SOUL FOOD:Christians hold vigils for peace

Four years into a war in Iraq waged by a professed Christian president who seems confidant he is doing God’s bidding, it can be easy to miss how many Christians don’t share his point of view. Tomorrow — to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq — many of these Christians across the nation will take action to be heard.

Among them will be members of St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church, 18631 Chapel Lane, Huntington Beach, which is hosting a “Christian Peace Witness for Iraq” vigil at 7 p.m. Friday. It is a spoke in a wheel set in motion by Sojourners, a Christian association of evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Pentecostals and Protestants dedicated to peace and justice.

As they see it, a “theology of war” is “emanating from the highest circles of American government” and “seeping into [America’s] churches as well.” An article titled “Confessing Christ in a World of Violence,” written largely by Sojourners Chief Executive Jim Wallis and published on its www.christianpeacewitness.org website, contends that “the roles of God, church, and nation are confused by talk of an American ‘mission’ and ‘divine appointment’ to ‘rid the world of evil.’ ”

The “Christian Peace Witness for Iraq” vigils hope to challenge that. Wallis’ discourse has been offered as a “statement of faith” for local vigils across the country set to coincide with a more massive vigil tomorrow night in Washington D.C.

More than 3,500 Christians from 48 states have registered to attend. They are expected to overflow the capacity of the National Cathedral where they will convene for worship. Later they will walk in a candlelight procession two-and-a-half miles down Massachusetts Avenue to the White House, where they will gather across Pennsylvania Avenue in Lafayette Park to pray for peace.

It’s hard to tell how many local gatherings are in the works. A search of the Christian Peace Witness website using my Huntington Beach zip code turns up 10 in Orange and Los Angeles counties, including the event at St. Wilfrid and another sponsored by the Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.

Sojourners has provided an online 12-page, printable booklet to local organizers titled “Toolkit” and subtitled “To Organize a Vigil Marking Four Years of War in Iraq.”

For Christian Kassoff, a member at St. Wilfrid — and the peace vigil coordinator — the booklet was something of a godsend, as he confesses to possessing meager organizational skills.

“I wanted to go to Washington and be part of something big but I couldn’t afford it,” he says. That became his incentive to form a vigil here.

What Kassoff lacks in experience as an organizer, he makes up for with eagerness. A Christian for four years now, he describes the past year as pivotal.

“I don’t have a long history of activism or even a long history as being a Christian,” he says. “It’s new and it’s coming on strong in me.”

For one thing, a three-week mission trip to Tanzania in February 2006 unearthed an ardor for making the world a better place in the 37-year-old husband and father with a 6-year-old son. “It kind of opened my eyes to global issues,” he said of the experience.

Until then, desperate situations halfway around the world, seen only on TV, never seemed quite real. What he saw in Tanzania changed that.

“It put the globe in perspective in terms of the haves and the have-nots,” Kassoff says. “The haves and the have-nots in America is one thing but it’s taken to a whole other level there.”

Discovering inconceivable material needs in Tanzania prompted one epiphany. Witnessing the love the people showed toward each other — their sense of community — engendered another.

Back home, Kassoff began to notice a change in himself. Jesus’ words, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” posed a new imperative for him.

“The war and the fighting is very important to me in that it affects children and the innocents,” he says. “There’s kids losing their families. There’s kids [in war-torn countries] going deaf and mute and wetting the bed and getting wounded and losing limbs that we don’t hear about.”

St. Wilfrid gladly allowed him to use the church for the vigil. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship took the lead in organizing the event.

From music to publicity, parishioners pitched in to help. Reverend Lee Walker, the church’s pastoral care minister, drew up a worship service based on one from the Sojourner “Toolkit.”

At the vigil, Walker will also offer a Christian perspective on war and peace. Nowhere, he says, did Jesus condone war in his teachings.

Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies. And when Peter struck a man with a sword to prevent his arrest, Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

As he sees it, some Christians too quickly embrace war as a means to end conflicts and threats. They point to Augustine’s theory of a just war without regard for what the early bishop in fact said.

“A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs,” wrote Augustine. “The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such things, all these are rightly condemned.”

He saw war as a terrible duty. A dreadful last resort.

The vigil at St. Wilfrid is open to people of all faiths and to those with no particular religious bent.

“It’s half planned and half in God’s hands,” Kassoff said. “Hopefully, the doors will be bursting.”

Before heading to St. Wilfrid, Pat Goodman will meet at Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue with a group she organized. They have gathered there one Thursday each month since September to promote the Declaration of Peace (www.declarationofpeace.org), which Goodman learned about through the community Pace e Bene.

Sunday evening, members of the local Visualize World Peace will make their stand for nonviolence as they have for years along Pacific Coast Highway in front of the Huntington Beach Pier. All are part of a growing movement of Christians plowing, as Walker would say, the fields of peace.