Why did the church support Vietnam?

[DougieZero]

Watching some documentary on Sundance about faith and politics... The more religious you are, the more likely you are to support war... Ironic?

[whistle]

1. Billy Graham supported bombing N. Vietnam back into the....

..."Stone Ages" because they were atheistic communists.

[Squeech]

2. Madame Nhu was Catholic

There was an important population of French-educated Vietnamese who were Catholic. They included the civil servants and people we were counting on to maintain Vietnam's pro-Western (anti-Communist) tilt. I don't quite remember exactly how, but defending them against the Godless Reds became another rationale for the war. Madame Nhu helped.

[karynnj]

3. The Northern Indiana Catholic church I belonged

had a priest who talked about loving God and being faithful to him and likened that to loving your country and being loyal to it. One of my sisters and I walked out after this. This was, I think, just a local priest stating his person believes.

But the Catholic church also had a lot of very famous anti-war priest like the Berrigan Brothers and Father Drinan (who Kerry helped run after Drinan beat a 26 yr old Kerry in a caucus to determine one anti-war candidate to run for the House of Representatives) I think this was the main position of the Catholic church.

[prairierose]

4. Which church? You should be either more specific or ....

avoid such a generalization. The protestant Church in which I grew up, was the first church in America to come out with a statement on a national level against the war. Not all the churches in America supported the war. There were many sincerely Christian people who were against that war and are still against war today.

It sounds like the documentary you were watching was really discussing the type of group I call the religious reich. Many fundamentalist groups are in favor of war, not for the sake of war but because they choose to concentrate on the warlike writings of the old testament.

Of course, I could have misunderstood your post.

[BrotherBuzz]

5. My little church did not support the war in Vietnam....

we were just a little podunk UCC congregation, so I guess we weren't too religious. ;)

[prairierose]

10. No, the UCC church is the church...

I was talking about. I was a delegate to the state conference that voted on the statement & sent it up the line to the National church where it was eventually adopted by the whole church.

But the UCC has never been a fundamentalist church.

[BrotherBuzz]

11. Good for you

I don't know who our delegates were, but I do know we had some movers and shakers from our church (West coast Bohemians, don't you know) that helped shape the dialogue. Our small church was very actively working on that cause, as we were in the Civil Rights movement, too.

Fundamentalist? Heck, I didn't even know what a fundamentalist was till the eighties. And to this day, I've never been able to understand how a church could be anything but liberal and progressive. See, I was raised in a little podunk church that believed Jesus was a thinker, and the best we could do was emulate him and THINK.

[independentchristian]

6. I wasn't around but probably for the same reason that they

support the war in Iraq and the fluke war on terror.

They think/thought we are "doing God's work" by taking on "evil."

They don't/didn't know any more about the real reasons behind the war than the rest of the country.

Because they believe that this country was "founded under God," they think we are the good guys any time that our government says someone else is a bad guy, because, after all, they are "Americans".

Being a "believer" doesn't stop you from being a citizen or a human being. Most of them fall for the same propoganda that the rest of the country does.

So, in a nutshell, they don't support the wars because of "religious beliefs," they support the wars because they believe the same crap that most of the country believes because they are people and citizens who give in to patriotism, nationalism, and propoganda.

And even if they believe, as they do, that "events happening and people in certain offices are bringing about final day prophecy," that doesn't make lying to go to war "acceptable," no matter what the events are ushering in.

[DARE to HOPE]

7. My HS United Methodist suburban church AND the campus church...

...I later went to were both STRONGLY anti-war, pretty much straight out of the Civil Rights movement.

The campus R Catholic center was the center of anti-war demos on campus (UW)--I remember seeing Peter, Paul and Mary there once, amidst all the haze of smoke and tear gas.

The Lutheran church I ended up in served my spiritual needs at the time: I was really looking for God, and God's Love, as the world seemed to be falling apart. They tried to meet the needs of everybody, so were not overtly political, instead followed the traditions of the church year et al, and Eucharist, that the Protestant churches had lost.

It was later in the Chicago area that I came to know the so-called Peace churches, Quakers, Brethren and Amish, in this case especially the Mennonites. These churches are the ones traditionally known for producing conscientious objectors. It is harder to argue that with the military if you are Catholic or other Protestant, unless you can argue "this is not a just war."

For years we south suburban churches had peace marches (went to NY in 1980, Iran Contra in the 1980s, against weapons' shows up at O'Hare etc) and counseling against the draft (R Cath, Luther, UMeth, UCC, Mennonite.) It was mostly clergy with our own families. Our people just lived their lives as if they weren't involved, which they weren't, until their own child was of age. There was still a strong militarism within our blue collar Lutheran congregation. In those days especially, people were not able to believe that our own government lies to us.

Now, 25, 30 years later, we have gone from mostly Republican to mostly Democratic in our parish. And there are PASSIONATE anti-war feelings. I have tried to teach them to write, to call, to agitate. They are mostly content to worry and pray, but they at least talk to their friends. Many of our people work the three jobs that that questioner mentioned to Bush out in N Dakota. But they are also aware that the Tigris and Euphrates, mentioned in Genesis as boundaries of Paradise, as well as thousands of innocent people and children, are in Iraq.

The Baptists and Assemblies of God et al that make up much of the Dominionist movement are working AGAINST God when they preach war and hatred of Muslims. The vulnerability is that every Baptist "feels" his own call, and goes out to the street corner, listening to whatever strikes him as God's voice. One thing I have learned: that Voice is loving, laughing, healing, joyous, creative, music to one's ears--NOT HATE FILLED, not at all!

I think you are right, independentchristian, that those who support the Bush wars are simply soaking up the propaganda.

[dogman]

8. The Catholic missionary Dr. Tom Dooley wrote a number of books

about Vietnam and Laos. The US was involved in Vietnam with the French and when the french lost he was a Navy medic who helped evacuate people to South Vietnam. He performed missionary work. JFK was an avid reader and many Catholics were inspired by his books and were very involved in fighting Communism. He described the vicious attacks on the people and the anti-american propaganda by the Communist North. This was very instumental in persuading many Americans to feel the need to support the South in the Vietnamese civil war. We had financed the French during the Eisenhower years and these stories along with the domino theory convinced many that this was the hot war in the cold war.

[diamond14]

9. the Catholic Church does NOT support WARS...any wars...

I have been a Catholic since birth. Your posts sound like more Catholic bashing for entertainment.


As a long-time REAL Catholic, who lived through the Vietnam WAR...there is NO support and never was support for the Vietnam War from the Catholic Church....


In my family, men were DRAFTED (and did not volunteer) for WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam. My cousin was KILLED in Vietnam, 19 years old, Silver Star, Purple Heart, KILLED. My cousin REFUSED to kill anyone, so they made him a medic, and he was KILLED saving others lives. For every war, my relatives REFUSED TO KILL, and they were placed into positions that did not require KILLING. My uncle served as a Chaplain for the Canadians in WWII, and spent a lot of time SAVING JEWS (he spoke French and German...and helped Jews escape by donning his priestly garb, and putting scapulas, rosaries, and prayer books onto the Jews who accompanied him).


Catholics oppose ALL WARS. We believe 'Thou shall NOT kill' and live our lives as such, turning the other cheek.