Sermon on “Prayer for Peace” in the historic St. Nicholas Lutheran Church, Leipzig, Germany, where the prayer services were held and from which the marches began to bring down the government in the former German Democratic Republic in 1989

Phil. 4:7

“The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ.”

Normally, a typical sermon ends with these words. I would like to begin with them. The words themselves do not imply a negation of understanding or reason, but rather a commitment to a higher dimension of reason, a divine kind of reason that challenges our human logic about force and power. It was for this very purpose that God sent his Son into the world. We need such strong inner reason to bolster our resistance and our hope so that we never despair. Never give up. Spiritual matters also have political connotations for the very reason that God has come into the world— not simply into our souls and churches, but also into our wonderful, yet terribly mauled world. Furthermore, the political dimension needs a spiritual side with its more profound questioning, its emancipating presence, its transcendent Spirit of God—otherwise everything becomes mere political buzzwords, tactics, and the diplomacy of cowardice. It is time to wake up.

Peace is in clear and present danger-- world peace. A war in which the victors are already known is being threatened by the only remaining Superpower in an alliance with Great Britain. Unclear, however, is who will be among the losers—perhaps the victors themselves. It is, however, certain that the world community and international law will be the losers and the spiral of hatred will continue to turn deeper and faster. Even according to disloyal external estimates, 250,000 people will die and countless numbers will become refugees—victims over whom no one cries as the victor celebrates.

Initially, let’s clear up any misunderstandings:

• Whoever is against a war in Iraq is not necessarily for Saddam Hussein.
  He is and remains both a dangerous and devious dictator. But he is not
  the only one who represents danger, danger that cannot simply be
  carpet-bombed throughout the world.
  · To be against the Bush administration is not anti-Americanism. What the leading power does is not necessarily good just because the Americans claim to be a good force attacking an evil one. And we Germans (and we Europeans) are not anti-American, but we also are not under the command of George W. Bush. We are sovereign nations, in friendly alliance with other democratic states and the United Nations.
• This is not about a special German approach, but about an approach to find with all our might a peaceful solution to the crisis. This case is different not merely “from a German perspective,” but from every other perspective as well.
• It is a strange argument to say that we would have to join the Americans in this war otherwise we will be outsiders in world diplomacy. If you know something to be wrong you cannot participate just to be a member of the team. Our government needs and deserves support to maintain its “no” to this war of adventure
  
  This time the world sees Germany not as an aggressor but as a free, newly reunited nation that remains conscious of its obligation to peace—out of its historic experience as perpetrator and victim of war and destruction. Germans have had rather bad grades in the PISA study, but in a PISA study assessing how countries secure peace they should get better marks and stay the course.
• It would be a misunderstanding to believe that all conflicts In the world can be solved entirely without violence. But violence clearly is the last resort, ultima ratio. It’s much truer that violence is not the best solution to conflict; when one does take war-like measures of violence and/or forces peace, these measures must remain in the framework of international law established with great difficulty.
• Finally, the last misunderstanding: Politics don’t belong in church. God came into the world, not merely into our souls and churches. He came into the world to rid us of our logic of violence (Gewaltlogik): What God shows us in Jesus Christ is higher than our concept of strike and retaliate, love for friends and hatred of enemies, winners and losers.

For this reason, above all, the peace of God stands at the beginning, the peace of God that passes all understanding, for it is that which keeps hearts and minds in the name of the peace-bringing Jesus Christ.

The rulers of the world can do what they will as long as those without power don’t oppose them. They reckon in any case on the lethargy of the powerless--in the worst case on their obedience--in the best case on their warlike fervor.

In a time when Donald Rumsfeld, together with armament- and energy-lobbies practices politics of hegemony, I ask: Where is the outrage?! We all know what is at stake. Where is our outrage?!

Our activity must be aimed against a war waged to prevent war. This is why we need conflict management at all levels, attention to political solutions beforehand instead of humanitarian care after the fact, although those remain important. The priority of the moment is first and foremost the strengthening of the United Nations and international law and an energetic, loud, very personal and communal “NO” to war! War is no answer!
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Dear friends of the present and future world,

I repeat: “The peace of God that passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ.” May it keep our hearts. May it protect us from within, even from our very own destruction. May it protect our minds, our thinking, feeling, acting—what we choose to do and not to do. Reason that proceeds from the peace of God is truly not irrational. It merely needs and demands a different kind of logic. This is why our strategies must be not only spiritual, but also political, when approaches to peace, deserving of the name, are involved.

We live in gloomy times. A new war seems to be a done deal. A paralyzed global public looks on, is torn between hope and fear, between reassurances that the war is not yet certain and the daily assertions that it will be inevitable.
Paralysis, habituation, confusion. The American president with his poignantly convincing yet simple worldview, and at his side, Donald Rumsfeld, sets out to destroy the “axis of evil.” What they call the axis of evil Greek mythology called the fight against the Hydra—a nine-headed sea monster whose venomous breath destroys everything. When her nine heads were chopped off, twice as many grew back, until Hercules came and cauterized the stump of her neck.
But George Bush is not a Hercules, and he does not realize that when he chops off the snake heads, many others will grow back. The troubling conflict with North Korea makes that clear.

A new war would provoke new terrorism because there will be many “innocents” who will die and whose hatred will be spurred and politically or religiously charged. War must be avoided. Therefore we need every single voice, and each single voice must say loudly and clearly “NO”-- in Leipzig, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London, Washington, Moscow, Cairo, Ankara, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Baghdad, New Delhi, Karachi-- and in every village, in every newspaper, in every church—say “NO.” War is already a defeat before it even begins. It’s a defeat for the civil solution to conflict for which we should strive in a world facing multiple dangers. Say “No!” Encourage everyone else to say “no” as well.

There is still time; the door to a peaceful solution has not yet been slammed. However, the people of all nations must say “no” loudly and clearly. Nations consist of many single individuals. We need allies everywhere, and they need us: Our American friends who are opposed to a preventive war, from Carter to Clinton, from the former German U.N. inspector Sponnek to the former American U.N. inspector Ritter, from the English playwright Harold Pinter to the American writer Susan Sontag, from the Indian Arundhati Roy to the Israeli Uri Averny.

We need an anti-war movement before the war starts. We need preventive resistance opposing this preventive strategy. It’s not about a particularly German approach, but about a peaceful approach. Not from a German perspective must the war be refused; not from a German perspective must things look differently from what Rumsfeld and Bush imagine, but from any other perspective at all!

The German government is currently undergoing an enormous pressure because it is the only European government that still says “no” to war (written prior to the Franco-German summit), a war that it calls an “adventure.” This is why the German government must take a decisive stand for a non-violent solution at the European level, together with Kofi Anan and many other diplomats and politicians in the world. There is also the pressure on the German government that makes it appear as if the Germans would be unreliable allies if they were not to be involved in such a war. In reality, the other nations in the world should be glad that the Germans for once are not belligerent—they who in the last century have started two huge wars. The Germans have learned their lesson; they are not now better, but they still have a distinct recollection of what war brings: Violence, death and destruction.

I feel that in any case it is a sinful laziness of the majority of Christians in our country and of the majority of citizens among our people who, dull and dumb, continue to watch and shrug their shoulders while some high-placed clergy like the bishop of Rome, John Paul II, or the president of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD), Manfred Kock, make their speeches. But of what value are the words of the shepherds without the loud and clear Shalom of the entire people of God-- every single person? We need preventive resistance against preventive wars instead of admitting again, after the war, how cowardly it was to remain silent and how sorry we feel about the victims. I am thoroughly fed up with the cynicism of politicians more interested in power than in politics, of superpowers, global bank holdings, and the arms-industry lobby. The war is supposed to cost about one hundred billion dollars. Those are taxes of citizens. And the war profiteers are already calculating the booty and sharing it with the oil industry. The humanitarian organizations will be called in once again to care for the human victims and to deal with reparation for damages. Then we will collect the “pennies of pity.” Then the pictures of misery will flood into our living rooms. And those who have caused the suffering will not feel responsible for the consequences to millions of wasting bodies and souls—in entire regions. Power, money and cynicism form an unholy trinity. John the Seer appropriately calls it: The whore of Babylon. On the one hand, we cannot withhold our mercy. On the other hand, people everywhere in the world must reject the cynical powerbrokers—with all the strength of their hearts, the clarity of their minds, and the relentless hope that they will succeed in forging a path for the spirit of peace and justice in the world. Most of all, it is necessary to see through and overcome by means of law this archaic thinking, these deadly simplifications, these deceitful justifications, which are so typical when evil is disguised as good. Our goal must be to foster the right of life for everyone. Human dignity is inviolable. A part of this dignity is the very prospect of life itself-- no matter where the people come from, how much they own, where they live, and to which culture they belong.

Even if it were possible that we would not be able to change anything, at least we should not burden ourselves with the guilt of silence, nor get used to anything related to war nor be confused by the propaganda of those lusting for war: One day we hear there will be no war; on another day we hear there will be one.

While we are told that the question as to whether or not there will be a war is still not decided, 30,000 and then another 27,000 troops are moved within a few days to join the 70,000 already in place. Who is supposed to believe that these troops are simply moved to conduct a little maneuver abroad? An almost war-obsessed Superpower confronts a criminal dictator. The Iraqi people and the community of nations are confronted. Shall a war be brought upon an entire people just to get rid of one single dictator? Doubtless the Americans will win the war. They will also only initiate a preventive war against a country against which they can conquer, and in which their own territory will not be touched.

The only remaining question is how long it will take and how many victims there will be? Currently the only thing that seems to count is how many victims among the preventive warriors (the attackers) there will be and what consequences the war will have on the global economy. For the victors, the number of fatalities among the defeated never counts. The victory of a Superpower against a single isolated country without supplies is certain. The Iraqi regime and the Iraqi people will lose. But at the same time our civilization has already lost.

Into what an archaic time period the world is being catapulted by the most modern means of power! The American president declares in a speech of September 2002 that Sadaam is an evil man whom no one can trust under any circumstances and then he continues, literally: “After all, this is the guy who wanted to kill my father.” He was referring to a failed assassination attempt on George Bush in 1993 in Kuwait. And Bush senior declares: “I have nothing but hatred for him.” So is this then about an archaic vendetta practice and about “a sweet moment for the Bush family” if Sadaam were to disappear. (cf. MZ Sept. 30, 2002)

All this having been said, there is of course no question that Sadaam Hussein is both a devious and brutal dictator who used poison gas against Shiite minorities in the south and against revolutionary Kurds in the north, not to mention the bestial war against Iran. But where did he get his weapons?

What kind of world order must we seek if we want to free ourselves from the yoke of weapons of mass destruction? We will not rid ourselves of them if the world’s most powerful nation reserves for itself the right to a first strike with these very weapons of mass destruction. There must be decisive and determined measures. Therefore, the UN must have the means of power that it requires to execute international law, instead of being under pressure itself from the Superpower. International law needs the authority to enforce itself and no single power can be allowed to do whatever it deems right in emergency situations. Whoever is not fully committed to finding peaceful solutions to conflict is legitimately held suspect of desiring war, specifically this war for reasons other than removing the cause of the conflict.

Considering all that we know so far from the UN inspectors’ new attempts, the results don’t lead us to believe that Sadam Hussein has continued his projects of mass destruction weapons and that he is a threat to the world. However, the American President declares that everything Sadam Hussein has done so far discourages him (the president). Why is he discouraged? Does he perhaps mean that he is discouraged from going to war? In the meantime, while everyone waits… and North Korea poses a nuclear threat, it is still maintained that a war is not at all certain. Why then are another 60,000 elite soldiers sent to the region where 70,000 are already stationed? One apparently thinks that the world, and most of all of one’s own people and one’s own soldiers, is sufficiently propaganda credulous, apathetic or even stupid enough to believe the Pentagon’s propaganda releases. Before Christmas Donald Rumsfeld said an information offensive would be especially necessary for the Pakistani and German public.

We encounter the reproach of being at heart anti-American because we are against this war and against the foreign policy of this government. Those who lived in the German Democratic Republic and who have preserved an honest memory know this tune well. Whoever was against the violent repression of the 1956 uprising in Hungary, against the Prague invasion of 1968, against the 1980 war in Afghanistan, against the installation of SS-20 nuclear missiles in 1983, was anti-soviet, anti-communist and against peace and socialism!

We will have to try to exercise some mental and emotional control here so that we don’t fall back into fatal reactionary patterns. One thing is, however, clear: Whoever inquires about causes and contexts for conflicts and their long-term solutions dare not ignore the inevitable grieving process for the loss of human lives and the outrage over the conflict itself and its perpetrators. At the same time, it is equally valid to say: Whoever is motivated by grief and outrage to retaliate against the perpetrators dare not neglect the causes and context for the conflict. Finally: Whoever mourns one’s own dead, shall not forget those other dead who have been just as innocent as one’s own. Whoever prepares to retaliate must not conceal how many innocent people will be hurt and how much hatred will be re-directed – the more innocents are affected.

When one considers victims as “collateral damage” in the calculating coldness of war, one must reckon with survivors filled with hatred, and immediate- and culturally-connected relatives using their suicide bombings as comparable “collateral damage.” And the entire globe, a now “globalized” world, will become their battlefield. We will all be affected everywhere. Against such world-wide hatred there can be no protective measures short of hysteric concern for homeland security which puts at stake all our previously gained liberties. There is no guaranteed safety – anywhere! There is only a diplomacy that provides safety by de-escalating conflicts. In the matter of conflicts, diplomacy and politics is the patient, reasonable, prudent and determined courage to seek peace with the enemy without capitulation. It is also the attempt to keep at bay perpetrators of violence and their actions using the power of the constitutional state and international law.

If we take the human rights principles of our western civilization seriously, then all victims of violence must be included. And they are all counted equally, human by human: terror victims in New York and bomb victims in Afghanistan, blown-up shoppers in Tel Aviv and refugee families in Jenin whose houses are bombed away.

The important question is not who started it, but how we, as citizens of the civilized world, can overcome the logic of strike and retaliation. How to apprehend the real perpetrators and the people behind them without giving way to (understandable) anger and without making victims of “the Palestinians”, “the Iraqis” or “the Jews”. War is a defeat for politics. As long as a civil solution to a conflict is possible, this is what one should seek – with all one’s strength, with all the justice required, with all the tricks, all the might and all the artistry! War is not art. It is rather sanctioned murder, destruction, and theft.

In closing, I want to be specific, very specific: There is a sailor on the carrier “Abraham Lincoln” in the Persian Gulf, and its aircraft with their deadly charge are only 20 minutes from Baghdad. This sailor says that everything he does is for his children and, he adds, “for all the children of the world”. His conscience is perfectly clear. After all, he acts on behalf of children. But he does not ask how many children have already died in Iraq during ten years of Embargo or because of it… Perhaps he doesn’t know and no one tells him, either. He listens to the President and says, “I believe him.” As if it were a group devotion, the crew gathers around the TV set when the President speaks. And the President says – repeatedly: “The day of reckoning has come.” His Secretary of Defense says in front of the soldiers: “You are standing between the American people and the evil.” Who can imagine that there is anything left to do but chop into the Hydra without worrying about how many snake heads will grow back.

In a complex world, no one can afford to be naive and think “simply.” Everything is much more complicated now. The solution that seems so simple is the solution that may create many new problems instead of solving any at all. Therefore, whoever wants peace must pursue it with peaceful means and explore any and all possibilities to avoid war. The window is not yet closed. There is still time to raise our voices. There is still time to work with the means provided by the UN-Charter to the community of nations to pursue a peaceful solution-- as well as to believe in it.

For every single one of us that means: Say “NO” to war! Say “YES” to everything that prevents war. And join together in the well-known “Children’s Plea”: “We are all children, children of God, children of this world.”

Dr.h.c. Friedrich Schorlemmer
stellv. Direktor
Theologischer Studienleiter
(03491) 49 88-45
eMail: Ev-Akademie-Wittenberg@t-online.de

Translated from the German by:
Till Richter, University of Texas
Dr. David Zersen, Concordia University at Austin