LETTER FROM THE ECUMENICAL MODERATOR
remembrance
MURDOCH MACKENZIE
november 2001
Dear Friends,
This month Remembrance Day falls on a Sunday. As usual the Moderator's Letter has to be written about a month in advance and I have no idea what will have happened in Afghanistan and the rest of the world by November 11th. At best all I can do is to share a few thoughts which may be helpful as we consider those things which make for peace.
For many years some people have worn both a red and a white poppy remembering that those who died in war gave their lives in the hope of there being universal peace. White poppies are available from the Mission Partnership Office (311310) from the Church of Christ the Cornerstone and from Pauline Barnes (508896). As we remember those who have died in war (my own son is named after one of them) we honour them most truly when we earnestly seek those things which make for peace. It was Jesus who said: 'Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called God's children.' According to a recent survey amongst the general public his best known saying is: 'Love your enemies'. In Romans 12 St Paul says: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Do not overcome evil with evil but overcome evil with good.' As Christians we need to heed these words just as much as any other words in the Bible remembering the insight of G.K. Chesterton in his 'What's Wrong with the World' (1910) when he wrote: ' The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.'
Whatever the ultimate result of our military response in Afghanistan surely we need to work much more urgently for the kind of new world order outlined by Tony Blair in his speech at the Labour Party Conference. In 1970, speaking about world poverty and hunger, U-Thant who was a gentle man and Secretary-General of the United Nations, said that we had 10 years in which to grow up or to blow up. When Einstein was asked to prophesy what weapons would be used in the Third World War he replied: 'On the assumption that a Third World War must escalate to nuclear destruction I can tell you what the Fourth World War will be fought with - bows and arrows!' Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his 'No Rusty Sword' said: 'The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays the 'Our Father' asks God only for peace.' Lord Louis Mountbatten said, shortly before his death: 'The world now stands on the brink of the final abyss. Let us all resolve to take all practical steps to ensure that we do not, through our own folly, go over the edge.' The prophet Isaiah said: ' He shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' At Christmas we will sing such words as: 'All glory be to God on high, and to the earth be peace.', 'Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!', 'Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long, beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong; and man at war with man hears not the love-song which they bring: O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.' 'And praises sing to God the King and peace to men on earth.'
What happened on 11th September was a wake up call for each of us to recognise the fact that if we want peace on earth we simply cannot continue to allow the gap between North and South, rich and poor to go on widening. Poverty anywhere affects prosperity everywhere. Terrorism breeds on such poverty as does the drugs trade and many other evils. We have not heeded the warnings of such as Schumacher in 'Small is Beautiful' or 'The Brandt Report ' calling for a New International Economic Order. Perhaps as many as half of the 6 billion people in the world live in poverty, some of whom are refugees, clinging to Eurostar trains or to boats in the Pacific, people for whom there was no room at the inn on Christmas Island. These people will not go away, nor will world poverty, unless we take radical steps to change our lifestyle so that there is equality of trading and other opportunities for people everywhere and not just for the G8.
So let us use Remembrance Day to remember not only those who have died, but also those who are dying right now, and those who will die all too soon unless we learn quickly to sow the poppies of peace throughout our land and across the world which God has entrusted to us and for which Christ died.
Deep peace of the Son of Peace be with you!
Murdoch MacKenzie
This month Remembrance Day falls on a Sunday. As usual the Moderator's Letter has to be written about a month in advance and I have no idea what will have happened in Afghanistan and the rest of the world by November 11th. At best all I can do is to share a few thoughts which may be helpful as we consider those things which make for peace.
For many years some people have worn both a red and a white poppy remembering that those who died in war gave their lives in the hope of there being universal peace. White poppies are available from the Mission Partnership Office (311310) from the Church of Christ the Cornerstone and from Pauline Barnes (508896). As we remember those who have died in war (my own son is named after one of them) we honour them most truly when we earnestly seek those things which make for peace. It was Jesus who said: 'Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called God's children.' According to a recent survey amongst the general public his best known saying is: 'Love your enemies'. In Romans 12 St Paul says: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Do not overcome evil with evil but overcome evil with good.' As Christians we need to heed these words just as much as any other words in the Bible remembering the insight of G.K. Chesterton in his 'What's Wrong with the World' (1910) when he wrote: ' The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.'
Whatever the ultimate result of our military response in Afghanistan surely we need to work much more urgently for the kind of new world order outlined by Tony Blair in his speech at the Labour Party Conference. In 1970, speaking about world poverty and hunger, U-Thant who was a gentle man and Secretary-General of the United Nations, said that we had 10 years in which to grow up or to blow up. When Einstein was asked to prophesy what weapons would be used in the Third World War he replied: 'On the assumption that a Third World War must escalate to nuclear destruction I can tell you what the Fourth World War will be fought with - bows and arrows!' Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his 'No Rusty Sword' said: 'The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays the 'Our Father' asks God only for peace.' Lord Louis Mountbatten said, shortly before his death: 'The world now stands on the brink of the final abyss. Let us all resolve to take all practical steps to ensure that we do not, through our own folly, go over the edge.' The prophet Isaiah said: ' He shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' At Christmas we will sing such words as: 'All glory be to God on high, and to the earth be peace.', 'Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!', 'Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long, beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong; and man at war with man hears not the love-song which they bring: O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing.' 'And praises sing to God the King and peace to men on earth.'
What happened on 11th September was a wake up call for each of us to recognise the fact that if we want peace on earth we simply cannot continue to allow the gap between North and South, rich and poor to go on widening. Poverty anywhere affects prosperity everywhere. Terrorism breeds on such poverty as does the drugs trade and many other evils. We have not heeded the warnings of such as Schumacher in 'Small is Beautiful' or 'The Brandt Report ' calling for a New International Economic Order. Perhaps as many as half of the 6 billion people in the world live in poverty, some of whom are refugees, clinging to Eurostar trains or to boats in the Pacific, people for whom there was no room at the inn on Christmas Island. These people will not go away, nor will world poverty, unless we take radical steps to change our lifestyle so that there is equality of trading and other opportunities for people everywhere and not just for the G8.
So let us use Remembrance Day to remember not only those who have died, but also those who are dying right now, and those who will die all too soon unless we learn quickly to sow the poppies of peace throughout our land and across the world which God has entrusted to us and for which Christ died.
Deep peace of the Son of Peace be with you!
Murdoch MacKenzie
