too horrible to consider. There is no telling which nations will use it as a way of getting at some other country with which they have a grievance. We are not unpatriotic, politically partisan or anti-American. We recognize the terrible nature of Saddam Husseins regime. We are not nave. We are simply people who would insist on peace with justice in a world where terror has many faces. Rev. Vance P. Ross, Conference Council on Ministries chairman
Rev. Donald S. Stewart, Conference Council Director For Further Information: - See The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church.
- Contact www.umc.org on the Internet, or to take action go to
- U-M Power at http://capwiz.com/gbcs/home/.
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