To: President Bush, the U.S. Congress, and our sisters and brothers around the world
From: Christian People in the United States

Epiphany, January 6th, 2006

We cannot let another Christmas go by without lifting our voices to proclaim Christ’s peace!

On November 26 an organization calling itself the “Swords of Justice” took responsibility for the kidnapping of four volunteers who were working in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams. In response, many Muslim leaders around the world called on them to release the captives and to reject the tactic of holding people against their will. Many of us who are Christians in the United States are also deeply concerned about the hostages. We become ever more firm in our conviction that matching violence with violence can never resolve our conflict. Even as we commit ourselves to redouble our efforts to end our country’s unjust war in Iraq, we also ask those who are holding these peaceful volunteers to release them immediately.

At this moment of Epiphany, a moment in which we celebrate the arrival of the Prince of Peace, we also call on our own political leaders in the United States to renounce the practice of holding prisoners without charge. It is our fervent desire to make this a new moment in which all religious people around the world will unite in a call for peace. We must not stand idly by while our respective religious traditions are co-opted by those who would use them as a foundation for hate and violence.

We are grateful for the thousands of Muslims, in our own country and across the globe, who have taken great risk to denounce the kidnapping of the four volunteers from Christian Peacemaker teams, and who remain steadfast in their call for peace. Even as we continue to pray for the safety and the release of our brothers, we recognize that we must dare to match the courage of our Muslim friends in speaking the truth in this difficult time. Therefore, on this day we implore our own leaders to “examine the log in our own eye” as Jesus admonished his disciples.

Thousands of Iraqis have been held without charge since the war in Iraq began almost three years ago. Just as we fear for the safety of our Christian Peacemakers, we know that the Iraqi families of those detainees are also afraid. When there are reports of abuses committed against the detainees, whether by the U.S.-led Coalition forces or by Iraqi military or police, we know their families grow increasingly afraid. Peace cannot come while this practice continues. We commit ourselves to work without ceasing to stop the practice of holding detainees without charge. The level of fear in Iraq increases exponentially with each passing day that our country refuses to follow the most basic conventions with regard to the detention of prisoners, and in our world today fear too often leads to further violence.

Many of us were proud when our religious leaders spoke boldly to condemn the policy of “pre-emptive strike” that issued in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Now, even while we continue to pray for the safety of soldiers and the well-being of their families who are members of our churches, we insist that our objections to the U.S. Military’s ongoing presence in Iraq must be heard. We call on our government to articulate a clear plan for withdrawing all U.S. military personnel and bases from Iraq. Further, we ask the U.S. government:
• to continue to articulate its strong condemnation of torture,
• to uphold the best of our nation’s democratic principles and values with regard to the treatment of prisoners, and commit to detain no one without charge,
• to pressure the Iraqi ministry to follow the most stringent United Nations human rights standards of treatment and due process of detainees, and to end the use of government-sponsored commando units and extra-judicial killings.

In this season of new beginnings, we dare to hope for a genuine peace for the people of Iraq. We long for a time when the families of our soldiers will be re-united here in the U.S., and we hope for a similar sense of well-being and security for our Iraqi sisters and brothers.

With the deepest longing for God’s peace, we commit to work with people of all religious traditions around the world to make God’s peace real on earth as it is in heaven.

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