"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it. ..All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. I've had enough of reading things by neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth." - John Lennon, 1971.
In Ray Coleman's biography of John Lennon, he quotes the artist circa 1969, "I'd like to be like Christ, [he described himself as a Christian communist] in a pure sense, not in the way Russia or Italy think of Christianity or communism...Every body's uptight [fearful] and they're always building these walls around themselves. All you can do is try to break down the walls and show them that there's nothing there but people. I only know that peace can exist, and the first thing is for the world to disarm. I think I'll win because I believe in what Jesus said." [1]
WAR IS OVER-Merry Christmas from the London Catholic Worker
"How can you kill people, when it is written in God's commandment: "Thou shalt not murder'?" -Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Tolstoy greatly influenced Dorothy Day and is one of many pioneers in the global Christian liberation movement understood as Christian Anarchism.
Christian anarchists know inner freedom comes by way of doing the teachings of Jesus for Christianity is more than a religion; it offers a new vision of life.
Christian anarchists are critical of outer authority, be it Church or Government.
All individuals have free will and can choose whether or not to seek and knock at the door of ones own heart and communicate with God.
Jesus envisioned a society based on love and tolerance, which is completely incompatible with war and all violence.
When Jesus was mocked, whipped and nailed to a cross and remained NONVIOLENT he was over throwing the status quo of violent retaliation and eye-for-an-eye mentality.
Not many of his followers have been able to drink from that cup of The Prince of Peace, which is another name for Jesus Christ who commanded his followers to LOVE all people and to forgive in order to be forgiven.
Tolstoy understood that the command "Thou shalt not murder" meant that all governments who wage war are directly affronting the Christian principles that should guide all life, and shouldn't being pro-life really be about honoring the sacredness of every life that already is?
Tolstoy wrote to separate Orthodox Russian Christianity which had merged with the State, for it left behind the true message of Jesus Christ, as contained in the Gospels, specifically the Sermon on the Mount and of which I have written about-Read more...
Dorothy Day lived a diverse 83 years that culminated in 1980. She spent her youth amongst anarchists and bohemians, in bars and through unhappy love affairs. She ended life with a mile high FBI file and a paper trail that testifies that what she wrote, she believed, she did and lived.
As an unwed mother she shocked her progressive friends when she entered the Roman Catholic Church, and from the inside, she began to critique it. She called herself a journalist, but she was also like St. Francis of Assisi, a lone prophetic voice of wisdom that challenged the corruption of the gospel/good news that Jesus said was non-negotiable for his follower's; you must forgive to be forgiven and you must love-even those who do not love back.
In a 1994 issue of The Progressive , Erwin Knoll reported "the day after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor [was] a day when even the most committed pacifist might have been forgiven for maintaining a discreet silence"There was nothing discreet about Dorothy Day."[2]
On the Sunday after Pearl Harbor, Day spoke out, "There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European colonialism in this same area. We, the British, the French, and others set up spheres of influence"control national states-against the expressed will of these states-and represent imperialism"We dictate to [all] "to where they can expand economically and politically, and we declare what policy they must observe. From our nationalistic and imperialistic point of view, we have every right to concentrate American military forces [Everywhere we chose]"But I waste rhetoric on international politics-the breeding grounds of war over the centuries. The balance of power and other empty slogans inspired by a false and flamboyant nationalism have bred conflict throughout 'civilized' history.
"And it has become too late in human history to tolerate wars which none can win. Nor dare we quibble about just wars"All wars are, by their very nature, evil and destructive. It has become too late for civilized people to accept this evil. We must take a stand. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy"Evil enough when the finest of our youth perish in conflict and even the causes of these conflicts were soon lost to memory. Even more horrible today when cities go up in flames and brilliant scientific minds are searching out ultimate weapons.
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