intersections

Hollywood Peace Vigil gets national attention

Shortly after our "Waging Peace" event (described in the post just below), I received a call from a reporter, Taashi Rowe, at Adventist News Network. She asked me a few questions about our event, mostly focused on our theological motivation for a peace vigil. I think she has written a good piece. We even have one of our pictures featured there.

You can read the article here.
You can see more pictures of the Hollywood event here.
Or,read my comments about the event here.

Witnessing for Peace in Iraq

Growing up in the church I did something we all called "witnessing." It was usually something done on Sabbath afternoons and involved going door to do with invitations to a religious presentation at the church or invitations to enroll in Bible Studies. On occasions it even meant standing in a busy part of town and talking to strangers about Jesus and handing them a book or pamphlet. This past weekend our church did some "witnessing" of a different kind -  a kind I had never done before.

When I first learned about the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq I immediately knew I needed to participate in some way. It was a bit too complicated to fly to Washington, D.C., though not impossible. I finally decided that a more significant impact could be made closer to home by putting on our own "Peace Witness." This is exactly what we did.

With a modified version of the liturgy that was used at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. we began the service in prayer and meditation. Later in the service we heard from our interfaith friend, Cantor Steven Puzarne, as he shared about how his Jewish faith informs his peace activism and the specific work he is doing in "waging peace" in Israel and Palestine. Perhaps I'll share more about his work in a future post. One of the real treats of the evening was Steven sharing a Jewish peace song.

Following our time of prayer, reflection and conversation, we put on our Adventist Peace Fellowship shirts, gathering our candles and Adventist Women for Peace signs (gracious provided by, well...Adventist Women for Peace, based at La Sierra University). You can see more pictures of the march and the worship service by clicking here.

This weekend marks 4 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq. It's hard to imagine it's been that long. In that amount of time we have lost over 3,200 American (military) lives. The official death toll of Iraqi's including civilians is over 60,000 and some say as hight as 500,000. This was har cost the US taxpayers nearly $410 billion.

It's time to end this unjust and immoral war. Please visit www.adventistpeace.org and other Christian peace websites and get involved. It is especially important for those of us who are Adventists to reclaim our heritage as a peace church and stand with those who suffer daily under the violence dished out by those in power.