Our nation is into the third week of a war with Iran that we initiated along with Israel. The claim that a premptive attack was necessary because Iran posed an “imminent threat” has proven to be a flimsy excuse for the Trump administration’s reckless focus on regime change. Instead of a quick and easy transition to a more favorable government in Iran, the death and destruction of this war is spreading throughout the Middle East. In order to keep this unjust war going, our government commits about a billion dollars a day so far. Just this week, the Pentagon has requested an addional 200 billiion dollars. The first video posted below provides a glimpse into the widening destruction and the obscene level of funding requested to continue the war.
It seems that there is an unlimited supply of money to fund large scale violence and death but never enough money for human services such as universal health care, child care, or affordable housing. In the context of another war 59 years ago, Dr. King summarized this tragic reality in his speech at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967:
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death”
Many of the architects and supporters of the war with Iran claim to be Christians. In fact, some have used the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 to assert that our government does not bear any responsibility for funding programs to uplift poor and marginalized people. The second video posted below comes from a Congressional hearing in which Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas quoted the famous words of Jesus to make the point that serving “the least of these” is limited to private Christian charity rather than any government responsibility. He even requested to enter the entire chapter of Matthew 25 into the Congressional record in support of his misguided interpretation of this chapter. Instead of being a faithful interpretation of Scripture, I believe that this is a symptom of the spiritual death that Dr. King warned us about. It is urgent for those of us who follow Jesus to offer an alternative to using Jesus as an excuse for denying government funding for serving “the least of these” while supporting unlimited funding for war.