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Christmas Peace(2)
This is the season we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ whom we name the Prince of Peace. (Is. 9:6.) And yet…The world is engulfed in wars without end.
Costing trillions.
Destroying lives.
Destroying the environment.
As Christians and Quakers we cannot sing and celebrate the birth of our Savior and not cry out against war.
Wars that beget more violence.
Wars that profit the few at the expense of the many.
Wars that destroy crops, homes, businesses, displace people, and create untold misery for all of life on the planet.
As Christians and Quakers we cannot glorify war.
War fuels climate change.(1)
War robs the peoples and governments of the ability to solve problems.
War claims the lion share of resources in oil and minerals and treasury so that there is little to address the needs of the people and the planet.
The needs of the homeless.
The needs of the poor and hungry.
The needs of the dispossessed.
The needs of the all growing things.
Let us seek to follow the Prince of Peace who came to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. ( Lk. 4:18-19)
Let this Christmas be the clarion call to the end of all war.
(1) (The Pentagon has admitted to burning 320,000 gallons of oil a day.) The Pentagon is the “world’s greatest institutional consumer of oil and a leading producer of climate-changing CO2,” p.4, The War and Environment Reader, edited by Gar Smith.
(2) Approved for publication by Berkeley Friends Church Monthly Meeting 11/18/2018
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