A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: REFLECTIONS ON THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

IN SUNDAY’S STAR. I wrote the following “Letter to the Editor” and submitted it the Indianapolis Star. It was included in the Sunday, January 30, 2005 "Focus" section:

PRIMARY & ORIENTING. On the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I have a recommendation: plan a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. This is a pilgrimage individuals and families of all nations should make. Whatever else one sees in Washington, this is the primary and orienting experience.

GRATEFUL & TROUBLED. After this encounter you will be more grateful for the Capitol and more troubled by the influence peddling that pervades it. You will see the White House and know that a revered president who resided there long delayed an intervening response after learning of the plight of the Jews in Europe, even preventing many from immigrating to the United States.

GRIEVE YOUR BIGOTRIES. You will be deeply grateful for freedom and come away with a heightened sensitivity to abuses of authority even in the name of democracy and freedom. You will grieve and repent of your own small bigotries and speak up more quickly in defense of any oppressed person or group in the future. Information about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is accessible at www.ushmm.org.

WHAT WE ACCEPT AT THE BEGINNING MATTERS

EXAMINE UNDERPINNINGS. I’ve reviewed a lot of images of the Holocaust this week. They are gory. They are sickening. They are alarming. But I think it is critical for me to review them. They remind me that where you begin, what you accept as a valid beginning point matters much. But we rarely look there. We hardly ever question back to there. We simply do not take the time to discover the tennuous underpinnings of what we accept as normative, as truth, as good policy, as life-sustaining value, as world-saving action.

WHAT GERMANS ACCEPTED. My sense is that most of the proud German people living in the beginning days of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (a conservative, moral-values based political party) did not examine the roots of their angst or challenge the underpinnings of the solutions to their national woes that the Nazi party proposed.

UNTRUTH BECAME NORMATIVE. They went along. They accepted. They allowed. They gave the benefit of the doubt. And what they allowed and accepted became normative for their children. It had the ring of truth and strength in numbers. They thought themselves to be on a heroic journey of national restoration and attempted to bring a liberating fascism to weaker countries stalled in economic and moral malaise.

SIXTY YEARS LATER. Sixty years later, the heads of state of most world-leading nations (absent George W. Bush) gather at Auschwitz to commemorate the day the Soviet troops liberated the Nazi death camp that sent more than 1,100,000 Jews, gypsies, gays, and other stereotyped prisoners to gas chambers and crematoriums that ran day and night. The leaders solemnly vow "never again" and at the same time do not examine the norms they accept or the perilous underpinnings or trajectories of the actions they take.

CRY OUT NOW. Examine everything. Question authority. Trace down every assertion. Look behind every notion. Exegete perspectives. Do not just go along. Do not just accept what is said. Speak what you discover. Repent if it is called for. Expose untruth if it be so. Cry out now, or many may weep for your silence.

ELIE WIESEL: PEACE IS OUR GIFT TO EACH OTHER

THERE MUST NEVER BE A TIME WHEN WE FAIL TO PROTEST. This is the concluding paragraph of Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize lecture, December 11, 1986:

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world. We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers. None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims."

"...Mankind needs to remember more than ever. Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other."

Click here to read Wiesel's full speech, "Hope, Despair, and Memory."

AN ALTERNATIVE VISION OF THE COMMON GOOD

Dissent, as I speak of it as a grace, is rooted in an alternative vision of the common good. Dissent, in my case, is anchored in an understanding of the Biblical image and principles of the Kingdom of God articulated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his church. This is the vision and allegiance that claims my heart and life. This alternative vision of the common good is starkly distinct from the claims, posturing, values base, and policies of the Bush Administration.

THE GRACE OF DISSENT

GRACE FOR THIS PRESIDENT? Knowing both my penchant for seeing the possibility of grace in unlikely situations and my consistent criticism of the posturing, choices, and directions the George W. Bush regime, a friend challenged me to try to write something graceful about the U.S. President.

SAY SOMETHING NICE. One would think this would be easy to do: just say something nice about the man. Like: he professes Christianity. Like: he is a sober, recovering alcoholic. Like: he is a faithful husband. Like: he loves America. I can say these things. These are commendable for a President. Few Presidents could honestly claim this combination of commitments or characteristics.

LIKE MILLIONS OF US. As laudable as these four claims are, they can be said of perhaps millions of people (millions more if you consider those who have not had the experience of addiction to alcohol). These characteristics do not qualify George W. Bush or any other person to be President of the United States of America. Nor have they apparently assisted him and his regime in leading the American people wisely, or even honestly.

GOD'S HAND ON HIM? During the recent election campaign, the Rev. Pat Robertson said of Bush that though he had made mistakes and was not necessarily right on a variety of issues, God's hand was obviously upon him. There you have it. The right reverend hath spoken: the savvy use and bullying abuse of political power cloaked in well-orchestrated images of civil religion equate to God's blessing. Not!

OPEN LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT. I am a citizen who has paid close attention to this Presidency from day one. I have taken the time to reflect on his manner and choices and have written over seventy letters to George W. Bush over the past four years. I have commended him and scolded him. I have agreed and disagreed with him. I have offered alternative perspectives along with my prayers. My thoughts and feelings in these letters are open for all the world to read.

OFFERING DISSENT. Some may read into my letters and perspective nothing more than carping criticism. But in my heart and mind I am sincerely trying to offer this President the grace of dissent. Dissent means "to withold assent" or "to differ in opinion." Dissent is not unpatriotic. Dissent is not simply being contrary. Dissent is not a minor key or discordant voice. Dissent is not negativism. The fact that dissent is begrudgingly endured by the majority of people does not reduce its value and importance in the past or to the future for all.

AN ALTERNATIVE VISION. Dissent, as I speak of it as a grace, is rooted in an alternative vision of the common good. Dissent, in my case, is anchored in an understanding of the Biblical image and principles of the Kingdom of God articulated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his church. This is the vision and allegiance that claims my heart and life. This alternative vision of the common good is starkly distinct from the claims, posturing, values base, and policies of the Bush Administration.

A PARTICULAR REASON FOR DISSENT. It is particularly because of the Bush Administration's appropriation of Christian terms, images, and posturing for the sake of selling to the American public a thoroughly secular, wealth-serving, class-dividing, violence-reinforcing ideology that I have raised my voice in dissent. Christianity is not merely civil religion. Christianity is not a tool to be used by power brokers to passify or satiate a hopeful citizenry. It is not wool to pull over the eyes. It is not bapitsmal water to justify the spirit of mammon and violence.

CONTRADICTIONS. It is not of Christ to incite moral alarm at gay marriage and at the same time continue to intentionally mislead the world regarding the connections between the terrorist attack on 9/11/01 and Iraq. It is not of Christian faith to name the Prince of Peace as one's chief counsel and lead primarily by intimidation, the violence of unprovoked war, and at the bidding of donating patrons. To me, the contradictions between this regime's claims to act Christianly and the real claims of authentic Christianity are numerous and glaring, as comprehensive as specific.

THIS GRACE I OFFER. So, this grace I offer this President and his regime: dissent. I simply cannot and will not give assent to this President's claims and directions. I dissent as a citizen. I dissent as a Christian. I offer this President and his Administration and alternative vision and perspective. And I live in hope that it, not the present means or ends, will ultimately prevail for the sake of the world which God gave his Son to redeem and transform.

PASTOR ARRESTED

A BETTER IMAGE OF A PASTOR. Most images of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. depict him behind a pulpit or before a great throng of adoring people. But I prefer the pictures of this Christian pastor being manhandled by government authorities serving vested white interests. King's primary witness and power come not from the pulpit and podium, but from his stand in the streets with unnamed people with whom he identified and for whom he gave his life. This photo, accessed at The Seattle Times MLK pages (a good online resource!), was taken in 1958 in Montgomery, Alabama. He was arrested for loitering; the charge was later changed to failure to obey an officer.

ANY PASTORS ARRESETED LATELY? When was the last time you read of a Christian minister being arrested for any issue of peace and justice? Plenty have been arrested for fraud or other immoral behavior. Help me recall those who have so irked the powers that be regarding peace and justice that the government has had the nerve to lay hands on them?

WHAT WOULD KING SAY OF IRAQ? The "fulfillment" of King's dream of a nation of races reconciled, diversity embraced, and poverty rolled back gets mixed reviews. At best it is a work in process; at worst, it has been accomodated and drastically diminished. Based on his outspoken perspective on the Vietnam War, I doubt many would want to hear what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have to say about the Iraq War today.

TEACHING PEACE

I completed my first two teaching sessions at Indianapolis Peace House this week. The 3-hour college course, "Introduction to Issues of Urban Peace and Justice," looks at the emergence of various aspects of our urban area into an interlocking system, highlighting the ways conflict, class, war, poverty, wealth, race, etc. are either effectively or ineffectively addressed. From a general orientation to the city as a system this week, next week we will begin to look at the city from the angle of various groups and concerns. I anticipate the students will begin to see very specific conflicts and challenges emerge.