Love Notes

by Bill Love

On Ash Wednesday, the day we mark as the beginning of our preparation for Easter, the story that got the most email response on CNN was about a father and his adult son. They had gone to a mall, had T-shirts made, and put them on. After walking around in the mall, they were approached by mall security asking them to take the T-shirts off. The son did, but his father refused. The reason given was the mall’s policy against “offensive language.” The father’s shirt had ‘Peace on Earth’ on the front and The reason given was the mall’s policy against “offensive language.” The father’s shirt had “Peace on Earth” on the front and “Give Peace a Chance” on the back.

If I recall correctly, there was an infant born whose birth announcement was “Peace on Earth.” There had been no room for him in the inn.

When I heard the story, I thought of John Prine’s song Sam Stone about a Vietnam vet, who came home with a drug problem which began when he was given morphine after being wounded. The chorus begins, There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose.

Prine was not the first to make this observation. In the hymn O Holy City, Seen of John, one verse goes, O shame to us who rest content While lust and greed for gain In street and shop and tenement Wring gold from human pain And bitter lips in blind despair Cry, “Christ has died in vain.”

While requiring Iraq to destroy certain missiles which they were apparently doing and weakening their military capacity, we then say “too little, too late” and call for a deadline before beginning bombing. On a children’s playground, I think that would be called bullying.

While we have never engaged in a war where we were not attacked first (apparently pre-emptive strikes violate international law and UN charter) and called Iraq a rogue nation when they invaded Kuwait, we don’t see any parallel. A cousin of mine was asked in school what his minister father had told him about fighting. He said he was told not to start one or lose one.

Rather than resort to finger-pointing and blaming rather than taking responsibility for our own decisions and actions, I would prefer that decision to be made by Americans for necessary reasons. I believe it will be our decision to go to war and our principles we violate by pre-emptive attack. (I recommend reading Sen. Robert Byrd’s speech on the floor of the Senate on February 12, 2003 or Robin Cook’s comments after resigning from Parliament.)

When we pray for victory, we also pray for devastation for Iraqis, including women, children, and those least able to bear it, whose place in this geopolitical conflict is to have been born there rather than here. (I recommend reading Mark Twain’s The War Prayer.) They are human beings, not collateral damage.

While I appreciate the willingness of soldiers to defend our liberty, I cannot agree with the politicians who have made the decision to go to war.

I think, however, my real question is whether there is any room for the one whose birth proclaimed peace on earth. While it seems at times Christ has died in vain, I’m betting my life that Christ did not die in vain and believe we need Easter this year. It is this warring madness, among other things, from which Christ died to save us.

If “Peace on Earth” is offensive language, I pray we Christians give offense.

Bill Love is interim pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville.