Truthdig – an online magazine that I read regularly – has published an excellent essay by Chris Hedges describing the anti-war protests of Phil and
Dan Berrigan during the 1960’s movement against the war in Vietnam. It is entitled “Resistance is the Supreme Act of Faith.”
I became a follower of Mr. Hedges’ work years ago when I read his excellent book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, reflecting on his many years as a war correspondent. It’s a book that I believe every American should read.
I have copied selected excerpts from the Truthdig article below. You can find the entire piece by clicking on the title above.
“The struggle against the monstrous radical evil that dominates our lives—an evil that is swiftly despoiling the earth and driving the human species toward extinction, stripping us of our most basic civil liberties and freedoms, waging endless war and solidifying the obscene wealth of an oligarchic elite at our
expense—will be fought only with the belief that resistance, however futile, insignificant and even self-defeating it may appear, can set in motion moral and spiritual forces that radiate outward to inspire others, including those who come after us. It is, in essence, an act of faith. Nothing less than this faith will sustain us. We resist not because we will succeed, but because it is right. Resistance is the supreme act of faith.”
…….
“The Berrigans, who identified as religious radicals, had little use for liberals. Liberals, they said, addressed only small, moral fragments and used their pet causes, in most cases, not to bring about systemic change, but for self-adulation. Liberals often saw wars or social injustices as isolated evils whose end would restore harmony.”
…….
“The Berrigans excoriated the church hierarchy for sacralizing the nation, the government, capitalism, the military and the war. They argued that the fusion of secular and religious authority would kill the church as a religious institution. The archbishop of New York at the time, Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, in one example, sprinkled holy water on B-52 bombers and blessed the warplanes 
before their missions in Vietnam. He described the conflict as a ‘war for civilization’ and ‘Christ’s war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam.’ Phil Berrigan, the first priest to go to jail for protesting the war, celebrated Mass for his fellow prisoners. The services were, for the first time, well attended.”
I, personally, wish that churchmen like the Berrigan brothers would include a more forthright, verbal witness to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in their lifestyle of public resistance.
On the other hand, they at least are/were doing the work that precious few evangelicals bother to think about.
I wish that religious activists like Chris Hedges, a former Harvard divinity student, could understand that the foundation stone of spiritual death in this world is not found in temporal systems of repression, whether social, political or economic, but are rooted in the all-pervasive nature of humanity’s sinfulness.
On the other hand, he at least publicly identifies and condemns the many evils that most evangelicals bless and embrace.
The kingdom of God on earth will never erupt from within. It is a foreign entity, a rule from witsout, that only arrives with the resurrected Jesus. I believe that this fact is the beginning of our only hope in life as well as in death.
But I also wish that more men and women who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ would also understand the essential, moral, spiritual continuity that ties Christian self-denial to our faithful resistance against all forms of evil, whether that evil shows itself in militarism, warfare, capitalism, nationalism, inequality, civil religion, racism, or injustice.
The church’s failure to make this connection consistently, to think and to behave with coherence across all these areas of life, cripple our witness, stunt our spiritual development, and abandon a needy world to the merchants of half-measures.
I encourage you to read Mr. Hedges’ weighty words and think about his lessons through the
lens of Jesus’ own ethics. Perhaps, my book I Pledge Allegiance can help, if this is a new exercise for you.
