ANNUAL FORTY DAY FAST
for the
TRUTH OF GOSPEL NONVIOLENCE
Ponder the Faces
of the Children
Photo taken at My Lai, March 16, AD1968, by Ronald L. Haeberle, seconds before these children and women were slaughtered by mostly Constantinian Christians.
The Constantinian Churches’ “gospel of salvation by way of orchestrated ignorance” has its cost, and it is not paid by their bishops, priests, ministers or pastors.
Civilians murdered or maimed in the war on Vietnam: four million, in large part by Constantinian Christians.
Civilians murdered or maimed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan: two million, mostly by Constantinian Christians
The photo above is only one little snapshot of hundreds of millions of similar murderous moments perpetrated by Constantinianized Christianity, which systematically cultivates ignorance of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies in the members of its various Churches as a way of personal salvation.
And at least in the Catholic Church, the Church even calculatingly nurtures ignorance about the very strict norms of its own Catholic Just War Theory within the context of Catholic moral theology, by ignoring it completely, or by presenting it so superficially that it is not Catholic Just War Theory that is being presented as Catholic Just War Theory.
Choreographing obliviousness about the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies is, of course, a devilishly crafty gimmick. On the one hand, it keeps the Church and its leadership in the good graces of wealth and political power, by assuring there will never be a Christian reluctance to kill for God and Country. On the other hand, by creating a sincere, but uninformed or misinformed conscience in the individual Christian, it allows him or her to have spiritual peace about their killing and does not interfere with their personal eternal salvation—because they are honestly following their conscience. Moral ignorance being bliss, temporal and eternal bliss—for some.
For others, millions upon millions of totally innocent children, women and men, the Churches’ assembly line manufacture of sincere erroneous consciences is the channel through which the horror of hell is let loose upon them and their loved ones. They pay the price in the coinage of agony for the chronic pastoral malfeasance of the Constantinian Churches’ leaders with their “salvation through ignorance” pastoral care. And what a price! Herod’s murder of the Holy Innocents is child’s play compared to what Constantinian Christians in a B-52 bomber or in a drone operator’s chair can do with a clear conscience as followers of Jesus.
-ECM
(To be continued)
