Working for Peace, Resting in Peace

Christian Peacemaker Teams member Tom Fox was found dead near Baghdad.

As we mourn Tom's death, we focus on his solidarity with the unnamed tens of thousands of Iraqi dead, disappeared, detained, and tortured. Yet, we also recognize that Tom's suffering is special because it was in voluntary obedience to Christ's call to suffer as he did to prove his love for both neighbors and enemies: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it" (Mark 8:34-35).

As evidenced by the outpouring of support and sympathy from across religious and national boundaries, Tom's life and death are a testimony to the truth of Jesus' gospel - and a challenge to all who claim to follow it.

MESJ member William van Wagenen has spent the summer of 2005 as a volunteer for the Christian Peacemaker Teams in Baghdad. Anxiously Engaged reported on some of his experiences in:
Mass Graves: Theirs or Ours? and Letter from Baghdad

Free at Last - remaining three Christian Peacemakers finally been released
by Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor of Sojourners, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

I woke at 5:30 a.m. to the news on the BBC that the remaining three Christian Peacemakers held captive in Iraq and finally been released. I knelt by the side of my bed and wept - with the joy of liberation and the grief of the suffering these brothers have endured for the sake of the cross.

For nearly four months, as a global community, we have prayed our way down this via dolorosa. We have prayed for Jim Loney, Norman Kember, Harmeet Sooden, and Tom Fox's safety and protection. We have prayed for the state of the soul of their captors. We have mourned and cried out to God when Tom's broken body was found on the airport road in Baghdad. We have prayed and labored for the thousands of detained, disappeared, kidnapped, abused and tortured Iraqis. And now, we break our Lenten fast from the resurrection word, and say "Alleluia! Alleluia! Our brothers are free at last!" As the news of their experience unfolds it will no doubt be controversial that the release of these pacifists was catalyzed by a multi-national military force. No doubt, some will use it as proof that Christian nonviolence and unarmed peacemaking are a fool's errand. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Christian Peacemaker Teams have done more to advance "liberty and justice for all" without ever wielding a weapon than all our "shock and awe" campaigns. Every Christian is charged with resisting evil, but none are given the right to kill. Jesus did not kill anyone, nor threaten to kill anyone if they didn't follow his command. His strength and persuasion were in his spiritual authority, not in the weapon. The "peace" that comes through military action is a weak creature that develops through submission and fear, not the deep peace of Christ rooted in righteousness and justice. Conversely, "sword of righteousness" wielded by the Christian peacemaker is a metaphor for the Word of God that cuts through the gauze of worldly custom; a sword to prick the conscience; a choice that must be made to take up the cross of Christ. We pray for the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman, and Harmeet. We give thanks to God that, through excellent intelligence work and skilled operations, they manifested an unprecedented respect for CPT's commitment to nonviolence by rescuing them without a shot being fired and without injury to any parties. Like the soldier in Matthew 8: 5-13, they too were able to participate in the moment of God's liberation. We pray that they will be convicted by the spiritual authority of these brave Christian peacemakers and with the wisdom and knowledge of Christ who said "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

It would be easy to pit the peacemaker against the soldier - but it would be wrong to do so. There are soldiers who serve "the least of these" in Iraq. It was an unknown American soldier who decided to drape Tom Fox's casket with a flag to honor his sacrifice. And there are peacemakers who thrive more on their own anger, self-righteousness, and personal purity, than on authentic deeply rooted sacrificial love.

"In the Exodus-Sinai tradition," writes black liberation theologian James Cone, "Yahweh is disclosed as the God of history, whose revelation is identical with [God's] power to liberate the oppressed. There is no knowledge of Yahweh except through [God's] political activity on behalf of the weak and the helpless of the land." We rejoice that our brothers have been "brought out" of and liberated from their captivity by the God of history - working through our human capacities. We celebrate with their families, loved ones, and colleagues around the world. We give thanks for all those who risked their lives to speak out on behalf of the Christian peacemakers - especially those in the Muslim world. Now, also, we are free to grieve completely for Tom Fox, who laid down his life for his friends. We revel in our knowledge of a God who "acts on behalf of the weak and the helpless of the land" - a living God of history. It is this living God that gives us the strength and commitment to continue advocating for the the estimated 14,000 Iraqis held in prison by Coalition, Multi-National and Iraqi forces, of whom, according to Coalition intelligence officers, "between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake."