Re: [Goanet] Christmas Greetings: Christ and Gandhi
-- || |Goanetters annual meet in Goa is scheduled for Dec 27, 2005 @ 4pm | || |The Riviera Opposite Hotel Mandovi, Panjim (near Ferry Jetty/Riverfront)| | Attending...drop a line to [EMAIL PROTECTED]| -- --- Vidyadhar Gadgil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Peace on Earth" Means "No More War" by John Dear > > John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and > the author/editor of 20 books on peace and nonviolence, > including most recently "The Questions of Jesus" and > "Living Peace," both published by Doubleday. He is > the coordinator of Pax Christi New Mexico. For > information, see: www.fatherjohndear.org and > www.paxchristinewmexico.org > > Published on Saturday, December 24, 2005 by > CommonDreams.org > http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1224-21.htm > > The story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was > born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the > outskirts of a brutal empire, angels appeared in the > sky to impoverished shepherds singing, "Glory to God > in the highest and peace on earth!" That child grew up > to become, in Gandhi's words, "the greatest nonviolent > resister in the history of the world," and was > subsequently executed by the empire for his insistence > on justice. > Mario observes: > I'm not sure what political version of Christianity would lead a Jesuit priest to refer to the new-born Jesus as "nonviolent", and to describe HIM as "born into abject poverty" to "homeless refugees", both of which are Biblical falsehoods. Joseph was a professional carpenter and he and Mary were not "homeless" nor "refugees", simply unable to find lodgings that night. One would think any priest would know this stuff. Or is Fr. Dear a political activist with an agenda? > The author continues: > > This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians > across the country celebrate the birth of the Prince of > Peace, the U.S. wages war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia > and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, elderly, > imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world's ultimate > terrorist threat--its nuclear arsenal. > > Like Herod, Pilate and their soldiers, we have rejected the > angels' call for "peace on earth." When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld > and their warmaking supporters celebrate Christmas, they mock > Christ and his steadfast nonviolence, and carry on the > massacre of the innocents. > Mario observes: > I wonder if Mr. Gadgil can post some of Fr. Dear's writings that may have confronted the REAL massacre of innocents, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens massacred by Saddam Hussein in his attempts to maintain his brutal dictatorship, 5,000 in a single chemical attack in Halabja, further hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians when he pre-emptively attacked Iran and Kuwait, and dozens of innocent Israelis who were killed by suicide bombers whose families were paid bounties of $ 25,000 each. > I'd like to know what Fr. Dear's did to confront the ongoing violence in Sudan, and previously in Rwanda and Burundi, Sierra Leone and Liberia. > I wonder what Fr. Dear had to say about the 3.75 million innocents massacred by the VietCong and Khmer Rouge after the US was coerced into a political retreat from Vietnam and Cambodia by people who think like Fr. Dear. > I wonder if Fr. Dear is aware that it was Osama Bin Laden who unilaterally and pre-emptively declared war on the US at the height of Bill Clinton's appeasement-oriented administration, and then levied a series of deadly attacks on US interests in NY, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and back to NY on 9/11? > I wonder if Fr. Dear knows that, just a few weeks ago, Alman al-Zuhawiri said that al-Qaeda's goal was to force the Muslim countries in the middle-east into a jihadi Islamist Caliphate which would defeat the west and finally achieve the 60 year goal of eliminating Israel? Has Fr. Dear written an essay objecting to this? Maybe Mr. Gadgil can confirm. > I wonder if Fr. Dear missed Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent confirmation of Iran's goal of "wiping Israel off the map"? Has Fr. Dear written an essay objecting to this? Maybe Mr. Gadgil can confirm. > Fr. Dear continues: > > If the angels are correct, then Christmas requires us to > welcome God's gift of peace on earth. In such a time, that > means we have to work for an end to war. Christmas calls us > to become like Christ--people of active, creative, steadfast > nonviolence who give our lives in resistance to empire and war. > Mario observes: > Maybe I missed this in my scriptual studies but where does our religion teach us that we must be selective in the violence that we oppose, tacitly supporting the violence of dic
[Goanet] Christmas Greetings: Christ and Gandhi
-- || |Goanetters annual meet in Goa is scheduled for Dec 27, 2005 @ 4pm | || |The Riviera Opposite Hotel Mandovi, Panjim (near Ferry Jetty/Riverfront)| | Attending...drop a line to [EMAIL PROTECTED]| -- "Peace on Earth" Means "No More War" by John Dear John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and the author/editor of 20 books on peace and nonviolence, including most recently "The Questions of Jesus" and "Living Peace," both published by Doubleday. He is the coordinator of Pax Christi New Mexico. For information, see: www.fatherjohndear.org and www.paxchristinewmexico.org Published on Saturday, December 24, 2005 by CommonDreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1224-21.htm The story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!" That child grew up to become, in Gandhi's words, "the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world," and was subsequently executed by the empire for his insistence on justice. This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians across the country celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the U.S. wages war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, elderly, imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world's ultimate terrorist threat--its nuclear arsenal. Like Herod, Pilate and their soldiers, we have rejected the angels' call for "peace on earth." When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their warmaking supporters celebrate Christmas, they mock Christ and his steadfast nonviolence, and carry on the massacre of the innocents. If the angels are correct, then Christmas requires us to welcome God's gift of peace on earth. In such a time, that means we have to work for an end to war. Christmas calls us to become like Christ--people of active, creative, steadfast nonviolence who give our lives in resistance to empire and war. In pursuit of this Christmas gift, a group of us met this week with Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, and asked him to dismantle our nuclear weapons and disarm Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb. In this day and age, it is surprising that any elected official would meet and listen to anti-war activists. Yet Richardson asked to begin a public dialogue with us about nuclear disarmament. We take this as a sign of hope, even as we continue our protests at Los Alamos. When Gandhi was asked one Christmas day for his thoughts about Christmas, he spoke about the connection between the wood of the crib--Christ's poverty--and the wood of the cross--Christ's nonviolent resistance to evil. He said Christmas summons us to the same lifelong nonviolence. It has social, economic, and political implications. I think, like Gandhi, that we have to make those connections and pursue those implications. Here are a few of them. First, Christmas celebrates the birth of a life of perfect nonviolence and calls us to become people of active nonviolence. Christmas invites us to practice the vulnerable, disarming simplicity of children, to live the disarmed life in solidarity with the children of the world, and to spend our lives in resistance to empire. It summons us to study, teach, practice and experiment with creative nonviolence that we too might live the life of nonviolence which Jesus exemplified so that one day peace might reign one earth. Second, Christmas demonstrates that God sides with the poor, becomes one with the poor, and walks among the poor. God does not side with the rulers, the rich or the powerful, but with the homeless, the hungry and the refugees. Christmas puts poverty front and center and demands that we work to abolish poverty itself so that every human being has food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, employment and a lifetime of peace. Third, since Christmas illustrates how God sides with the poor in order to liberate the oppressed from poverty and injustice, it calls us to reject greed, give away our money and possessions to those in need, and also live in solidarity with the disenfranchised. Fourth, Christmas pushes us to stand on the margins of society, where we will find God. Christmas announces that every human being is a beloved son and daughter of the God of love. Every human life is beautiful in the eyes of God, since God has become one of us. From now on, we reject exclusivity, racism, sexism, and discrimination of any kind, and embrace everyone as equal. We stand on the margins with the excluded, the marginalized, the outsiders and outcasts. From there, we envision a new reconciled
