Peacemaking is Evangelism writes Pastor Ryan Bell at the recently launched site ReligiousLiberty.TV: "Peacemaking – announcing and enacting peace in our world – is evangelism. It is bearing the good news to a 
world awash in violence, war, poverty, disease and every other injustice. The good news of God’s kingdom envisioned by the prophets (Isaiah most notably), incarnate in the person of Jesus and taught by him in passages like the Beatitudes, is a good news of God’s shalom gaining the upper hand in the world....
[B]eing peacemakers in God’s kingdom today means speaking and acting for justice for the poor, the outcast, and the war-torn....In short, being peacemakers in God’s kingdom means being radically committed to overcoming evil with good." more
Adventist Pastor Protests Extra-Judicial Killings and Environmental Destruction With Marathon Walk. Edervin Samson, a 58-year-old Seventh Day Adventist pastor in the Philippines, launched a walk in June from his hometown in Matanao, Davao del Sur to Aparri in Cagayan Valley to dramatize his call for an end to unabated extrajudicial killings of journalists, militants, and suspected criminals, plus massive environment destruction.... more
The Army's Recruitment Game. In "America's Army," the  official -- and enormously popular game of the U.S. Army, "most of the gameplay takes place in cyberspace where virtual Mideast cities, hospitals and oil rigs serve as backdrops for players to obliterate each other," writes Michael Reagan at truthout.org. But, he says, the game's "realism" in fact is an attempt "to mask the violent reality of combat for very specific purposes," such as exposing technologically savvy, college bound students to "positive messaging about the Army" and "increase the likelihood that these Americans would including Soldiering in their set of career alternatives," as the colonel who came up with the recruitment stratagem puts it. more
U.S. to Continue Use of Cluster Bombs in Defiance of Mult-National Ban. The Friends Committee on National Legislation reports on the Pentagon's announcement in July that the U.S. military will continue to use and export even the most unreliable cluster bombs over the next decade -- a policy declaration coming on the heels of an agreement by 111 nations, including major NATO allies, to a global treaty banning cluster bombs. more
How the War on Terror Became a War on American Ideals. In a new book, journalist Jane Mayer contends that "radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to enhance Presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment."
In an interview with Bill Moyers, she talks about some perhaps surprising "first lines of defense" against the administration's "enhanced interrogation policies," the "torture works" rationale, and more.
 Making Peace an Election Campaign Issue. "At a time when we desperately need a president to remind us we have nothing to fear but fear itself, we are increasingly being treated to a presidential campaign driven by fear," writes Robert Scheer at truthdig. "Both candidates supported the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has everything to do with violating the basic freedoms of our citizens and nothing to do with making them safer." more
How can we be peacemakers in the setting of an increasingly fear-driven campaign? The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker lobby in the public interest, provides questions and facts useful in drawing candidates' attention to the interests of peace. What about budget priorities, for example, in a time when the president's request for military spending in the 2009 surpasses the amount spent by the rest of the world combined?
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