Douglas Hostetter, Interfaith Paths to Peace

Photo is from Doug Hostetter's Picture of Peace website.

INTERFAITH PATHS TO PEACE

Douglas Hostetter

United Nations NGO Representative

Pax Christi International

Peace Pastor

Evanston Mennonite Church

(former) Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Lecturer

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

(former) Adjunct Professor 

Goshen College, Goshen, IN

DougHostetter@gmail.com

Presented at 

First International Conference On Peace And Conflict Resolution

University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
April 29-30, 2019

Abstract

The paper draws heavily on my personal experience doing alternative service with the Mennonite Central Committee in Vietnam during the American War in Vietnam (1966-1969) and directing the Bosnian Student Project during the War in Bosnia (1992–1995), when I was the International/Interfaith Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. 

If You Cherish Daniel Berrigan's Legacy, Do Not Forget the Racist Roots of the Trump Phenomenon — and of the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Bogus "Religious Freedom" Crusade

Daniel Berrigan, No Bars to Manhood (NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. 64

In his moving tribute in this morning's Washington Post to Daniel Berrigan, who died yesterday,  fellow Catholic radical and peace activist Colman McCarthy reminds us that Berrigan spent two years in federal prison after burning draft files at the old Knights of Columbus hall housing a Secret Service office in Catonsville, Maryland, in 1968. As McCarthy notes, Berrigan was a "willing recidivist" who was repeatedly arrested for protesting the American military machine. He died with a rap sheet as long as his winding sheet.

Study War No More, or He Taught Me How to Watch, Fight, and Pray? Bellicose Bible-Grounded Christianity As No Christianity at All

Another of those captcha-like postings designed to prove that a real human being and not a monkey is typing these meandering musings:

"I Am for Peace; But When I Speak, They Are for War": A Consideration of the Christian (and Catholic) Reponse to Obergefell

I've been thinking about war and peace lately, not primarily because, in response to the possibility of a peace-seeking agreement with Iran, one of my nation's two major political parties, which claims to represent Christian truth in some unique way, wants war — continued war, always war, always an enemy. I've been thinking about war and peace lately because of the continued bellicose determination of many American Christians, not a few Catholics included, to keep on making war on their LGBT brothers and sisters after those fellow human beings have gained the right to civil marriage.

Quote for Day: Horrible World Events are Not "Happening to Us"; "We, the Human Race, Are Doing This to Ourselves"

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush asks how we deal with the news right now: a commercial airliner shot down in Ukraine, followed in no time at all by Israel's bombing of Gaza — while some Americans mass at the southern border of the country to scream invective at displaced children seeking refuge in our affluent country, and while a group of girls abducted by religio-political terrorists in Nigeria remains missing. His reminder to us as we ponder the dismal news flashing across our computer and television screens now:

Robert Koehler on Mr. Obama and Syria: Is "An Intelligently Angry Slice of the American Public" Prevailing in Discussion of War?

I like the hopefulness of Robert Koehler's conclusion to his recent essay about President Obama's response to the Syrian situation:

Kelly Rae Kraemer: "I Am Not 'War-Weary,' I'm Angry, Sick, and Hungry for Peace"

Kelly Rae Kraemer, who teaches Peace Studies at College of St. Benedict/St. John's University, writing at Common Dreams:

“War Is the Health of a Totalitarian State. And Peace Is Its Disease” (Norman Mailer): Important Commentary on Syria and U.S.

Robert C. Koehler at Common Dreams:

War, of course, always starts out like this: as bright and hopeful as the sunrise. It’s almost beyond belief to me that we can have such a clean, bloodless national conversation about a new war in the Middle East while the old wars continue to fester and our moral wounds still haunt us. The image of George Bush on the aircraft carrier in his padded flight suit, proclaiming “mission accomplished,” is one the 21st century’s most bitterly ironic icons.

U.S. Leaders and Syria: What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came?

As John Nichols reports today for The Nation, Democratic representative Alan Grayson of Florida recently stated, "Nobody wants this [i.e., war on Syria] except the military-industrial complex. Nichols notes that both a recent Pew Research survey and a Washington Post/ABC News poll show high levels of opposition in the American public to a military strike on Syria.

Kathleen Reardon on Syria: Why Should We Believe Them This Time?

Kathleen Reardon asks another very important question about the current round of cowboy war-mongering in D.C.: Why should we believe them this time? As she writes,

As U.S. Is Poised for Another Cowboy War, Need for Expedited Action Remains Entirely Unexplained

Steve Benen at Maddow Blog on what Huffington Post's lead headline* this morning is calling the next in line of America's "cowboy wars":

Blake Hounshell on the Moral Arc of the Universe and Syria: "It Bends Toward Targeted Airstrikes"

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward targeted airstrikes on a limited subset of Syria's military infrastructure."
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) August 28, 2013

On the Syrian Situation: Immediate Response, Yes; War, No

I agree with Bob Dreyfuss's response (which seems to me also the response of Pope Francis) to the credible reports that the Syrian government used chemical weapons recently on citizens in a suburb of Damascus: it is imperative that the rest of the world respond to this shocking act. But war is not the solution. As Dreyfuss points out, Doctors Without Borders appear to confirm the use of poisonous gas against Syrian citizens last week, and mass deaths resulting from the gas attacks. 

Henry Giroux on the Stories We Tell Ourselves and the Moral Coma of Elites in Casino Capitalist Societies

Henry Giroux gives us serious reason to worry about the future of democratic institutions, I think--and of the globe itself:

For the first time in modern history, centralized commercial institutions that extend from traditional broadcast culture to the new interactive screen cultures—rather than parents, churches or schools—tell most of the stories that shape the lives of the American public. This is no small matter since the stories a society tells about its history, civic life, social relations, education, children and human imagination are a measure of how it values itself, the ideals of democracy and its future. Most of the stories now told to the American public are about the necessity of neoliberal capitalism, permanent war and the virtues of a never-ending culture of fear. 

Friday News Round-Up: Craziness Triple Plays, God Hates Facts, Etc.

This claim isn’t just nuts; it’s a sort of craziness triple play — a lie wrapped in an absurdity swaddled in paranoia.

If Trayvon Martin were my son, truth is, his killer would be in jail by now.

Qais Azimy: Speaking the Names of The Dead

Käthe Kollwitz, "Woman with Dead Child" (1903)

Finally this morning, at Common Dreams, Qais Azimy points out that in the days following the news that American soldier Robert Bales massacred sixteen Afghan civilians in Kandahar, the media have been focusing on questions of the identity of the soldier, his motives, whether he acted alone, etc.  

Blackwater Settles with Families in Iraqi Killings: Keeping Moral Focus Honest in 2012 U.S. Elections

Here's another of those pictures from the Iraqi war that I cannot allow myself to forget, once having seen it.  It's a picture of Ali Kinani, who was murdered in Baghdad on 16 Sept. 2007 by the U.S. hired mercenary firm Blackwater.  As Common Dreams reports, Blackwater (which subsequently took the name Xe and now Academi) reached a settlement last week with families of those killed in the 2007 incident and another in 2004.

The Military in Skinny Jeans: Mr. Obama's "Slimming" Down of Military Expenditures

Mike Luckovich's cartoon at Truthdig, commenting on Mr. Obama's recent announcement that he's slimming down the military, is spectacular.  

From Iraq Body Count: A Reminder of What the Invasion Has Cost in Human Lives

A reminder at Common Dreams today that over 162,000 people--mostly civilians--have been killed in Iraq following the U.S. invasion of that nation in 2003.  The data are from Iraq Body Count.

John Dominic Crossan on Angels and Christmas Narratives: Christ or Caesar

"Christ Before Pilate," School of Hieronymus Bosch, 16th-Century, Princeton University Art Museum

Noted scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan writes at Huffington Post about the infancy narratives of the Christian gospels and their use of angels as directors of "narrative traffic" in the various infancy narratives.  He points out that in the Lucan narrative, angels give the new-born messiah titles parallel to those applied to the Roman emperor--but with a radically different vision of how both bring peace to the world: