Pastor s Column: Some wars we can t win
By STANLEY BOHN
First Mennonite Church
I. Prohibition was our nation's war on abuse of alcoholic beverages. Since then we have had wars on poverty in the 60's, on crime, on drugs, and now a war on terrorism.
These wars have worthy goals but have heavy collateral damage. For example, Prohibition created new criminal gangs and funded the Mafia. The war on crime filled our prisons but that war attitude viewed offenders as enemies. That prevented adequate funding for training to make prisoners self-supporting or able to recompense their victims. Prison time was spent learning more about crime, which meant more prisons, higher taxes and more collateral damage to prisoner's families.
The collateral damage of the war on drugs boosted prices, which then financed guerrilla and terrorist groups and corrupted governments, even our own CIA. The drug wars killed civilians caught in the crossfire in Asia and South America. Aerial spraying didn't reduce cocoa acreage, said a White House report, but nearby farmers who had their fields sprayed were driven out of farming to city slums. It costs us several billion each year for drug wars overseas.
The war on poverty shouldn't have had collateral damage but we couldn't avoid seeing the poor as enemies. So we made cuts in funds for job training, child care for the working poor, food stamps, housing and didn't permit minimum wage to be adjusted for inflation. The current proposed budget eliminates the Even Start literacy program for impoverished children and parents who are illiterate or semi-literate, cuts health care for low-income children, and gives tax cuts to rich persons.
But I suspect the reason we continue wars we can't win is that somebody profits: they are good vote getters for politicians who must appear tough on wrongdoing. They provide employment and are profitable for many who produce the "weapons".
II. Jesus had an alternative way of fighting evil. Instead of condemning handicapped and poor as sinners, excluding the mentally ill as demon possessed, and ostracizing lepers as untouchables too sinful to live with the rest of the community, He healed. He saw misery not as a call for war but as person's needing healing. He took the healing approach with a crook like Zaacheus, a terrorist like Judas, as well as rich upper class persons in bondage to their wealth. He didn't declare war on prejudice against gentiles or despised Samaritans. His approach was to see God's image in the excluded and heal our racism.
Alcoholics Anonymous taught us that treating alcoholism as a disease, rather than fighting a war against alcohol users, was the way to receive God's help. From the way we fill prisons with drug abusers, we haven't learned that about addiction.
The Iraq war makes it politically unpopular to point out injustices that fuel terrorism. But now that the war has increased terrorism, we may be ready to try Jesus' healing-of-injustices approach. The collateral damage of this war could be any of us.
That doesn't mean terrorists, or addicts who commit crimes, or poor people who scam the system shouldn't pay for their crimes. Healing doesn't mean permissiveness. It does mean that attacking without dealing with the real problem doesn't help. The "war approach" has cost more in lives and dollars and made problems worse.
Christian faith can be more than a private relationship between us and God; it can heal us from fears and greed that keep us from seeing problems others face. If we supported a healing approach, maybe legislators would dare to support programs that heal rather than raising taxes to war on the weak, the sick, prison inmates and the victims of injustice. Being Christian doesn't always make life easier, but often it restores wounded people and even saves dollars.
