Ponderings on Resignation from Episcopal Peace Fellowship

Coincidentally, this day in history:

On January 21, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants an unconditional pardon to hundreds of thousands of men who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.

I was in my third year of a four year hitch to the US Navy.  In 77 which ended half way into 78, I was TV station manager, a news broadcaster, and DJ on Midway Atoll.

Navy journalist was the farthest from combat I could see and still allow me to obtain the GI Bill to later enroll in college that my church janitor father's wage could not afford.

I too am in lame duck mode. I clearly think the mission and ministry of EPF belongs to a new generation.  Vietnam is ancient history although the evacuation of refugees from Saigon is still very much etched in my memory.  In my current role as volunteer income tax assistance coordinator for two SW Michigan counties, one of my favorite regular clients is a Vietnamese couple who fled on the boats in 1975.  Perhaps they were on Guam in April that year when we "toured" the refugee camp.

Not sure how they and I ended up in the same small SW Michigan county decades later.

Supporting and strengthening the church's support for those who conscientiously object to all or even certain wars of the day I think is very important for EPF to continue.

My father's generation fought against fascist Nazi and Imperial Japanese aggression which attacked innocent people in Europe and East Asia.  Historically, I can understand how the church sided with fathers who went to war and did not understand their sons who opposed war in SE Asia.  Our fathers (and the church listening to them) were still fighting the old war, WWII. (I obviously did not agree with their opinion similar to many in our generation.)

Vietnam was not WWII. Ukraine is neither.

I will leave it up to the next generation to decide and debate the theology as to whether self defense is ever allowed as response to an aggressor's repression.  I am quite unsure that when Jesus said "turn the other cheek" it applied to 21st century nation states under attack by power mad aggressors.

My ancestor was an Anglican priest from my father's maternal side of our family tree before the USA existed and was still a colony. The Anglican church exiled him since he advocated free will and worship at a time the Archbishop of Canterbury attempted to mandate the Scottish Puritan Presbyters use the Book of Common Prayer in worship.  

The Puritans in Massachusetts Bay exiled him since he advocated for compensation for the taking of Native American lands.  He also argued for separation of church and state.  The Puritans wanted freedom from the Archbishop as long as you believed what they did.  They still believed the European 17th century concept:

Cuius regio, eius religio

Or "whose region, whose religion".

In other words, as long as you believe what we do, you're free to worship here.  Sounds pretty much like Christian Nationalism of today to me.

I see little difference between the former Archbishop and the Puritans in that regard.  We Christians of the 21st Century do not need to all believe the same. We do need to listen respectfully to all for what the consciences of each men and women are saying.

My father's mother's side of the family was Williams a few generations ago, Rev Roger Williams founder of Rhode Island, said it this way in 1644:

"An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."

Rob