From the Internet site www.UCC.org, a portion of a "prayer occasioned by war in Iraq," offered by the Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President of UCC: "Allow us our silence, O God, but do not leave us alone. Receive our tears, but also gather them together to remind us that as we have been baptized into Christās death, so we are also baptized into Christās resurrection. Thus may our journey with Jesus on the Way [to] the Cross be filled with hope, that in these days we might not lose heart. Amen."
"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi
Dr. James B. Nelson, professor emeritus of Christian ethics at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (speaking at the 1992 National Gathering of the Coalition): "We must shift the biblical debate from its periphery to its center. . . . Picture Jesus setting aside every human barrier, every false tradition that violates the oneness of God and the oneness of God's human community. Jesus lived out the reality that Godās oneness cannot be compromised by human prejudice, human fear, or human bigotry."
The Rev. Dr. Paul Sherry, former president of the UCC (in his 1998 pastoral letter: "Now, No Condemnation: The Rights of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Persons in Society and Their Membership and Ministry in the Church"): "Encounters with hurting and excluded sisters and brothers have caused us to look at the whole of scripture which speaks of a God who continually reaches out for those who are cast out for any reason. We are reminded of our identity as disciples of the One who often ate with those rejected by the religious norms of the day, the One who sets before us all the Table of God's inclusive love, mercy, and grace."
Martin Luther King, Jr. (in answer to people trying to exclude him from the peace movement by asking if he wasnāt a civil rights movement leader) -- I have worked too long and hard now against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible."
John F. Kennedy: "Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
From April 2003 "O/AM News"
