Two thousand dead American soldiers and countless dead Iraqis later, the US has lost the war. All it takes for the insurgents to defeat America is for them to continue to fight and kill our soldiers and Iraqi civilians. And there is no end to their mayhem in sight.
And there's no neat solution in sight, either. If our country keeps its soldiers in Iraq, they continue to be the means of recruiting even more terrorists than the ones that existed before the US invasion. If our soldiers abruptly left, the chaos in Iraq could become even bloodier, with even more innocent Iraqis killed. What are we, as faithful citizens, to do? It's time to ask questions, seek the truth, and act on it with determination.
Before the war, I was on the streets of San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Stanford protesting the planned invasion. I gave the most politically-charged sermon of my life, preaching against the war just as it began.
But how I and others felt about the war at the beginning hardly matters now. What shall we do about it today? It's a question of faith. When Jesus challenged his followers to love their enemies, war and peace became central concerns of the gospel. The relevance of our faith depends on our willingness to engage with questions like these:
Would it be best for the Iraqi people if the US began an immediate but phased withdrawal of troops? Could a humiliating pullout of US forces have the paradoxical
effect of defusing militant Islamic terrorism and improving US and global security?
If US troops must stay for at least the short term, how can they best be deployed to enable the Iraqi people to develop their own civil institutions?
What can faithful people do to influence our government toward a foreign policy of cooperation rather than confrontation?
What can we do to defuse the cultural and religious tensions that feed terrorism?
How can our activism for peace be a reflection of our spiritual values?
Jesus asked a lot more questions than he gave answers. But his questions were so provocative that they changed the world. Let's join him in asking the kinds of questions that can move this war toward the most humane end.