Let Those Without Sin : Churches in Cambridge and around the world oppose Iraq war

Originally written November 2002 for CitizenCam website

As George Bush and Tony Blair drive relentlessly for war with Iraq, British and American churches are voicing unprecedented opposition to their military plans. For example, the Church of England's General synod has unanimously passed a motion opposing war on Iraq. All the mainstream US Christian denominations (except the ultra-conservative Southern Baptists) have united in the same cause. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's own church, the United Methodists, has joined the chorus of dissent, stating that "war is incompatible with the teaching and example of Christ."

What explains this unparalleled opposition?

Many churches have opposed the Bush-Blair war plans on the basis of just war theory. This tradition outlines an ethical code for the initiation and conduct of warfare. War must only be waged for a just cause, self-defence. Yet, Iraq has neither attacked nor threatened its neighbours or the US-UK, nor has any involvement with the September 11 attacks been identified. Furthermore, as both former UN Special Commission weapons inspector Scott Ritter and the CIA have testified, there is no evidence that the Iraqi regime has managed to reacquire any weapons of mass destruction since they were destroyed by the inspectors.

Just war theory also demands a just intention, defined solely as restoring peace. Installing a regime more sympathetic to our economic and strategic interests is not a just intention. Bush's eagerness to find technicalities that could trigger a war falls foul of the demands that force be used as a last resort. Finally, the demand for protection of non-combatants from direct or indirect attack is transgressed by the US tactic of aerial bombing that explicitly factors in the killing of civilians as 'collateral damage.' On all these counts, the US-UK plans for war fall foul of the stringent just war criteria, and have met with strong condemnation from the churches.

However, this resistance is not merely the reaction to a current crisis: it reflects a growing move within churches to reconsider their sanction of state violence. Jesus practised and preached nonviolence. The church maintained this tradition for centuries, but eventually abandoned it for a political alliance with the Emperor Constantine, which it justified by borrowing the 'just war' notion from pagan philosophers. Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, recently called on Christians to ditch just war theory and return to the nonviolent witness of the ancient church.

That this tradition has been rediscovered in the twentieth century is due significantly to the influence of Leo Tolstoy. Mahatma Gandhi -who spoke at the Unitarian church on Emmanuel St. during a visit to Cambridge- was highly influenced by Tolstoy in the development of his own nonviolent methods to oppose British colonialism, and Christian leaders such as Martin Luther King drew on Gandhi in turn. In recent years, churches have been at the heart of many successful nonviolent campaigns, including opposing US backing of the Nicaraguan Contras, and resisting oppressive regimes in 1980s South Africa and Poland.

These Christians commonly draw on the challenge of Jesus to 'let the one without sin cast the first stone' to inform their critique of state violence. For example, Matthew Hand, an American Christian who has worked in the Middle East for many years, has recently highlighted the hypocrisy of US-UK foreign policy towards Iraq. In 1984 Donald Rumsfeld delivered a hand-written letter from Ronald Reagan to Saddam Hussein that led to the resumption of diplomatic ties: even though the UN had compiled detailed evidence of the Iraqi use of lethal chemical weapons against Iranian forces. The US was keen to bolster Hussein's regime against revolutionary Iran, which represented a challenge to American oil interests in the Persian Gulf. The US and UK authorised the sale of military equipment, including consignments of organisms used in anthrax; supplied satellite intelligence to allow Iraq to target Iranian forces with chemical weapons; encouraged third parties to arm Iraq; and arranged for loans and guarantees to bolster Hussein's domestic rule.

In recent years the USA has itself committed shocking war-crimes in countries from Vietnam to Somalia; installed and backed brutal dictatorships such as those of generals Pinochet and Suharto; supported authoritarian leaders in Central Asia in order to secure use of their military bases; and backed repressive allies such as Israel and Turkey who are themselves in breach of numerous UN resolutions. As the American Jesuit and peace activist John Dear put it, "let the one without sin be the first to push a button and fire a missile."

American preacher-activist Jim Wallis believes that, with both major US parties currently advocating war with Iraq, Christian churches have a vital role to play in articulating alternative visions. Addressing a mass anti-war rally outside the home of Donald Rumsfeld recently, John Dear sketched out such a policy, to: "love our enemies: first of all by trying to stop our country from killing them." He called instead for a foreign policy based on justice for the poor, reconciliation with all peoples; and a commitment to ending poverty and disease.

Set up in 1999 to protest the illegal NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Campeace brings together Cambridge people from various backgrounds who can broadly identify with such a vision of a truly ethical foreign policy, and who are united in their opposition to war with Iraq. Some Campeace supporters draw on religious traditions. For example, Stuart Hemsley, national chair of the catholic peace group Pax Christi and active Campeace supporter, has just undertaken a speaking tour of the USA. Here at home, over 200 people recently packed into a Campeace public meeting at Wesley church, attended by our MP Anne Campbell, to hear well-known Cambridge figures Rev. John Binns and Sister Pat Robb, alongside Muslim and secular speakers, deliver powerful speeches against war with Iraq. It is that commitment to a shared goal that has enabled Cambridge to become an active centre of anti-war activity, as town and gown unite with allies across the globe to oppose the short-sighted US-UK militarism that poses the real danger to our world today.