Overstatements skew debates

As the peace movement gathers strength in opposing a U.S. military strike against Iraq, religious leaders and people of faith are leading the moral debate and, in some cases, the street protests. Except for Southern Baptists, every major religious denomination is questioning whether an attack on Iraq would meet the religious community's "just war" criteria. For war to be morally justified under this doctrine it must be defensive, not aggressive, civilian life must be protected and the war must cause less harm than it is intended to prevent. By that standard, many religious leaders say, the post-Sept. 11 war to root out terrorists in Afghanistan was a "just war," while a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be just another war.

Religious leaders have an obligation to add their voices to the debate over whether the United States should go to war with Iraq. Their faith requires no less. Few have weighed in with the kind of pointed language that we've heard in recent days from the top bishop of the Episcopal Church.

In an interview with the Religion News Service last week, presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold III rebuked President Bush for his "reprehensible" rhetoric and his indifference toward poverty and human suffering in the world. The United States, the bishop said, is rightly "hated and loathed" around the world. "Quite apart from the bombs we drop, words are weapons and we have used our language so unwisely, so intemperately, so thoughtlessly . . . that I'm not surprised we are hated and loathed everywhere I go," he said.

Griswold added, "I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States."

According to the RNS story, Griswold, speaking at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 12, said U.S. reluctance to spend more on humanitarian aid for Africa is "a manifestation of evil" and a "form of sin from which we as a nation are called to repent."

He went on: "We are loathed, and I think the world has every right to loathe us, because they see us as greedy, self-interested and almost totally unconcerned about poverty, disease and suffering."

Those are strong words about the president and his government from the leader of the 2.3-million members of the Episcopal Church. His opposition to war is both commendable and understandable, as is his concern for human suffering in the world. However, Griswold's increasingly sharp tone risks diminishing his credibility on the very issues he cares about so deeply. In the RNS interview, there was a political edge to his criticism.

I do a fair amount of travel abroad but unlike the bishop, I don't feel the need to apologize for being an American. I find plenty to criticize about the president's policies -- foreign and domestic -- and I agree with Griswold that Bush's bellicose rhetoric isn't helping the United States win friends around the world. But we are not "evil" (isn't that the word Bush likes to toss around?) because we don't do enough to combat the spread of AIDS and hunger in Africa. I don't think most Americans believe their country deserves to be "hated and loathed" by foreigners. Whatever is wrong in this world, surely the United States is not the worst of it.

Pope John Paul II and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also oppose war with Iraq and have urged the United States to devote more of its wealth to helping alleviate poverty and disease around the globe. But they speak in a more measured tone, without a political edge. For example, last week the pope decried a potential war with Iraq. "War is not always inevitable," he said. "It is always a defeat for humanity."

Religious leaders should not shrink from bringing their moral authority to bear on the issues of war and human misery. They have a duty to raise moral questions that should be part of any debate about war. However, Griswold risks playing into the hands of the war hawks, many of whom resent religious leaders lending their moral authority to the antiwar movement. There are some out there who will see Griswold's words as anti-Bush, if not anti-American. He is neither, of course.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Southern clergyman who led a nonviolent civil rights movement that stirred the nation's conscience and lifted the yoke of legal segregation from black Americans. He also is remembered as one of the most eloquent opponents of the Vietnam War. Sometimes his words cut to the quick. "The greatest purveyor of violence on the planet is my own government," he said in one antiwar speech that infuriated President Lyndon B. Johnson and his supporters, many of whom had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with King on civil rights.

As passionately as he opposed the war, I can't imagine King using the word "evil" to criticize the humanitarian shortcomings of U.S. policy, or the word "reprehensible" to denounce Johnson's dishonest speeches on Vietnam. And as far as I know, this Nobel Peace Prize winner never felt the need to apologize for being an American.

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