Mennonite Church USA's identity

Editorial

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What does it mean to be a peace church in this country when the military-industrial complex has the federal government in a stranglehold? This question relates to a discussion scheduled at this summer’s Mennonite Church USA Convention 2009: our identity as Mennonite citizens in the United States.

The issue emerged from the delegates two years ago at the convention in San José, Calif. But in the intervening two years, not much has happened with the issue. That may change soon. 

“Defense Secretary Robert Gates has submitted a radically sane Pentagon budget,” writes Joe Klein in the May 4 issue of Time, “which eliminates some unneeded weapons systems—and is likely to be eviscerated by members of Congress from districts where those systems are built.”

It would not dilute our peace witness against all war to weigh in on matters like this. Because our country will never give up its weapons is no reason to do and say nothing.

U.S. military spending per year is $711 billion, while China’s is $122 billion and Russia’s is $70 billion. Iran and North Korea combined spend $12.1 billion each year.

The $711 billion annual spending on the military compares with $38 billion for K-12 education, $19 billion for humanitarian foreign aid and $6.8 billion for children’s health care. We published these numbers from www.truemajority.com in our April 21 News Digest.

It seems naive to think that Mennonite Church USA, with slightly more than 100,000 members. could confront this massive problem. But once again: We are not called to be effective; we are called to be faithful.

The Boise (Idaho) Mennonite Fellowship modeled this kind of faithfulness on Good Friday. Members of this congregation initiated a vigil outside the gates of the Mountain Home Air Force Base 50 miles southeast of Boise. The 20 people who participated included Catholics and Quakers. The reason for the vigil: Supersonic F-15E jets from the base regularly carry out ground attack missions in Afghanistan.

This base is an important source for the local economy. During an economic depression as severe as we are experiencing now, it takes extraordinary resolve to call for reduction in an activity that provides so many jobs. But acquiescing to that reality is making a deal with the Devil—a Faustian bargain.

It is also difficult to say the same thing in northern Indiana, where the jobless rate is especially high. The Hummer plant in Mishawaka, Ind., continues to produce Hummers for military use and provides steady jobs in a local economy where devastation to the recreational vehicle industry has created one of the country’s highest unemployment rates.

Our identity as U.S. Mennonites is wrapped up in a country that spends obscene amounts of money producing the military machine—some of it irrelevant to the tactics used by those fighting against this country. In the meantime, the person responsible for all these programs, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, appears defenseless against a budgeting process that leaves budget decisions in the hands of elected representatives.

It is understandable if our sisters and brothers in the global Mennonite family assume we accept this situation if we say nothing and quietly pay our taxes. But if we want to redefine our national identity, where better to raise questions about the way our taxes our being misused?

In the last biennium we have launched The Corinthian Plan, an effort to provide health insurance for all Mennonite pastors and church workers in Mennonite Church USA. During the next biennium, why not focus on U.S. defense spending? We could call it the “Roman Plan”—a church-wide effort to confront the military-industrial empire that controls our lives as the Roman Empire did in Jesus’ day.

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Editorial: "Mennonite Church USA's identity"

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