Here is the piece of Pastor John’s posts from yesterday that is suggesting that REALLY goes against the grain of the kind of ideas we have about “religous freedom”.  The concept of “excommunication”.  It doesn’t seem so radical to fundamentalists who wish to see a politician excommunicated over their abortion stand,  but to suggest such a thing for participation and support of war,  well,  that’s blasphemous to a nationalist perspective.

Pastor John Wright
What then about the mission of the church in the world? It seems to me that we look to the inner resources – exclusive faith in Christ manifested in works of mercy and love and the church’s non-coercive discipline over its own people through catechesis and, in extreme cases, excommunication.

I suggest that if they continue promoting war, that their local congregations excommunicate them. If clergy are among them, the groups to whom they are responsible should suspend their orders.

The whole concept of ex-communication speaks to the accountability to the church,  and as the Pope proclaims,  the way of Jesus is a love that goes all the way to suffering as a resistance to the violence that is forbidden the church and its people.  To become like the world for the sake of “our survival” is missing the message of the life of Jesus,  who went about performing works of mercy,  and speaking of love and the nature of God’s Kingdom,  and was killed for it.

The offense people take at the idea of “ex-communication” is actually an affront to the idea that the church stands for something.  If it is “offensive” to take the tact that deliberately defying the rather clear teachings of Jesus is not an “ex-communicable” offense,  then the idea of church membership is betrayed.    It has truly become a “national church” based completely on a “freedom” which really amounts to nothing but “personal preference”.