As I’m sure many of you know, on Friday, March 16, 2007 Christians will be gathering across the country to protest the War in Iraq. Some friends and I plan to attend wearing t-shirts (recycled of course) emblazoned with “Blame Me for War,” as we agree with Jacques Ellul when he wrote:
If the time comes when despair sees violence as the only possible way, it is because Christians were not what they should have been. If violence is unleashed anywhere at all, the Christians are always to blame. This is the criterion, as it were, of the confession of sin. Always, it is because Christians have not been concerned for the poor, have not defended the cause of the poor before the powerful, have not unswervingly fought the fight for justice, that violence breaks out.
A friend sent me an e-mail with the Alternative Allegiance Version of the Christian PEACE Witness for Iraq document. I think it does a much better job of expressing the point that we as Christians must first take responsibility instead of blaming the American government. The first 4 pages are the revised version and the next 2 are the original. I posted it on my webspace at http://www.mattpritchard.com/CPWalt.pdf.
What do you all think?
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While I don’t necessarily agree that Christians should take blame for the actions of the government–except in cases where “Christians” have written laws that harm society in pursuit of some sort of moral goal (which is ineffective, I’m sure you’ll agree; following the laws of a God you do not believe in, blindly, because your government tells you to and not because of faith is, ultimately, pointless; similarly, my not following God’s laws will not harm my Christian countrymen)–I do have some advice for you: put that quote on the back of the shirt, or memorize it, so that you have a quick and complete explanation of what you mean by “blame me,” when you are asked.
Of course! We definitely included the full quote on the t-shirt.