Maryland religious leaders gathered at the New Palm Baptist Church in Baltimore on Wednesday to call for an end to the war, asking President Bush to reconsider his plans to send more troops Iraq.
“The president claims that Jesus changed his heart. Now we would ask that he allow Jesus to change his policy,” said the Rev. Andrew Foster Connors of Brown?s Memorial Church on Park Avenue in Baltimore.
Holding one of the boots aloft that lined the church?s aisles and pews tagged with names of fallen Maryland soldiers and dead
Iraqis, retired minister Marion Bascom said the burdens of the war had been unfairly borne.
“These boots belong to the disenfranchised; these are the people that have died,” he said. “I don?t think anyone in power has put on a pair of these boots.”
The ecumenical gathering, including representatives from Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist and Presbyterian churches, also announced a Christian Witness for Peace protest planned for March 16 in Washington. The protest will include a service at the National Cathedral at 7 p.m. and a march on the White House. Christians from all denominations across the country are planning to join, the clergy said.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch, on hand to support the clergy, said history taught that when religious leaders speak out against wars, leaders should listen.
“When Martin Luther King came out against the Vietnam War at Riverside Baptist Church, there were 9,000 American dead; eight years later, it was 50,000,” he said.
Bishop John School of the United Methodist Church said the planned protest was long overdue for many of the churches that had previously condemned the war but not spoken out forcefully enough.
“We are here to take responsibility for our failures as Christians to be peacemakers,” he said. “As Christians we should do more, we must do more.”
The Rev. Bishop Miles of Koinonia Baptist Church in Baltimore said the pastoral community has the responsibility to take moral leadership in condemning the war.
“It is the role of the prophet to question the king,” Miles said.
