Here’s something from AKMA last week that I had saved for comment later, and so here’s my comments. First, the stuff on which I will comment. (the bolded parts are my emphasis)

AKMA’s Random Thoughts

The matter of justice must not be minimized in dogmatic or doxological theology. When we address “justice,” however, the reflexive recitation of the apotropaic formula “justice” neither absolves a theologian of the obligation to work out the meaning of that topic in conjunction with Scripture and the church’s inherited wisdom — not solely in terms of a liberal progressive nostalgia for “the good causes.” One certainly can articulate a theology about justice that reaches many of the ends that left-leaning, or liberal, or progressive Christians espouse, by way of taking pains to enlist a strong array of testimonies from the biblical and dogmatic tradition. That might mean placing a stronger emphasis on righteousness, charity, and impartiality (terms that cover much terrain in common with “justice”), and would certainly mean construing “justice” in terms less dominated by late-twentieth-century/early-twenty-first-century cultural contexts.

This is a hard lesson to take to heart for a long-time Sojourners supporter. I have stated many times in the past year to year and a half of Hauerwas-RO reading that I owe much of my ability/awareness/sensibility that allows me to reject popular theological rationales to the likes of Sojourners (and along with them, Church of the Saviour and Clarence Jordan). They have taught me much about the tendencies of “America” toward “empire”. Tendencies? Maybe “immersion” is a better term in our “Bush” era. The latest headlines about Iran and the BushCo. spin (and their continued manipulations of the public to “prepare them” for what the neocons have in mind. I heard Seymour Hersch earlier this week on NPR, and its absolutely scary. I flipped through a book called “Overthrow” earlier last week, after hearing Terri Gross (NPR’s Fresh Air” program) interview the author about the subject of the book, the various “overthrow” tactics used by the US over the past century, “From Hawaii(1898) to Iraq”, and how such behaviour and tactics are turning the world against the US and further cementing the reality that violence begets violence, and that we reap what we sow (my words , not his)

I am particularly incensed by Condaleeza Rice’s statement that we cannot recognize a Hamas government unless they “renounce violence”. Of course, what we do is somehow “not” violence. Of COUSE NOT. We’re the U.S. of A. None of that applies to us, cuz we’re the good guys. Such absoilute swallowing and digestion of the “Koolaid” of this particularly hubristic version of wordly “wisdom”. And the U.S. also somehow sees no contradiction in opposing the idea of a nuclear Iran. Because THEY are the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism. Becuase THEY cannot be trusted with the bomb. And yet it somehow escapes our logic that WE are the only country to have actually used it. Of course…that was all in the “cause” of stopping some “greater evil” (like how many more deaths would have occurred on the fields of battle. (I seem to remember how everyone was sure that US forces would face heavy casualties if forced into a ground war in the first Gulf War) I have rejected the premise that “theoretical” if we did THAT, THAT would happen, therefore we can justify MEANS A to the serving of GOOD B. But the option of serving up certain death for thousands of innocents (as in a nuclear detonation on cities, as N WW2 Japan) to prevent a “theoretical undesirable” is not a legitimate moral choice. It ultimately comes to the matter of whether “ends justifies the means” is a choice for the Christian. It seems to place the ultimate value on “safety” and “continuation of ‘our way of life'” above all calls to be faithful.

The idea that dying is preferrable to assimilation of evil is seeminjgly foreign. The idea that “safety” and “defense” is not the highest value seems “out of step” with “democracy” as so expressed in nation-states. The “public square” seems to detour us away from recognziing the way of Jesus, and so I see and nod in agreement with what AKMA says here. Our churches have become willing to water down and , in effect, subvert the means and meaning of the “Body of Christ” that is the church. Sacrafice, discipline, and reformation are out, and Protection, individualism, and ‘therapy for the soul’ is in. The people of God as a formative, alternative, counter-cultural force is itself a largely unknown phenomena.