Oct. 6, 2008 issue
Iranian president, faith leaders speak at MCC-sponsored dialogue
By Mennonite Central Committee staff, Religion News Service and MWR staffNEW YORK — Mennonite Central Committee co-sponsored a meeting of about 300 international religious and political figures, including Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Sept. 25 to discuss the role of religion in responding to global challenges and building peace and understanding between societies.
Religious and political figures, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met Sept. 25 for an international dialogue on the role of religion in building peace. President Ahmadinejad addresses the audience. — Photo by MCC
MCC and the other co-sponsors faced criticism for meeting with Ahmadinejad, who has been labeled an international pariah for his nuclear ambitions, denial of the Holocaust, saber-rattling toward Israel and alleged support of terrorism.
“Jesus ate with lepers and with tax collectors, and in the United States right now, Iran would be in that category,” said Arli Klassen, MCC executive director. “The criticisms levied at Jesus were that he ate with … people of ill repute, and we’re getting similar criticisms.”
Several Jewish, Christian and secular groups protested Iranian Ahmadinejad’s participation in the dialogue. “Ahmadinejad represents a rejection of everything these religious groups stand for,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “Their breaking bread with President Ahmadinejad is a perversion of the search for peace and an appalling betrayal of religious values.”
The dialogue was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, MCC, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace and World Council of Churches.
At the meeting, held at a Manhattan hotel, Klassen lit an oil lamp as a symbol of faith and invited participants to reflect on peacemaking from their faith perspectives.
“As a Christian, I believe that we are following Jesus Christ’s example and his teaching as we eat together and hold this dialogue despite our many differences,” she said.
Klassen noted several areas of tension in relations between Iran, the United States and other nations. Addressing Ahmadinejad, Klassen raised concerns about his statements on the Holocaust and Israel, Iran’s nuclear program and religious freedom in Iran.
“We ask you to find a way within your own country to allow for religious diversity, and to allow people to make their own choices as to which religion they will follow,” Klassen said.
The theme of the dialogue was “Has not one God created us? The significance of religious contributions to peace.” A series of panelists shared Jewish, Muslim and Christian perspectives on addressing poverty, injustice, environmental degradation and war.
Comments
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One of the things I thought about as I read this article is if only British PM Neville Chamberlain had asked Mennonite pacifists to attend the meeting with Hitler at Munich and bring with them peace lamps to gaze into as they dialogue, WWII may have been averted.
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Sadly, the Mennonite Church I once knew has lost its way and decided to engage in the political sphere. It was not so long ago when I attended Hesston College that one of my professors expressed his concern to me that running for office in Hesston might be too much engagement with the "Principalities and Powers". Now, MCC is formally inviting members of CAIR and the Iranian President to sup.
What MCC is doing is giving these evil people political and ethical cover. These individuals will point to meetings like this to show those who criticize them that groups like MCC were willing to talk to them, thus justifying their evil as being "not too bad".
Tragically, the primary reason that MCC is engaging in this disastrous policy is their opposition to US foreign policy; and thus do we return to the politicization of MCC. By choosing to engage in the politics of the USA, MCC has decided to fete opponents of US foreign policy. This dinner was nothing more than a political stunt to oppose US foreign policy, but it aligns MCC with terrorists and human rights abusers. That anyone from the Mennonite Church would deign to even sit in a room with these men without vomiting out their conscience speaks directly to the quality of current moral thinking in the church and the place of politics in the church. If the church believes that the US is in similar or equal measure as culpable in evil acts as Iran, then it is incumbent on the church to take action to remove themselves from supporting the US in any manner, to the extent that the church should consider a modern exodus such as occurred out of Germany, or out of Russia; but in opposing US foreign policy, the church should in no way or manner align themselves with or give any credence to the execrable societies who also happen to be opposed to US foreign policy.
I highly recommend that the church revisit the reasons that the church founders were opposed to participation in the political sphere. Politics by nature is an exercise of compromise. MCC has chosen to compromise their moral standing by giving a forum to and standing with those who actively serve evil ends.
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The scriptures are clear on Ishmael, the son of the flesh. Father Abraham sent the lad down the road and he was become a great people in size. God asked us to follow Holiness which is separation from the world. If Isaac is the son of God's promises, we can't have both. I see us honoring Israel will bless us and segregating from the Muslims as the right thing to do. Our gift is love, compassion and salvation message and NOT political appeasement. I do not believe the Anabaptists are prepared for policital moves of this nature.
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I approve of MCC's action in talking with other leader's. Actually, we are siding with the USA government if we do not talk with the highest powers that our government despises.
How will we win people to Christ if we do not talk with them?
What if the Apostle Paul had refused to testify before King Agrippa, etc.? Paul appealed to speak to higher unfriendly leaders.
A friend of mine worked in Iran for some years and during that time he talked with the leaders of Iran. That is one reason that MCC can work in Iran and has good relationships with the leaders and people of Iran. You negotiate with those who do not agree with you. You do not need to persuade those who already agree with you.
We know too little of the thinking of leaders of other countries. The more we talk with them the more we will understand them and the more they will understand us. We need more understanding, not the criticism of those we disagree with. We need to talk issues, not hate people.
"May thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
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September 26, 2008 by Dexter Van Zile
Rev.'s Kinnamon and Thomas Get it Right on Ahmadinejad
Two prominent leaders from the world of mainline Protestantism in the United States took Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls for the destruction of Israel seriously. One condemned his violent rhetoric and another refused to break bread with the man for fear that doing so would only serve to legitimize the Iranian president.
Rev. Dr. Kinnamon
Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches condemned Ahmadinejad in a letter that was read at the protest rally in New York City on September 22, 2008. The statement reads in part, as follows:
Provocative, belligerent rhetoric is the enemy of peace! Therefore, those who claim to be peacemakers must know when to say No! to rhetoric that threatens the neighbor. Now is such a time.
President Ahmadinejad’s hateful language, denying the Holocaust and apparently calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” must be persistently and forcefully denounced by all who value peace. The Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ and a leader in the National Council of Churches, has put it this way: “Revisionist history of genocide must never be accorded credibility among civilized people of any faith tradition. Anti-semitic efforts to rewrite evil events—not new in history or unknown even in the United States—endanger the Jewish people, disgrace faith communities who perpetuate them or choose to remain silent in their presence, and degrade the value of human life everywhere.” Indeed, we must not be silent when others use their voices to incite violence.
Such rhetoric has another consequence: It makes it difficult to trust other things that the person says. If President Ahmadinejad has so little regard for the verifiable facts of history and the legitimacy of a state created by UN decision, it is hard to believe he means it when he insists that Iran’s nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes. And as he continues that program in defiance of Security Council resolutions, he also shows his contempt for the community of nations.
Rev. Dr. Kinnamon’s ringing condemnation of Ahmadinejad is a welcome change from the NCC’s previous willingness to carry water for the Iranian president. After meeting with him in 200,7 Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, associate general secretary for interfaith relations at the NCC, unquestioningly relayed the Iranian president’s propagandistic line. “Ahmadinejad insists that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon,” he explained. “Indeed, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni, under whose authority the nuclear program rests, has issued a ‘fatwa’ (edict) that making or using nuclear weapons goes against Islamic teaching.”
Apparently, Rev. Dr. Kinnamon, a pastor in the Disciples of Christ, is taking a more responsible approach to the Iranian President's hostility.
Rev. Thomas
In a carefully worded statement issued on Sept. 25, 2008, Rev. John Thomas, president and general minister of the United Church of Christ announced that he had declined an invitation to attend a dinner with Ahmadinejad co-sponsored by a number of groups including the Mennonite Central Committee and the World Council of Churches. Rev. Thomas, who has previously condemned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust, said in part:
In previous public statements I have objected strongly to the rhetoric of President Ahmadinejad, rhetoric regarding the State of Israel and the historicity of the Holocaust that is deeply disturbing to all who believe in Israel's right to exist and who acknowledge the on-going pain that the Holocaust and its memory still evokes. While the organizers of this event certainly hope to raise their concern over this rhetoric with President Ahmadinejad, I am not convinced this will be effective. To the contrary, I fear the occasion can and will be used by President Ahmadinejad to claim legitimacy and support for himself by an association with respected United States religious leaders. I respect the sponsoring organizations' intent for dialogue, but fear that the more likely outcome is sowing confusion and disappointment among our own members and, in particular, the American Jewish community.
Rev. Thomas did not condemn those who participated in the dinner, but he did reveal that the World Council of Churches co-sponsored the meal without consulting its member churches in the United States. He also indicated that this is not the first time he has raised concerns about the WCC’s interactions with Ahmadinejad.
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is much worse than, as Mark Graham calls him, "a figure who holds reprehensible views." He is a despot who must be rebuked, not given a stage and an audience. People who honor him with a Ramadan fast-breaking feast under the guise of interfaith dialogue define themselves, for starters, as enemies of the people and the state of Israel. This is dangerous ground to tread.
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Just how would Jesus deal with the Iranian President's rhetoric? Would it be like he did with Satan, being tempted in the desert? We are appalled at MCC's co-sponsoring of this event.
Then, do we see the handwriting on the wall of how the Anti-Christ will make peace for a time, and then violently turn the tables? It seems that our Mennonite 'leftists' are a ONE ISSUE blindsided group that have been taken in by a candidate's charisma and rhetoric, leaving out his training, activities, and personal associations with the Muslim, anti-white, and Black activists.
To say, "America is no longer a Christian Nation" is a frightening statement to make by a presidential candidate professing to be a Christian. When Christ says that He is the ONLY way to God, how then can we compromise with, appease, patronize, and try to pacify other ideologies? We are in a struggle for the hearts and minds of man.
Ephesians 6:10-13a "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. FOR OUR STRUGGLE IS NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD, BUT AGAINST THE RULERS, AGAINST THE AUTHORITIES, AGAINST THE POWERS OF THIS DARK WORLD AND AGAINST THE SPIRITUAL FORCES OF EVIL IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS. Therefore put on the full armor of God..." (NIV)
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Mennonites by now are a sadly misled people, but it is not because they are engaging in dialogue (with a "long spoon" at that) with Iran's president, and not because they have "turned political;" Christianity has always had political implications. It is because they are so blinded by Bush-style American propaganda over the last seven decades that they do not realize that the Christian message has no more in common with American civil religion or with modern Judaism (or Zionism) than it does with contemporary Islam. They are blind enough that they have forgotten Jesus's teachings that the church is the new Israel, and its adherents the faithful descendants of Abraham, meanwhile giving undue deference to a contrived self-defined geographical Jewish entity in Palestine.
Without apologizing for violent Islamic extremists (who strike me as being no more dangerous than Israeli Mossad agents and our own secret society equivalents and their progeny, and who at least in some cases may BE the progeny of Western intelligence apparatuses), at least some of these Islamic extremists want nothing more for society than what our Anabaptist forebears wanted — an end to predation and domination, and a turning from a culture of decadence. We should continue to wisely try to make common cause with more moderate leaders from the Muslim world, like Iran's president who has been grotesquely vilified and misquoted in the U.S. media. For anyone who says "don't talk to Ahmadinejad," I say, what have you done to protest our own torturer-in-residence Bush? What credibility do any of our recent American political and economic leaders have after all? They are from the same casting agency which has now brought us the financial cataclysm of 2008, with the unfortunate passive acquiescence of our post-War Mennonite leaders.
Last week in Fresno I was privileged to hear Robb Davis, former MCC executive secretary and one of the initiators of MCC's dialogue with the Iranian president. He impressed me as being a devout disciple of Jesus and not at all naive about political realities, including about Ahmadinejad's motives. He was apparently convinced to step down from his position amidst ambiguous circumstances, but MCC has wisely continued to dialogue — I just wish MCC would also be more sagacious about the creeping totalitarianism of U.S. and global financial elites that is now even more of a threat to our way of life than Islamic extremism.
The above comments should not be construed as consistent with any of the beliefs of Robb Davis or any other person, including the "Christian leftists" to whom the Ahmadinejad dialogue and other bleeding heart initiatives are frequently attributed.
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I agree that American leaders have intentionally demonized Ahmadinejad for the purposes of inciting a war whose main victims would be the same Iranian civilians whose suffering we now decry. And I am not worried that Mennonites are "too political" — I think that faithful discipleship requires faithful witness to the powers and principalities, and that witness can come in many forms.
Yet I am troubled by MCC's choice and mode of dialogue with Ahmadinejad, because I do not think that MCC (and Mennonites in general) have taken sufficient pro-active steps to publicly recognize and address our anti-Semitism, past and present, and rebuild our relationships with our Jewish brothers and sisters. I agree with John Kampen that this work is also critical if we hope to "speak words of peace" in the Middle East context.
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