A Heartfelt Apology

Think all Christian churches toe the line when it comes to the Republican political agenda? Think again.

In a sign that we at Holier Than Thou find extremely encouraging, representatives of 34 members of the World Council of Churches (which includes Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist denominations, among others) recently released a statement that many within the Bush Administration are sure to find troubling.

The sharply worded statement, released at the WCC’s global assembly in Brazil last week, slammed the Bush Administration for WHAT?

(Hint: There is more than one correct answer here...)


A) The Iraq War, which it claims was “launched in deception.”
B) Refusing to back international accords aimed at curbing global warming and treating the world’s “finite resources as if they are private possessions.”
C) The response to Hurricane Katrina, which “revealed to the world those left behind in our own nation by the rupture of our social contract.”
D) The treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, which violates “the fundamental Christian belief in the dignity of the human person.”


ANSWER
A (Iraq War), B (Global Warming) and C (Hurricane Katrina).

The statement about Guantanamo Bay was not made U.S. members of the World Council of Churches, but by the affiliated U.S. National Council of Churches, which has formally asked the administration to close the detention centers there.

The WCC statement, meanwhile, asked for worldwide forgiveness for not doing enough to stop the Bush Administration’s “raining down terror on the truly vulnerable among our global neighbors,” and “entering into imperial projects that seek to dominate and control for the stake of national interests.”

The statement went on to conclude that “Nations have been demonized and God has been enlisted in national agendas that are nothing short of idolatrous.”