Tools for our time: congregations in a country at war

Speakers Summary

Daryl Byler, MCC Washington Office director

Current state of affairs (big picture)

The place of the United States in the world

	The United States consumes three times its fair share of the world's resources.
	The United States is the world's only economic and military superpower.
	U.S. military spending now exceeds the combined military spending of all other countries.

Costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been staggering:

1) human costs:

	between 20,000 to more than 100,000 Afghan and Iraqi civilians have died
	nearly 2,000 U.S. and coalition soldiers (90 percent U.S.) have died
	thousands of severe injuries on all sides

2) economic and opportunity costs:

Congress has already appropriated nearly $300 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (about $225 million a day is being spent in Iraq)

For what the U.S. has spent so far in Iraq--$162 billion--we could have instead:

- funded MCC's LINK work for more than 2,500 years
- paid salaries of 2.8 million public school teachers for one year
- provided health care for 97 million children for one year
- provided four-year scholarships to public universities for 7.8 million students
- fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 6 years
- fully funded global HIV/AIDS efforts for 16 years

3) relationship costs:

These wars seem to be contributing to growing anti-American sentiment; arguably making Americans less secure rather than more secure

Theological issues this raises for U.S. Christians

	What does it mean for us as Christians to be part of a nation that consumes three times its fair share of the world's resources? How is this consumption contributing to global insecurity and to the wars our nation is fighting?
	What unique responsibility do we have as Christians living in the world's only economic and military superpower?
	What does it mean for us to love neighbor as self--knowing that our nation's policies and practices have significant impact on our sisters and brothers around the world?
	What do we believe about the way security is created? How do we both model that belief as Anabaptist communities and call our nation to move closer toward the biblical vision of swords to plowshares and the day when nations will no longer study war?

Three practical next steps

	Ask how our lifestyles and how the policies of our nation are contributing to global insecurity.
	Listen carefully to the stories of our global sisters and brothers.
	As an initial step toward withdrawing troops from Iraq, ask the president and members of Congress to go on record stating that it is not the policy of the U.S. government to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

List of Resources mentioned