Adventist Working For Peace: An Interview

[aldona]

An interview with the director of the Adventist Peace Fellowship.

Read the whole article here

[Dr. Shane]

This is a very soft interview and the interviewer really let the interviewee get away with dodging some tough questions.

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Isn't your "peace work" really just another name for liberal anti-Americanism?

No. Before venturing to elaborate, I would want a person asking this question to explain what these terms mean and why he or she thinks that such might be the case. Is pro-American synonymous with pro-war?

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Notice here how he not only dodges the questions but turns it around on the interviewer. And the interviewer doesn't answer but just goes on to another question.

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What are the central concerns of APF right now?

I think the aggressive militarism of the current American government - the policies of unilateralism, preventive war, the pervasive and multifaceted abandonment of constitutional and international norms of human rights, have been a wake-up call for many people, galvanizing them into action, based on long-held but sometimes inert commitments.

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"The aggressive militarism of the current American government" but they are not anti-American. No mention of Sudan, North Korea or Iran. Nope they are not worried about those guys - just the aggressive Americans. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yucky.gif" alt="" />

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There is increasing talk of the American Empire... What appeal would you extend to the ordinary citizens of the Empire...

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This is inflamatory, anti-American rhetoric and is coming from the interviewer - not the interviwee!!! Obviously it is not a legetimate interview.

I have a suggetions for them. They need to change their name from Adventist Peace Fellowship to Adventist Hate America Fellowship. Now I am not opposed to a Peace Fellowship but it should be legitimate. This one seems entirely focused on America, where it really can't do anything. Instead of focusing on America, why not foucs on Sudan and other war-torn areas where the church can work to enlist the assistance of the US, UN, NATO and other such organizations?

War is a terrible, terrible thing. I often compare it to divorce - two things God hates. If our church can work toward preserving peace and/or avoiding war, that is a very positive thing. Yet accusing the United States of America of being aggressive, espeacially after it was attacked, and violating its own Constitution, isn't going to result in preserving peace or avoiding war. It will just make the group appear like any of the other various hate-America organizations. No one with any kind of civil authority is going to take them serious.

[Neil D]

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If our church can work toward preserving peace and/or avoiding war, that is a very positive thing.

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True and agreed, but there are places where our church should take sides to promote peace, which [if pursued] would end badly for the church and it relationship with that country.

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Yet accusing the United States of America of being aggressive, espeacially after it was attacked, and violating its own Constitution, isn't going to result in preserving peace or avoiding war.

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Ohhhhh, Shane....still on that "I refuse to see the US thru the eyes of a non-US citizen" schtick. You just don't understand the mentality of a non-US citizen. To you, the US is right, because it has the best of everything,... intelligence, materials, information, ethics..... What you fail to understand is that the European/non Western nation has ethics of thier own that may supercede ours. Even with your marriage to your mexican wife, you feel you know better...At least, that is what your posts communicate to us. And quite frankly, what you are putting out there as 'pro-USA' is pro-beast of revelation. And it is very scary to have you here propounding pro-beast attitudes.

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It will just make the group appear like any of the other various hate-America organizations. No one with any kind of civil authority is going to take them serious.

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That is why thinking/compassionate people try to understand where others are coming from and address the issues from thier needs and not from blind rhetoric and 'hate language' as you have exhibited from this post.

[Tom Wetmore]

Shane,

As is so often the case, I marvel at your twisted and skewed perspective. I seriously have to wonder if you actually read and understood the same interview that the rest of us read. Your political leanings seem to have blinded you to deeper truths. You would do well to spend a considerable amount of time educating yourself by visiting Adventist Peace Fellowship that was repeatedly referenced in the interview, which by the way was merely a means of introduction.

Your reaction further confirms for me the seriously misdirected and confused perspective of so many politically active conservative evangelical Americans. The frightening misapplication primarily resides in the confusion of conservative political objectives with shallowly observed and misunderstood religious ideals and principles. Unfortunately, it seems that many politically conservative Adventists have so easily jumped on that bandwagon, having either misunderstood, forgotten or simply ignored in expedient spasms of fear induced patriotism, that our firm and historical foundation as a people is grounded in the abundantly clear words and example of Jesus, who proclaimed that peacemaking is a divine imperative. His directive was to love our enemies, forgive limitlessly and take the side of those trampled by the rich and powerful forces of evil. The problem is that faith is being filtered though the haze of nationalistic political zeal. The clarion call of Adventist Peace Fellowship is to remain focused on the agenda of our King despite the clamor of the hawks trying to nest with the doves.

Tom

[Dr. Shane]

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Ohhhhh, Shane....still on that "I refuse to see the US thru the eyes of a non-US citizen" schtick.

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Would you like to believe that... However I am the one that lives on the Mexican border. I work with Mexicans - real ones - the ones that actually live in Mexico. I also watch the Mexican news on channels broadcast from Mexico. The Mexican media and majority of Mexicans are very much against the US action abroad. So I see, hear and understand the view of non-US citizens.

What I see in this group is a group of people wanting to protest the US action abroad and hide behind the banner of peace. First, if we want to carry the gospel we need to try and avoid politics, as an organization. (As individuals we are more than free to have opinions and express them at the polls.) Our efforts toward peace ought to be in noncontroversial ways. Our divine mission is carry the Three Angels Message to the world and not oppose any specific nation except when it trys to make us violate the law of God.

[Dr. Shane]

Brother Tom, Again I will repeat myself.

• Preventing war or bring war to an end is an admirable goal. I am not sure it is the mission God has given His end-time church.

• The church, as an organization, should not oppose a civil government unless it is forcing us to break God's law. Imagine our church opposing communist China due to its human rights violations.

• If this organization was actually concerned about peace, it would have a focus beyond the US.
• The interview was very soft. Tough questions were dodged and not followed up on. Other questions were leading questions (questions that contain the desired answer)

[Jeannieb43]

Thank you for this interview, Aldona. I subscribe to the print Adventist Today but had not yet seen this interview.

I especially liked his bibliography -- references to Adventists' (and others') teachings through the years. Avoiding war wherever possible has always been our position.

[Nicodema]

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This is a very soft interview and the interviewer really let the interviewee get away with dodging some tough questions.

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Isn't your "peace work" really just another name for liberal anti-Americanism?

No. Before venturing to elaborate, I would want a person asking this question to explain what these terms mean and why he or she thinks that such might be the case. Is pro-American synonymous with pro-war?

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Notice here how he not only dodges the questions but turns it around on the interviewer. And the interviewer doesn't answer but just goes on to another question.

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You see that as a "tough" question? I see it as a completely invalid one attempting to shove a smear label onto APF's work faster than a shocktrooper can shove a jack boot into a dissident's face. I thought the answer given was quite appropriate and entirely on-target. To suggest that working for peace constitutes anti-Americanism IS basically to suggest that pro-America means being pro-war. When the fact of the matter is, pro-America is not necessarily either pro-peace or pro-war but rather pro-whatever gets the American agenda done whatever that agenda happens to be at any given time, and the real question is whether that agenda is one deserving of implementation and support or criticism and thwarting. Pro-America can -- and does -- mean different things to different people.

By the way it is not lost on me either how easily the interviewer couples "liberal" with "anti-American" either, as if to be liberal means to automatically be anti-American. This is the same nonsense we have had to put up with for generations of ignoramuses who can't think past slogans like "my country: love it or leave it" to realities such as "my country: love it enough to critique or question it when it might be going the wrong direction". It is wholly and utterly invalid and without merit. This is like saying the only way to be pro-America or a patriot is to be a right-wing conservative. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it sure serves a certain agenda to pretend otherwise, now, doesn't it.

[Dr. Shane]

The fact still remains this group is more of a protest group and is not actively working for peace in areas where they can make a difference.

Couple that with the fact that our divine mission is to carry the Three Angels' Message. While as individuals we hold political opinions, we should not use our church organization for political purposes. Jesus said it well when He said, "If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight." Ours is a spirtual movement, not a political one.

[Tom Wetmore]

And the fact still remains that it is apparent that you have not spent sufficient time absorbing the detail of what APF is all about. If you cnontinue to see this through the haze of your own conservative Republican ideology, you will continue to get it wrong.

Tom

[Dr. Shane]

Brother Tom, Maybe the problem isn't my moderate, independant open mindedness but your own sympathetic anti-war prespective.

[Nicodema]

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Jesus said it well when He said, "If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight." Ours is a spirtual movement, not a political one.

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I'm glad to see you acknowledge this. I wonder, however, whether you have truly applied it to your life and your own political sentiments. To me the movement for peace IS a spiritual movement, not a political one. It is pitting spiritual reality against political expediency.

[Dr. Shane]

True peace is only found in Christ. Christ told us that peace in this world will never become a reality. In fact, as we get closer to the end of time, there will be more wars and rumors of wars.

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I wonder, however, whether you have truly applied it to your life and your own political sentiments.

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Do you know what I do with my spare time on the weekends? I think you do. It is not protesting outside of abortion clinics. It is doing missionary work in Mexico. It is trying to carry the Three Angels' Message to lost and dying souls.

Now every two years I do donate one evening a week to working on a political campaign to help a pro-life canidate get elected. As the years go by and the number of campaigns I have worked on adds up, I become a more valuable asset to those I help. My work as a poltical consultant every two years is the extent of my political activism. My hours given to the mission feild far out number those given to politics.

Yet there is a big difference between me, as an individual, working on a political cause, and trying to organize a group of people in my denomination to work toward a poltical cause.

[Nicodema]

My question, Shane, was whether you had applied it to your political leanings. I have no doubt but that you are diligent in good works, and despite our differences I actually have taken notice of some stellar moments in your deportment and your ability to dialogue with grace even when you are carrying what I would consider a ludicrous or even outrageous position, which gives me a respect for you I certainly would not have toward others embracing similar views who lack those qualities. But your support of a warmongering regime leaves me wondering how you can really call yourself a peacemaker. This is not an indictment or judgment; it is an expression of how I think and a request for clarification and information in that regard. Obviously you are not required to explain yourself to me if you do not wish, and perhaps you think I've no right to question you, but I just wanted to clarify where my question was coming from.

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Christ told us that peace in this world will never become a reality.

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Right, but that doesn't mean we give up and stop standing for peace or trying to make a difference. Same thing is true of sin -- we will never see an end to sin in this world but that doesn't mean we should not bother taking a stand against things that are wrong or harmful, first in our own lives of course and then in trying to help others understand and learn.

[Dr. Shane]

The word regime is inflamatory. The correct word is administration. Except for those trying to start a fight, democratic elected administrations are not normally referred to as regimes.

Warmongering is a terrible thing. I think of President Woodrill Wilson as a classic warmonger. President Polk would be another warmonger. Others consider President L.B. Johnson as a warmonger. Just becuase a President chooses to take the nation to war doesn't make him a warmonger. I do not consider President F.D. Roosevelt a warmonger.

War is a terrible thing. I, in no way, enjoy seeing war in any part of the world. My wife grew up in a war-torn country and tells me about running to shelter when fighter planes flew overhead and seeing dead soilders in the streets. To this day she hates to see tanks rolling down a street - even in a parade. Yet even my wife, supports Bush in his action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her nation sent troops there although I believe they have now all returned home. She, like myself, believes that we cannot have peace at any cost.

In order to have peace, that would have meant not going into Afghanistan. That means letting Osama run his religious hate-orientate perversion of Islam. It would have meant not going into Iraq. It would have meant letting Saddam continue to bribe UN officials to get sanctions lifted so he could resume his WMD programs. It would have meant Saddam could have continued to support terrorism. It would have meant ignoring President Putin's warning that Saddam was planning to use terrorists to attack us. That would have been a high cost for peace.

So perhaps Bush and those that agree with him were in the wrong. I will grant you that as a possibilty. But to accuse him, and those of us that agree with him, as being warmongers isn't right. We would all love to have peace but are not willing let our enemies plot against us while we do nothing.

[Dr. Shane]

We are dealing with two issues in this thread.

One is how we think our government should handle the threats of war and terrorism. Thus, how we will vote at the ballot box. My position is that each of us that belong to a democracy should excercise our civic duty to vote and vote according to our conscience.

The other is how our church should conduct itself in a world where war is a reality. My position here is that the church should stay focused on carrying the Three Angels' Message and not get distracted by temporal politics unless those politics prevent us from obeying the Word of God.