Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA
http://peace.MennoLink.org

MEMO

To: Congregations of Mennonite Church USA
From: Members of the Mennonite Church USA Executive Board
Date: January 15, 2003

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, our peace, and the peace of the world.

As we meet in Elkhart, Indiana January 10-11, 2003, we are aware that our country stands on the brink of war. Martin Luther King, Jr. once reminded us that there are moments when "it is midnight in the moral order." This is one of those times.

The Bush administration has declared that our conflict with Iraq is a moral conflict between good and evil. Yet our understanding of humanity and God's grace teaches us that each human being has a bit of God and each person sometimes sins. No side in this conflict can be strictly good or strictly evil.

We believe there is yet hope that we can avert this war, that there is yet time to encourage President Bush to step back from death and destruction and use diplomacy to solve our differences.

We urge you, as members of Mennonite Church USA congregations, to:

  • lift all the prayers you can, asking God to change the heart and actions of President Bush and President Hussein;
  • invest all the time you can to avoid war. Actions include anything that makes visible to our communities that there are positive, workable, nonviolent alternatives to war.
  • share your hope with your friends and neighbors, who are saddened and reluctant to be at war.
We believe that our 17,000 signatures on the letter from Jim Schrag, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, last fall were a significant part of a grassroots cry against the war, a cry that slowed the administration's progress to war last fall. We further believe that with the hope God gives us as we commit ourselves to prayer, and the actions God gives us courage to take, we can help stop this war before it starts.

For more information, please see the Peace and Justice Support Network web site, http://peace.MennoLink.org