CPT Sunday

About CPT Sunday

In 1990 CPT began sending short-term peacemaker delegations to Iraq, Haiti, Israel/Palestine and several North American locations. By 1993 it became clear that CPT needed people trained in nonviolence and peacemaking skills to be available for longer periods of time. Today CPT has a Corps of 18 full-time members and 70 part-time Reservists representing the spectrum of Christian denominations prepared to enter emergency situations of violent conflict at the invitation of local peacemakers.

Currently, CPT maintains full-time violence-reduction teams in the West Bank city of Hebron, the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, and Burnt Church, New Brunswick with the Esgenoτpetitj (es-guh-NO-buh-ditch) First Nation. Short-term peacemaker delegations continue to visit these areas as well as Vieques Island, Puerto Rico; Colombia; Lakota country in South Dakota; and Grassy Narrows, Ontario.

CPT's 11-member Steering Committee representing Brethren, Mennonites and Quakers encourages churches to join in celebrating our common ministry of violence reduction and in summoning the courage to carry on the work of active peacemaking as did the founders of our faith traditions.

About Hiroshima Day

August 6 marks the day in 1948 when the first atomic bomb was dropped, wiping out the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, Nagasaki was decimated by a second nuclear attack.

The production and use of nuclear weapons may well be the greatest un-repented sin of the 20th century. Surely the church must be clear that it is a sin to build a nuclear weapon. To make this statement once a year on or near August 6 could be a small, but significant, step towards necessary repentance which could lead to healing.

About "Getting in the Way"

*Resources will be available each summer for churches to use in highlighting CPT during worship on the Sunday nearest August 6 or other Sunday as appropriate.

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"Militarism and Nuclearism – in the Shadow of Babylon" by John Stoner

The statistics are shocking:

• 47% of the U.S. budget for FY 2001 is dedicated to military spending – 23% ($325 billion) for current military expenditures; 24% ($334 billion) for past military spending. (see www.nonviolence.org/wrl);
• Canada ranks 10th in world military spending with an $11 billion "defence" budget;
• the U.S. spent $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons between 1940 and 1998;
• the major powers possess some 35,000 nuclear weapons;
• the uranium used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was mined and refined in Canada;

CPT has addressed militarism and nuclearism in a variety of ways.

• encouraged war tax resistance – participants at the 1992 CPT conference in Richmond, IN brought offerings of resisted war taxes with high ceremony and spiritual affirmation.
• opposed Project ELF – for six years CPT workers-in-training have joined with others in attempts to close the Navy's first strike communications trigger for nuclear-armed Trident Submarines in Northern Wisconsin.- resisted military occupation – in Haiti; in Hebron, West Bank; in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico; on the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques.

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Appeal for Negotiations to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons

To this end, we call for negotiations to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons in a series of well defined stages accompanied by increasing verification and control....

Signed by Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and others.

The full text of the statement is available on the Internet at http://www.fourthfreedom.org/denuclearization/appeal3.html

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Worship Resources

Suggested Songs from Hymnal: A Worship Book (Believers' Church Hymnal)

• #366 - God of Grace and God of Glory
• #367 - For the Healing of the Nations
• #372 - O Healing River
• #371 - Let There Be Light, Lord God
• #546 - Guide My Feet

A Prayer for the World

We lie shackled to Empire that invites us
into denial, despair, amnesia,
and when that happens,
your people become shoppers.
Empire's mantra tells us to
GO ALONG
if we want to
GET ALONG.
Our churches sit dormant under the narcotic of
liturgies designed to accommodate the people to
Empire, producing custodians of the dominant power,
making them feel good enough to carry on,
but not guilty enough to do anything dangerous.

In the face of the demands of Jubilee,
we sometimes find ourselves
acting and believing that there is
no one greater than Nebuchadnezzar.

O God of the Exiles,
give words to your poets.

For poets make no concessions to Babylon,
they write poetry that undermines
the prose of Empire;
They dance.
Poets speak the ordinary things of faith
that the Empire considers outrageous.

Give strength to your people who believe--
that we are saved for the world, not from it;
that peace, like war, is waged
that discipleship means being redemptively
involved in the world's pain
at some cost to ourselves;
that, if not outrageous,
poetry has no power to give life;
that the principalities and powers are not
in charge of this world.

Give words to your poets,
these repairers of breaches
and restorers of streets to live in;
your poets who know that,
while words of release are dangerous,
they emancipate.
They give life.
Because of Christ
in whose name we pray. Amen

Reprinted from Baptist Peacemaker, the Journal of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America; 4800 Wedgewood Drive, Charlotte, NC 28210.

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CPT Litany

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Ideas for Sermons and Adult Sunday School

1. Fire From Heaven – Luke 9:51-56; II Kings 1

2. A Covenant of Ecology and Peace – Hosea 2:14-23

3. A Golden Nuclear Statue – Daniel 3

"When that which is immoral is the only thing which is legal, then that which is illegal has become the only thing which is moral." – John Stoner

Additional Texts: Psalm 20:6-8; Psalm 33:13-22; Isaiah 31:1-5; Matthew 5; Mark 5:1-13 (Legion = Roman military legion); Luke 6, John 13; Ephesians 6:12.

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Action Ideas for Congregations and Meetings

• Commission and support one Peacemaker Corps member.
• Send one person on a two-week CPT delegation.
• Place CPT in your church budget.
• Identify a contact person to receive CPT's e-mail reports and to share key matters with the congregation or meeting.

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Special Projects and Activities:

Witness Against Violent Toys: CPT Sunday is a good time to form a task force or invite the peace and justice committee of you congregation to initiate plans for a public witness against violent toys in one of your local stores during the holiday season. CPT believes that 500 congregations/meetings challenging local retailers about their inventory of violent toys could have a significant impact on the marketing of violence as entertainment to children in North America. Organizing packets available.

Organize a Letter-Writing Table after Sunday Morning Worship: Invite church members to write letters urging Christian leaders to lead the nation to repentance for the production, use and threatened use of nuclear weapons. Call on them to make a simple declaration: "It's a sin to build a nuclear weapon." Leadership for disarmament by influential Christian voices in the United States is embarrassingly absent.

Rev. Jerry Falwell
The Old Time Gospel Hour
Lynchburg VA 24514

Rev. James Dobson
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995

Rev. Pat Robertson
The Christian Broadcasting Network
977 Centerville Turnpike
Virginia Beach VA 23463

For further action ideas visit the following web sites:

• www.cpt.org/
• www.nonviolence.org/nukewatch/
• www.disarmament.org
• www.fourthfreedom.org

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Peacemaking Stories for Adults

Background on ELF: Nuclear Trigger in the North Woods

The Trident submarine fleet and its 30-year-old ELF communication trigger constitute the costliest and deadliest weapon system in history. Total long-term costs for the Trident fleet are estimated at $155 billion, with each of 18 subs costing $1.9 billion. With the latest multi-targeting techniques, the nuclear missiles on a single Trident can incinerate over 192 separate places. Evidence indicates that the ELF system was used to transmit signals in the December 1998 attacks against Iraq.

Christian Peacemakers "Expose the Wounds" Caused by ELF

Clam Lake, Wisconsin – Eighty people from around North America including 17 members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) gathered in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to "expose the wounds" caused by the U.S. Navy's Project ELF (Extremely Low Frequency), a nuclear submarine communications facility located in northern Wisconsin.

After individuals named the wounds that ELF and nuclear terror have caused to humanity, the environment, and our culture, they sprinkled cups full of blood-red liquid on the snow near the entrance, creating a large gash. Sixteen individuals, including nine CPTers, then crossed the line into federal property to continue naming wounds and praying for healing inside the transmitter compound.

Six people climbed the inner fence in an attempt to get as close to the transmitter as possible. Claire Evans, a full- time CPT worker in Chicago, IL, was carried to a squad car by police officers after refusing to leave. "It's a sinful thing to even think of nuclear warfare – and we are so blasι about it!" she said. "I resisted arrest here to convey a sense of urgency about this situation."

Matt Guynn, a Bethany Seminary student (Richmond, IN) who was also arrested, said, "During today's witness, I was thinking of Jesus' speech in the fourth chapter of Luke. After proclaiming good news to the poor and freedom for everyone who suffers, he says, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled.' Hearing Jesus say 'Today,' resonated in my mind as I climbed the fence at ELF."

Seven CPTers, including Evans, Guynn, Rusty Dinkins-Curling (Portland, OR), Michael Goode (Chicago, IL), Lisa Martens (Brandon, MB), Carl Meyer (Millersburg, IN), and Mary Alice Shemo (Pittsburgh, PA) were arrested and taken to the Ashland County Jail, where they were released after being charged with trespassing. All were subject to a fine of $181.00 and loss of Wisconsin driving privileges if they failed to pay.

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International Inspection Team Refused Entry to U.S. Nuclear War "Trigger" Site

On January 18, 1998 an international citizens' inspection team was prevented from entering the U.S. Navy's strategic communications facility known as Project ELF in Wisconsin. Twenty-two citizen inspectors from the U.S. and Canada were arrested for trespassing as they entered the site. Twelve of those arrested were members of CPT. Eighty other citizens shut down the main gate into the facility and posted signs such as "ELF is a Crime Wave" and "Closed Due to Lack of Enemies."

This was the first ever citizens inspection of a nuclear weapons facility in the U.S. Nine such citizen inspections have been conducted in Europe.

Fifteen prominent U.S. lawyers, including former Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, issued an open letter stating that "there is a right and responsibility for U.S. citizens to inspect such facilities to determine whether their operation is a violation of international and domestic law."

The inspection team believes that the Navy's Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) transmitter operates in violation of international laws banning weapons of mass destruction. The ELF transmitter's sole purpose is to send signals to the Navy's Trident submarines when they are deeply submerged in ocean waters within striking distance of other nations. Each Trident is capable of carrying up to 120 nuclear warheads, every one of which is 5 to 25 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that obliterated Hiroshima.

In July 1996 the International Court of Justice ruled that first strike nuclear facilities, such as the ELF/Trident system, are illegal under international law.

CPTers arrested were: Nait Alleman (Harrisonburg VA), Kay Bond (Grand Rapids MI), Jamey Bouwmeester (Elgin IL), Chris Buhler (Waterloo, ON), Kryss Chupp (Chicago IL), Ann Herman (Binghamton NY), Joanne Kaufman (Boulder CO), Claire Evans (Chicago, IL), Doug Pritchard (Toronto, ON), Sydney Stigge-Kaufman (Seabrook, TX), Lynn Stoltzfus (Harrisonburg, VA) and Josh Trost (Grinnell, IA).

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The Sword and the Cross

Toronto, ON – On March 23, 1999 four CPTers and supporters joined 15 others at the Sword and the Cross war memorial at St. Paul's Anglican Church to call on Toronto's church leaders to remove the bronze sword from this stone cross as a public renunciation of the Just War doctrine. This was the sixth in a series of monthly vigils which urged the Christian church to reconsider its 1700 year history of supporting war.

This particular vigil commemorated Archbishop Oscar Romero's homily on March 23, 1980 in which he challenged the government of El Salvador to "Stop the Repression!" Prayers at the vigil were led by workers from Romero House, a reception center for refugees fleeing the dozens of wars which continue today. In his homily, Romero said to the soldiers, "No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin." The next day, March 24, 1980, he was assassinated while celebrating the Eucharist.

On Good Friday, CPTers joined 80 other Christians in a final vigil at the "Sword and the Cross" war memorial. They were met by 30 armed police directed by church officials standing beside a large sign which read, "Welcome to St. Paul's."

Those gathered felt compelled to take action to remove the sword imposed on the cross of Jesus by the false doctrine of "just" war. After a final prayer three witnesses crossed the fence into the enclosure around the war memorial and were immediately arrested. They were charged with "intent to commit mischief over $5,000" which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. Those arrested were: Don Heap, Anglican priest and former Member of Parliament; Bob Holmes, Catholic priest and CPT Reservist; and Len Desroches, Catholic writer and CPT nonviolence trainer.

More than three decades ago Martin Luther King Jr. challenged the church in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail: "If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century...Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?"

In 1999, St. Paul's Anglican Church chose the status quo by calling on the physical force of the state to protect its sword.

At their trial a year later in May, 2000, CPTer Bob Holmes testified, "The cross is the symbol of God's unconditional love of enemy. To put a sword there is blasphemous." Explaining his motivation, Len Desroches, who has facilitated CPT trainings in nonviolent action and public witness, said, "Putting a sword on the cross profoundly and dangerously confuses the Christian community. Military force is not the only force in the world. The empty cross itself is a powerful force. Christians must decide with which force they are allied."

The judge hearing the case reserved his decision until June, 2000.

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"Not One More Bomb"

Vieques, Puerto Rico – On May 1 and 2, a nine-member emergency CPT delegation traveled to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques to support hundreds of nonviolent resisters protesting the U.S. Navy's use of the island for bombing practice. With Marines stationed offshore, the U.S. Marshals and FBI moved in early May 4 and removed 217 protesters from 15 peace encampments so that Navy training operations could resume. Eight CPTers were among those airlifted in Marine helicopters to the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base on the main island of Puerto Rico where they were released later that afternoon. No charges were filed.

The U.S. Navy controls two-thirds of Vieques, population 9400, and has practiced military maneuvers there, including live bombing runs, since 1941. They claim it is so vital because it provides the most complete setting for in-depth training in all kinds of Navy weaponry.

When a stray bomb exploded in April 1999, killing civilian David Sanes, widespread opposition to U.S. military presence erupted throughout Puerto Rico. Churches, educators, fishers, unions, students and political organizations united to form thirteen nonviolent protest encampments both within and around the bombing area known as "the impact zone" as well as a blockade of the main entrance to the Navy's Camp Garcia. A recent poll indicated that 56% of the Puerto Rican people supported the civil disobedience encampments which successfully halted U.S. Navy training operations on Vieques for over a year.

The resolve among a broad base of Puerto Rican citizens crying "Not One More Bomb" remains strong. Two weeks after the May 4 raid, fifty-six activists, including four CPT delegation members were arrested again after crawling under the fence in an attempt to re-establish the nonviolent resistance camps. Vieques resident, Ismael Guadalupe, whose family's land was seized by the Navy in 1940, told CPTers, "The U.S. military uses our island to practice war. We want it to be an island where people practice peace."

CPTers developed the following statement in preparation for their witness on Vieques: "As people of faith we CPTers cross the fence as a declaration that it is Yahweh God who redeems, saves, and protects. It is not the U.S. military in all its posturing and violence. We cross with the local people who have borne the brunt of the side effects of bombing and preparations for U.S. military violence around the world. We cross in faith that empires fall in the face of truth, justice and nonviolence that for us is most clearly modeled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Emergency delegation members arrested on Vieques were: Andy Baker (Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL), Ambrosia Brown (Manchester College, N. Manchester, IN), John Buschert and Mark Byler (Goshen, IN), Peter DeMott, Teresa Grady and Mary Anne Grady Flores (Ithaca, NY), Duane Ediger (Dallas, TX), Sue Frankel-Streit (Goochland, VA), and Cliff Kindy (North Manchester, IN). Delegation members providing support for those in detention were Reservist JoAnne Lingle (Indianapolis, IN) and Corps member Dianne Roe (Corning, NY).

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Peacemaking Stories for Children

From Chiapas to Georgia: Young Peacemakers Work to Stop Violence

Actually, Rosa's village is a refugee camp. Her family, along with hundreds of other families, had to flee their own villages when groups of men, called paramilitaries, came with big guns and said, "You either join us, or we'll kill you." (They are called "paramilitaries" because the army secretly gives them weapons and even trains them how to shoot.) But Rosa and the others refused to join the violence. Instead, they ran to another village where they hoped they would be safe.

Life wasn't easy in the refugee camp. It was crowded. The people lived in small shelters with plastic and cardboard for walls. There was never enough water to drink, let alone do all the cooking and washing for so many people. Sometimes they only had tortillas to eat. But Rosa's people always kept their faith in God and a strong commitment to peace in their hearts.

Then one day a terrible thing happened. Many of Rosa's friends and neighbors were gathered together to pray for peace in a different refugee camp near the one where Rosa lived. The paramilitaries came there and began shooting the people while they prayed! Forty-five people were killed in that massacre.

Just a few days later, the army showed up in Rosa's refugee camp. They wanted to set up a base right there in the village! But the people said, "No way!" They knew that the soldiers with their guns would only bring more violence and they did NOT want guns in their community. So all the women and children went out to the edge of the village. They formed a line and would not let the soldiers pass.

Rosa's heart was pounding like crazy when she looked up into the face of the big, tall soldier coming towards her. But she was very brave. She put up her hands against the soldier's chest and told him that he and his gun were not welcome there.

For three days the soldiers stayed. For three days Rosa and the others refused to let them pass. They had no weapons but they had courage and the power of peace on their side. Finally the soldiers left.

Kori examined the colorful mural on the wooden wall that shows Rosa's story of keeping the soldier out. She heard the CPTers mention that many of the soldiers in Mexico are trained in Georgia at a place called the School of the Americas or SOA. Lots of soldiers who graduated from that school have been involved in torturing and killing innocent people like Rosa in other Latin American countries.

When Kori returned to her home in Chicago, she thought a lot about Rosa's people and their courage. One day she got a phone call asking if she'd like to sing with some other children at a big demonstration to close the School of the Americas. Kori said, "Mom, we have to go. For all the people in Chiapas, we have to go." So they went.

Kori's heart was pounding like crazy when she looked out over the crowd of 12,000 people. But she was very brave. Then she made another decision. She decided to "cross the line." She decided to join more than 4,000 other people who trespassed onto the military base where the SOA is located to help carry the message that the school must close.

She stood in front of the microphone and told the crowd in a timid voice that grew stronger and stronger, "I'm crossing the line today because I went to Chiapas and I saw how the people suffer. I'm crossing the line because we have to help the people of Chiapas so there will be no more massacres. I was born in Nicaragua where there was a war, so I'm crossing the line for my people too. This school is wrong and we have to close it down." Then Kori joined hands with other CPTers and crossed the line.

When those CPTers went back to Chiapas, they went to the little chapel where Rosa's whole community gathers for prayers every evening. After prayers, they told Rosa and the others about Kori's witness at the SOA and showed them pictures. A murmur spread through the crowd and people started asking questions: "Was she arrested?" "How long was she detained?" "Was it soldiers or police that put her on the bus?" "Was she afraid?"

Then Rosa stood up and said to the CPTers, "We ask that you take back our greetings to your friends and tell them our story. We especially send greetings to Kori, who is one of the most courageous of our friends for risking herself and for speaking out for the people here. Tell Kori to continue forward with her thoughts and efforts."

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