The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergyman and a long-time educator and ecumenical leader, is the ninth General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
 

The NCC is the ecumenical voice of America's Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches. These 35 communions have 45 million faithful members in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.

 

 

The enemy of peace

The following statement by the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon was read at a rally outside the United Nations building in New York. The purpose of the rally was to protest the rhetoric and hate-speech of the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

September 22, 2008 

Provocative, belligerent rhetoric is the enemy of peace!  Therefore, those who claim to be peacemakers must know when to say No! to rhetoric that threatens the neighbor.  Now is such a time. 

President Ahmadinejad’s hateful language, denying the Holocaust and apparently calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” must be persistently and forcefully denounced by all who value peace.  The Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ and a leader in the National Council of Churches, has put it this way: “Revisionist history of genocide must never be accorded credibility among civilized people of any faith tradition.  Anti-semitic efforts to rewrite evil events—not new in history or unknown even in the United States—endanger the Jewish people, disgrace faith communities who perpetuate them or choose to remain silent in their presence, and degrade the value of human life everywhere.”   Indeed, we must not be silent when others use their voices to incite violence. 

Such rhetoric has another consequence: It makes it difficult to trust other things that the person says.  If President Ahmadinejad has so little regard for the verifiable facts of history and the legitimacy of a state created by UN decision, it is hard to believe he means it when he insists that Iran’s nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes.  And as he continues that program in defiance of Security Council resolutions, he also shows his contempt for the community of nations. 

The National Council of Churches has, throughout its history, been actively committed to dialogue, even with enemies.  But dialogue cannot be built on the basis of truly reprehensible public positions.  Those who would be peacemakers must know when to say No! to rhetoric that threatens the neighbor.  And now is such a time.

Michael Kinnamon
General Secretary
National Council of Churches

 

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