"The Christian must discover in contemplation, and in the giving of his life, those symbolic actions which will ignite the people's faith to resist injustice with their whole lives, lives coming together as a united force of truth and thus releasing the liberating power of the God within them." - James Douglass, Contemplation and Resistance.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Who I Am, What I Believe

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while have probably wondered about the philosophy that animates us here at Nonviolent Jesus. At the top it says, "An unofficial blog by a member of the Catholic peace movement, Pax Christi", but what does that actually mean? Basically, it means that one who has studied the social teaching of the Church for many years is wondering why, amidst the explosion of blogs over the past few years, there has not be a single one that focuses on war and peace issues from a Christian perspective. Of course, there are Christian and Catholic blogs and they mention the war in Iraq from time to time, but we Christians often seem to suffer from an unexamined distinction between politics, which inhabits an amoral sphere unreachable by the gospel, and the personal sphere, where the vast majority of attention focuses. The interaction between these two, which has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the past thirty years, has apparently made no impact on the blogosphere. As a Catholic deeply interested in issues of war, peace, and social justice, I would have been satisfied merely to find a blog that regularly dealt with the war from a gospel perspective, but I was unable to find anyone doing that. Since then, I have come across the able and incisive blog by Chuck Gutenson, http://imitatiochristi.blogs.com/imitatio_christi/, which deals with many social issues from a Christian perspective, but I still have yet to find a Christian blog that focuses on war and peace specifically. If anyone out there knows of one, please let me know as soon as possible. So my intent here is to create a forum to reflect specifically on these issues by those who have committed their lives to Jesus Christ. Anyone who has read this blog knows that the perspective matches that of the Catholic Peace Movement, so if you support the Bush administration's war policies, you'll be in for some lively debate. But this voice crying in the wilderness would like to hear other voices and connect to any ongoing debate from Christian perspectives on the war on Iraq. Is there anybody out there? Please use the comment link below to tell me who you are and what you believe about this war.

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