Central Coast Clergy for Justice

Serving San Luis Obispo County, California

Peace and Non-Violence

While acknowledging our own responsibility for conflict and injustice, we believe that violence and war are incompatible with the ethical teachings of our faith traditions. Consequently we reject war as an instrument of foreign policy, except as a last resort to prevent such evils as genocide and the brutal suppression of human rights, and insist that the first moral duty of all nations is to resolve disputes by peaceful means.

We are opposed to the militarization of society and the manufacture and sale of weapons, believing that human values must always outweigh military claims. We support an ethic, not merely of restraint in waging war, but of just peacemaking. Believing that without justice there can be no lasting peace, we will work for the prevention of war and the creation of a peaceful and just society.

Actions

On March 19, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, the incredible human cost of this war continues to mount. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens have likely died. Tens of thousands have fled across nearby borders and become refugees. Over three thousand American soldiers have died, and thousands more have been wounded, many seriously. Nearly eight hundred civilian contractors have lost their lives performing jobs for our military. Yet these are only the visible reminders of this war’s horrific path of destruction. What of the spiritual and psychological wounds that multiply each day this war continues?

Our nation’s young women and men are, in many instances, returning from the battlefront wounded in spirit by the human carnage they have witnessed. Our troops have been placed in the untenable position of securing a country that has been torn asunder by sectarian violence to the point that most respected observers deem the situation a civil war. They have been asked to serve longer and more frequent deployments than expected, without adequate opportunities to reconnect with their families and communities back home. Many military members who have been severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan have languished in Walter Reed Army Medical Center under deplorable conditions. They are our daughters and sons, our neighbors and co-workers, and their treatment is inexcusable.
Sadly, our nation’s character has also been tarnished by the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, as well as other secret locations, and by withholding the right of habeas corpus from detainees who are imprisoned without formal charges.

War is not an effective tool of foreign policy. A nation cannot unilaterally pursue war in service of its foreign policy, and expect to maintain mutually respectful relationships within the community of nations. War is a last resort to prevent such evils as genocide, the brutal suppression of human rights, and unprovoked international aggression. War means that diplomacy and the international rule of law have failed. Therefore, it is the duty of a free and democratic society like the United States to use every peaceful means at its disposal to resolve disputes before resorting to military means. This was not the case in the months leading up to our country’s invasion of Iraq.

The members of Central Coast Clergy for Justice denounce the current escalation of troops in Iraq, which only serves to prolong the suffering caused by failed policy. We call for a timeline for troop withdrawal. We believe that the most faithful way for us to support the troops is by bringing them home, and ensuring they receive the care they deserve upon their return.

Though we represent varied religious traditions, a common thread among them is that all life has an inherent dignity and value. The sacred texts of our varied traditions speak of the need to preserve that dignity within one shared human community. We are called to a vision of mutual interdependence with the rest of the world.

At the very heart of our respective traditions are the practices of peace and reconciliation. The primary task for peacemakers in this day is to build bridges of understanding between diverse people by daring to cross political, cultural, and religious divides. Our religious traditions call us to participate in creating a more just and peaceful world, a world in which the most vulnerable--the children, the elderly, the poor, the stranger—are valued and protected. We are called to widen the circle of divine concern to include all of our neighbors around the world, and indeed all life on earth, including our enemies.