A plea to Christian Brothers

May 5, 2006

URGENT
TO: S-----
(meeting w/ J-- today)
FR: Jay McGinley 484 356 6243

STAND WITH, to RESTORE DARFUR

“We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer. Mere waiting and looking is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and acting, not in the first place by his own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brethren, for whose sake Christ suffered.”*
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1943
Letters & Papers from Prison

1. NO JOY FROM THE IMPENDING PEACE DEAL
Yes, I weep upon reading of the impending peace deal this morning. But more dread, than joy is what I feel. Dread that we who have been watching can now turn our heads because Darfur is “saved.”
2. IS DARFUR NOW SAVED? NO.
Was Europe “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. They still lived in Hell. They were saved when the Marshall Plan was COMPLETED.
Were the remaining Jews “saved” when Germany surrendered? No. Many were saved when a nation (the Jewish state? I’m no historian) re-built a civilization around them.
“Peace is not the absence of injustice [indifference, neglect], it is the presence of Justice [Love]. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3. NOTHING IS ACHIEVED UNTIL DARFUR IS RESTORED
Jesus lives among the 3 million in the camps. Do we feel better now with the peace agreement? We’re done, right? We have done nothing. People there, most, would find death a mercy, compared with the Hell that now awaits them. The hell of DESTITUION. The hell of utter DESTRUCTION. The hell of ABANDONMENT.
4. WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE LEADERS. WE MUST MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
This was said eloquently by a Senator (?) in DC Sunday (April 30, 2006).
Who are our leaders. Shane? Jim? I think it may be you two. WE MUST DISCOVER HOW TO MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FOLLOW.
5. THE COST TO SAVE DARFUR IS LIVES FREELY GIVEN
No, I don’t understand this. But it saved South Africa, American Slaves, India from the Brittish…. It’s absence caused the slaughter in Rwanda, Armenia, among the Jews in Germany, Cambodia…. I expect to give my life a third time to RESTORE Darfur beginning around May 14 in DC. My guess is that I will undertake a 40 day Hunger Strike to Restore Darfur.
Shane, I beg your brotherhood, toward my discernment, toward my attempt to be Christian. Toward my attempt to RESTORE DARFUR.