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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!yetti!peter
From: peter@yetti.UUCP (Runge)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Easter and the Arms Race
Message-ID: <135@yetti.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Apr-85 21:22:56 EST
Article-I.D.: yetti.135
Posted: Fri Apr  5 21:22:56 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Apr-85 04:42:37 EST
Organization: York U. Comp.Sci. Downsview, ONT.
Lines: 43

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At this time of year, the radio and TV remind me through news stories
of ceremonies in Rome and Jerusalem and through Biblical movies on the
"Late Show" that many, many of my neighbors feel themselves to be Christians
in a Christian country (whether Canada where I live, or the US where I grew up),
and, as at every Easter, I am struck with bewilderment at what they profess
to believe.

Is it really part of Christian belief that in order to resist (or conquer?)
a different culture which is hostile to Christian faith and perhaps hostile
to all other cultures, Christians ought to threaten to destroy mankind, and to
invest their country's wealth at an ever increasing rate in the production
of weapons of mass-destruction?

Is the Crucifixion then a symbol of what we ought to do to ourselves? If so,
then why do Christians celebrate Easter, which is, as I understand it, a triumph
over death?

If not -- if massive, horrible death at the hands of our brothers (and hence
at our own hands, in a sense) is not what the Crucifixion symbolizes, then
why are we told daily by our leaders (almost all Christian, as far as I know)
that this is what we as a society should make ourselves capable of?  

What did Jesus teach that leads my Christian neighbors to support the
development of the means of global death and the sincere threatening of
global death? Or is it that Christianity as a religion is not deeply concerned
with this issue? Is it then the message of Easter and the resurrection that only
after we are dead (individually or as a species?) does religion really matter?

(I know that some Christians are not "on-side" with respect to developing
more weapon systems and threatening global annihilation,
but they are obviously a minority -- a deviant group.  I am more interested
in understanding the majority, mainstream view of the Christians who support
Reagan and Weinberger and the American "defense" budget.
Explanations of the connection between the faith of this majority and their
views on arms and nuclear "war" whether by mail or by posting will be
gratefully received. If you send me mail on this topic, please let me know
if you permit me to comment on your response in a further posting.)
-- 
                     * *Our* universe is not merely bankrupt; there remains
                     * no dividend at all; it has not simply liquidated; it
                     * is going clean out of existence ...
                     *                          H. G. Wells, 1945