PRESIDENT BUSH and Vice President Cheney are both
members of the United Methodist Church, as are more than
60 members of Congress and 8.2 million other Americans.
But the church's bishops, when they speak politically,
sound surprisingly more like Michael Moore or Noam
Chomsky (neither of whom is known to be a Methodist).
The bishops met in November and nearly unanimously
approved a resolution condemning the U.S. military
presence in Iraq. A separate unofficial statement,
signed by over half of the U.S. bishops, went further,
denouncing the "unjust and immoral invasion and
occupation" and charging that Americans are being "sent
to Iraq to kill and be killed." In contrast to the harsh
and lengthy denunciation of the U.S. presence in Iraq,
the bishops also issued a short statement on Darfur.
They urged prayer but carefully refrained from
criticizing the Islamist Sudanese government for its
genocidal campaign. Presumably, the bishops regard that
situation as more complicated than Iraq's.
Why are the bishops of America's third-largest church
condemning the United States for attempting to build
democracy in Iraq? And why, at the same time, are they
refusing to condemn the Sudanese regime's deliberate
destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives in pursuit
of an Islamic theocracy?
Fully answering those questions would involve a
lengthy study of mainline Protestant theology in America
over the last century. But in short: Mainline church
elites moved towards pacifism after World War I. The
1960s crystallized their pacifism into anti-Americanism,
and mainline church agencies have consistently denounced
U.S. military actions for nearly 40 years, from Vietnam
to Iraq.
The Methodists, or at least their church elites, have
historically been social activists. Abolitionism and
prohibitionism, as the theology became more liberal,
morphed into liberation theology and hostility to
Western culture and the United States in particular. The
church elites' hostility to capitalism has generally
prevented them from criticizing Marxist regimes and
their multiculturalism has prevented them from
criticizing Islamic regimes. Which leaves the bishops to
quite even-handedly "lament the continued warfare by the
United States, coalition forces, and the insurgents" in
Iraq.
The bishops' official statement faults the U.S.
government for claiming that Saddam Hussein's regime had
weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. It
also blames the United States for the "denigration of
human dignity" and "gross violations of human rights of
prisoners of war." They do not either mention Saddam
Hussein's human rights record or speculate on the type
of repressive regime that would likely result if the
insurgents in Iraq prevailed. The official statement
urges the withdrawal of all U.S. military troops from
Iraq, while seeking a greater United Nations role.
The unofficial statement, signed by 96 bishops, was
framed as an ostensible apology for their "complicity"
in the Iraq war. "In the face of the United States
Administration's rush toward military action based on
misleading information, too many of us were silent,"
they write. Now they want to "repent."
But they do not give themselves enough credit: The
bishops have hardly been "silent." They have now issued
three official denunciations of the U.S. presence in
Iraq in as many years. None of them bishops has publicly
defended the war, and one was arrested in a
demonstration against the war outside the White House.
Another bishop joined Cindy Sheehan in her performance
outside the Bush ranch in Texas this summer.
AMERICANS ARE BEING "sent to Iraq to kill and be
killed," while thousands of Iraqis are "needlessly"
dying, the bishops charge in the unofficial statement,
adding that security depends not on "weapons of war" but
helping the poor and vulnerable to "flourish."
They explain that they are praying for war to end
everywhere, for "justice to roll down like waters," for
an end to "prejudice toward people of other faiths and
cultures," and for continuing "dialogue." They want to
move beyond "caution rooted in self-protection" and
"misguided public policies" in favor of "self-emptying
love" and "unity in a world of diversity."
President Bush, like many of his fellow United
Methodists, has mostly ignored the bishops' political
posturing. (Although he did meet with a small group of
prelates from the church last spring.) The secular media
has likewise given their musings little coverage. Sadly,
when simply they echo old bromides of the secular Left,
the leaders of America's third largest religious body
deserve to be ignored.
Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist
committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. |
