A Christian Foreign Policy

I have listened to the reports made to the Senate and the House these last few weeks and find the variety of "truths" exasperating. It is as if we are able to construct variable truths from a single collection of facts (a collection from the outset highly suspect anyway) that respond to whatever political or ideological constituency we want to persuade or contradict. I am left bewildered and not altogether confident any plan proposed by the opposing elements of our supposed "united" government merit my confidence or my hope. I am left to imagine for myself.

As a priest of the church I ask myself this question, "what would be a foreign policy reflective of my faith values in this circumstance?" And I pray for inspiration.

On a long drive back from a clergy continuing ed event in the northwest corner of Missouri, I am thinking about this. Suddenly, my thoughts trip upon the most obvious answer--prayer. Not the generic prayers for peace and goodwill so often contained in our liturgical prayers. Not the "safe" prayers implying the nobility of our cause because God is, after all, a good citizen of these United States. Not these. I trip upon the realization that I am not praying for my enemy. Jesus could not be clearer about this. "You have heard how it was said, you will love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . . For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? . . . You must therefore set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none to his." (Matthew 5.43-48 and the parallel in Luke 6.27-36). It is hard to exegete yourself out of the straight forward, radical suggestion Jesus makes here. I am not praying for my enemy. In the book of Exodus we even read we are to return our enemy's lost property (Exodus 23.4-5). Paul in Romans tells us to feed and water our enemy (12.14-21). I am not praying for my enemy.

I wonder what would happen on Sunday if I prayed aloud for Usama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda? What would happen if I, if we, prayed for our enemy? Not for their defeat; rather, a prayer of God being present to them. What would happen if the Christian community of the nation had a day of fasting a prayer for the benefit of our enemy. I have a hunch I might not win a popularity contest with this suggestion. However, it is hard to avoid the suggestion of scripture that a foreign policy of just such a prayer is the expectation. I am reminded of an oft repeated aphorism of Christianity, "it is not so much that it has been tried and failed as it is that it has not been tried at all" (a phrase claimed by many in slightly differing variations).

I do not have much hope in the current foreign policy or military strategies of our country. I lament the wasteful exposure of true American heroes--the soldier--to purposeless violence and death. I grieve the tremendous loss of life among the Iraqis. Is it time for the Christian community to claim its own dominical foreign policy? Pray for your enemy!