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Can great Christian divide be bridged?

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

- Micah 4:3-4

As members of the Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness interpreted that passage from the Hebrew prophet Micah, with help from the book "God's Politics," global security depends on economic security and justice for people around the world.

Bible readers from more theologically and politically conservative churches might view the passage in a different light.

"It looks to me like we have a lot of religious people in Lancaster County, but we don't seem to be reading the same Bible or coming to the same conclusions," one woman said at a recent meet-up of the peace witness group.

"It seems to me there ought to be a common ground at least. We're Christians, and we all believe in the Bible."

Finding that common ground is the task the Interchurch Peace Witness group has decided to take on.

As its discussion of "God's Politics" nears an end this week, organizers, some of whom consider themselves evangelicals too, are searching for ways they might engage other evangelical churches in a dialogue over the issues raised by Wallis' book.

"We believe that in Lancaster County and the surrounding region ... there are possibilities for a broadly based alliance of persons who will support a more adequate biblical agenda in terms of biblical teaching than a current distortion that uses abortion and homosexual marriage as wedge issues to win elections, but ignores or betrays the gospel's teaching on war, respect for persons, economic policies that support family values and concern for the poor and marginal people in society," said John M. Miller, the discussion group's moderator.

It might not be easy. Just as national politics has become increasingly polarized, the gulf between evangelical or fundamentalist churches concerned about "values" issues and churches that emphasize the Bible's social justice call has widened too.

The war on terror, and the war in Iraq, exposed the fissures between historical peace churches, including some of those represented in the Interchurch Peace Witness, and those supporting what they see as just wars.

Too, Wallis, an evangelical who preaches social justice, can be a polarizing figure.

"Jim Wallis is a divider. He's not a uniter," said Paul Hollinger of WDAC-FM radio, which is known as the voice of evangelical Christianity in this county.

Still, the peace witnesses want to try.

"It's easy to think globally," as one woman noted. "It's more difficult to act locally."

War and peace

When the study group met earlier this month at Church of the Apostles United Church of Christ in East Hempfield Township, the 19 participants were reviewing three chapters in "God's Politics" focused on peacemaking.

The study group is at least the second in Lancaster County to tackle "God's Politics," a book written in the wake of the contentious 2004 presidential campaign that argues the Christian vision should not be only about abortion and gay marriage but about poverty, injustice and a "consistent ethic of human life."

Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness was formed last year as a coalition of 11 denominations and organizations concerned about the Iraq war. Churches represented in the discussion group included traditional peace churches - Quaker, Mennonite and Church of the Brethren, for example - along with people from Highland and Wayside Presbyterian churches.

One man said he was struck by the way Wallis interpreted Micah's vision of the fig tree as a metaphor for security through justice: If every person in the world had his own fig tree to enjoy without fear, there would be less danger from terrorism.

"As long as you have economic injustice and disparity, you're going to have unrest," a woman added.

And now Americans are afraid too, some participants said.

Referring to the pilot from Smoketown Airport who wandered into restricted airspace over the capital, one man said wryly, "When Smoketown can shut down Washington, D.C., you know we're living in fear."

"We all sit here," another man said, "as part of those who have pretty big fig trees," while the rest of the world, and parts of Lancaster as well, don't.

Matter of interpretations

Yet Bible commentaries from a different evangelical perspective see Micah's prophecy as explaining how the world will look in the coming kingdom of God, not necessarily how it can look now.

And that is part of the challenge for dialogue.

Moderator Miller, a retired Mennonite professor who describes himself as an evangelical, wondered whether the way to reach out to other evangelicals was by organizing more study groups of "God's Politics."

Claudia Kirk said she would start a study group at her Friends Meeting in southern Lancaster County, but she doesn't think that's sufficiently "forward-looking."

"If we use more religious words and less social activist language, it could really make a difference," said Joyce McClintock, one of the study group's organizers.

"Think about it. We're wanting the same thing. We're just using different language."

"I think you have the wrong book to go to the evangelicals," another man warned. "You need the Bible."

That, said WDAC's Hollinger, is an approach more likely to get a reception among evangelicals.

As long as Christians share key evangelical tenets, for instance, the divinity of Christ and the authority of the Bible, dialogue is possible, Hollinger said.

But Wallis, he added, might not be the ideal vehicle: "I would suspect Wallis has kinder things to say about MoveOn [the liberal political action committee] than he does about [Focus on the Family's] Jim Dobson."

Last week, Miller said that "one of the major questions is how to build bridges of understanding between Christians who [have] different views of what is important in the political process. We believe there surely must be a broad majority of people in this region that will support a more balanced biblical agenda, and we hope to find ways of catalyzing that majority as a political force to 'change the wind.' "

McClintock suggested that perhaps the peace witnesses should host a Bible study instead.

"There's where we have common ground," Hollinger said, "in the word of God and the person of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, common ground for Christians of all stripes."

The final brainstorming session of the "God's Politics" study group will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Parish Resource Center, 633 Community Way. Chapter 21 will be discussed, along with the question, "Where do we go from here?" The session is open to all, regardless of whether you attended earlier meet-ups.

Copyright 2005 Lancaster Newspapers

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