Promise Keepers, Men of Integrity

THE STRAIT GATE VIGIL was held at the wide gates of the PROMISE KEEPERS' PASTORS AND LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE in Phoenix, AZ, on February 19, 2003.

OPEN LETTER TO:

Coach Bill McCartney, Founder

Promise Keepers, Men of Integrity

Boulder Colorado (Please forward)

(303) 964-7753 – Fax

 

For a third party look at Project Strait Gate, see Tony Ortega's cover story:

 

"PEACE-MONGER, Chuck Carlson and his disciples are taking it to the streets, demanding that pro-life churches practice what they preach and condemn war in Iraq."  Quote from the PHOENIX NEW TIMES, February 13, 2003. (http://www.whtt.org/straitgate/peace.htm)

 

Dear Coach McCartney:

 

I am familiar with your family story and your history as a "pro-life" example. I was there in Colorado when you once spoke at a rally of Operation Rescue before there was a Promise Keepers. I remember when you publicly proclaimed the right to life of the unborn at a time of crisis in your own family. You earned my respect.

 

But what is the difference in the murder of a nameless five-year old in Palestine or Iraq and the abortion of a 20-week old unborn child in Boulder, Colorado? Is the Iraqi child’s life less valuable in God’s eyes? No, then why don’t we act like they are equal?

 

As you may have observed, a STRAIT GATE VIGIL was held outside the Pastors and Leadership Conference entitled: "COME NEAR TO ME" in Phoenix, Arizona, on February 18th-20th.

 

Our volunteers provided literature and talked to your attendees outside Bank One Ballpark as they came and went. We saw thousands of church leaders come and go. Our purpose there was to influence Christ-followers among those attending to oppose the continuous slaughter in the Middle East and its impending bombing of Iraq, as well as other U.S.A. financed bombings, such as in Palestine. We let them know that we blame Christian leaders for the destruction of innocent Iraqis and Palestinians unless they take a New Testament stand for peace.

 

Did not God make it known that He, the Almighty, holds each of us accountable? Each of us shares in that guilt to the extent we, too, have failed to stand in times past, but no more. The churches’ support of the bombing of Iraq has nothing to do with “weapons of mass destruction” and everything to do with racism. YOUR CONFERENCE HAD A LOT TO SAY ABOUT RACISM, BUT DID YOU MENTION EVEN ONCE THE ANTI-ISLAMIC RACE HATRED IN OUR CHURCHES?

 

Our volunteers reported that some of the leaders who attended your conference are confused by the conflicting beliefs presented. However, we were pleased to hear that one of your presenters on Tuesday night reportedly stated that according to his "vision" all should be praying about the "war" on Iraq, or the exile of Saddam Hussein, because a terrible disaster will result from war. We hope this report is correct.

 

Prayers for peace do not take the place of telling President Bush you will hold him responsible for unjust executions in the name of "war;" that you know this "war" is not just; and that you will help "pray" him and all who support him out of office, if he does not stop his irrational warmaker demands to pour the blood of another innocent population on the hands of the American people.

 

You might wonder how we knew what attendees thought. We asked many the following question, both with signs and vocally:

 

"IRAQ?"

 

"WWJD?" (“What would Jesus do?”)

 

Coach, what would He do? Most pastors who walked by saw the signs, but they deliberately turned away and ignored the question. Their actions and body language indicated someone had sold them on bombing Iraq. Occasionally a pastor or leader would let us know he resented us and that he simply did not care what Jesus would do. A few showed temper and replied with rhetorical questions like: "So you like Saddam Hussein?" and "Would you trust Saddam to baby sit your children?" These were pastors speaking!

 

Occasionally an attendee would answer sincerely, "I don't know." Most of these honest leaders seem confused by the requirement to be a peacemaker, yet to also comply with the demand that they support the so-called "born again" President's demand for the annihilation of Iraq. ONLY IN THOSE FEW DID WE FIND HOPE FOR AMERICAN CHURCHES AT THE PROMISE KEEPERS' CONFERENCE.

 

One of the signs held by a Strait Gate volunteer flushes out a giant oxymoron in Judeo-Christian teachings. It reads:

 

"CHOOSE LIFE"

 

"NOT WAR"

 

Most of your attendees probably consider themselves pro-life. Their initial body language was often positive when they read the first two words, "CHOOSE LIFE". One could detect the start of a smile or a nod. But once the last phrase on the sign, "NOT WAR" was read, the response changed in a blink. The smile evaporated, and often the head quickly turned away. The walk stiffened and the pastor passed by pretending not to see. There was a mixture of embarrassment and hostility, which told us this pastor had hardened to bombing Iraqis. Few said anything and most emphatically refused any written information.

 

Coach, do you understand why pastors have this reaction? Those who rationalize the paradox of bombing Iraq while claiming they are pro-life are truly caught in a squeeze they cannot explain. For Jesus said his kingdom knows no race, no hate, no male or female. But this pastor is rejecting what Jesus accepted on account of race. Jesus excluded no one, even the Pharisees were told they could repent, and a few, like the Apostal Paul, did repent. THE RIGHT TO LIFE DOES NOT EXCLUDE ARABS AND MUSLIMS.

 

Where do you stand on the lives of the innocent Iraqi children like a little Iraqi girl, Teaba Ahmad, whose face is on our bookmark that we gave your attendees? Where do you stand on the daily murder of Palestinian children with US tanks and missiles? Do you turn your head away from them because they are Arabs, or because their parents or leaders are in conflict with the "Chosen People?" Is it on account of their race or their parents' religion that they are not deserving of life? If either is true, their blood is on your hands.

 

Anti-war demonstrations are blossoming in record numbers all over the USA and the world. Most are at government buildings, offices, and political meetings, some of which while President Bush is visiting. These rallies are not reaching the people who can stop the bombing, those who Christ calls to be Peacemakers, but who are failing to stand up for peace. They are in church, so that is where Project Strait Gate goes.

 

Our own reports, THE SOURCE OF OUR WAR PROBLEMS: Why Judeo-Christians Do Not Demand Peace, and SHERRY'S WAR reveal the terrible truth of unchristian racism in the church. We pray that you will read both. Many of America's Christian leaders have become facilitators of "Serial Wars." Our national political leaders are now addicted serial killers.

 

We are committed to ending serial wars before America is destroyed from within. And we are committed to doing this by raising the conscious level of THE CHURCH THAT FAILS TO STAND FOR PEACE. (http://www.whtt.org/articles/021025.htm) A million or more innocent persons have already been destroyed in these wars in only the last 15 years; this is a fact no one can deny or rationalize. The fact that those killed are a long ways away does not make it less indecent. Killing is killing, be it an Afghan family, an Iraqi mother, or a Palestinian child, Christian or Muslim. Jesus was clear on this, was He not?

 

The facilitator of serial wars is equally guilty whether he openly supports the bombing, or supports it by knowingly failing to oppose it. We all know what it means to say: "We support President Bush on this." It is a vote for death.

 

America's churches and such organizations like Promise Keepers have been maneuvered into the role of cheerleader for this FINAL CRUSADE based on racism. The ostensible victims are the 1.2 billon Muslims of many countries, beginning with Palestine and Iraq. Many of our churches now accept this ugly form of race-fired brutality. I can give you shocking examples from the churches we have visited.

 

Inevitably Christians are also victims. Violence and racism have replaced Jesus’ words as “god”. Church leaders, notably DR. RICHARD L. LAND OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION has declared that the Palestinian people must, on account of their race and religion, abandon their homes and leave the territory that has been their home for centuries.[1]

 

MORE RADICAL "CHRISTIAN" MOUTHS ARE NOW CALLING FOR EXTERMINATION OF ENTIRE ARAB AND MUSLIM POPULATIONS.[2]

 

Promise Keepers makes a giant issue of condemning anti-Jewish and anti-black racism. BUT HAVE YOU CONDEMNED THIS RACISM AGAINST MUSLIMS AND ARABS? Why not? WWJD?

 

We repeat, pastors and leaders who claim to be pro-life and at the same time fail to oppose military aid for Israel have blood on their hands. The USA's almost unlimited military support and aid for Israel casts every American in the role of a facilitator in the death of the Palestinian children killed by the thousands by Israeli soldiers. Eleven died Monday. Pastors must be assumed to know because they received ample evidence they refuse to see.

 

In Israel the 54 years of open season on Palestinian children has taken its toll on morality. The abortion policy of Israel requires that the government itself runs the abortion clinics where they have killed over 16,000 unborn children in each of the most recent years reported.[3]

 

The state of Israel kills more babies each year than they have lost in battle at the hands of the Palestinians in the entire 54 years of occupation. And if anything could be worse, we Americans pay for the shedding of the innocent blood of the unborn Israeli babies. It should be no surprise that the abortion rate in Israel is higher than in the USA. For details see this author’s “ZION’S SECRET, the Slaughter of Innocent Israeli Babies.” [4]

 

Coach McCartney, it is time those you influence know the truth. Lack of knowledge is not forgivable in the information age. One can just imagine Charlton Heston's God booming out "YOU SAY YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THE DYING CHILDREN; WHY DO YOU THINK I GAVE YOU THE INTERNET?"

 

It is the organized force of the evangelical Christian Churches that constitutes voting block of some 20%. Celebrity Christian leaders have openly boasted they provide the grass roots muscle that keeps the Administration's Iraq and Israel policy alive in a world that recognizes it as evil. For perhaps the first time in America’s history those who do not go to church are acting more morally than those who do! The resistance to bombing Iraq, is, with the exception of groups like We Hold These Truths and a few mainline churches, coming largely from secular sources that oppose it for humanitarian reasons.

 

Jesus said: "FOR AS MUCH AS YOU HAVE DONE TO THE LEAST OF THESE (BROTHERS) YOU HAVE DONE TO ME"..., "SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME TO ME," and, of course, the great and humble Beatitude, "BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS, FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE SONS OF GOD." Please, Coach McCartney, show us where Jesus ever made a statement that allowed a Christian to take the life of a Palestinian or Iraqi child. It is Jesus himself who tells us the blood is on the hands of those who stand silent!

 

In Taos, New Mexico on October 30, 2002, two thousand demonstrators marched on the summer home of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, with children wearing Halloween skull masks and adults carrying signs demanding peace. Those marching included the Mayor and hundreds of children. I wonder how few were pastors?

 

Americans are awakening with or without the leadership of our churches. Righteousness should start with church leaders, but instead it is starting with street leaders. In no country in the world is the evangelical church so politically influential as here. And nowhere in the world is any church as racist. You Christian leaders will decide the lives of many thousands. Very soon the evangelical churches will find themselves in well deserved disgrace, and they will have to face the wrath of their misled members, not to mention the wrath of God, perhaps as in Romans 12:26;

 

How can the church that calls itself by Jesus' name stand this ugly festering racism at its core? Have you taken a stand for or against the Bombing of Iraq? To be consistent, Promise Keepers needs to make a giant issue of radical RACISM AGAINST MUSLIMS AND ARABS within the church. You can take a position that may help save a million lives. Would you be interested in meeting with us?

 

Toward the strait gate,

 

Charles E. Carlson, Director

Endnotes:

Citation: The Source of Our War Problems: Why Judeo-Christians Do Not Demand Peace in “Right To The Point” Journal of We Hold These Truths. Volume V: Issue II. Fall, 2002.