Public Challenge
FROM FOX NEWS:
WASHINGTON — Ninety-five bishops from President Bush’s church said Thursday they repent their “complicity” in the “unjust and immoral” invasion and occupation of Iraq.
“In the face of the United States administration’s rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent,” said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide.
Although United Methodist leadership has opposed the Iraq war in the past, this is the first time that individual bishops have confessed to a personal failure to publicly challenge the buildup to the war.
…“We would have made the statement regardless of who the president was. It was not meant to be either partisan or to single out any one person,” Carder said. “It was the recognition that we are all part of the decision and we are all part of a democratic society. We all bear responsibility.“
I am a Christian, too, like these bishops (although I’m in a different denomination). I did not speak out very publicly, either. I followed the crowd around me, in my church, in my workplace, in my extended family. I privately disagreed, from the beginning, with our Iraq occupation. But privately, not publicly. I feel condemned by the courage of these Methodist bishops. Good for them.