Henri Reynard Speaks Out

Easter Morning, Is An Empire Rising?

---

Well I have seen sixty Easter mornings so far and it is hard to understand what this one will bring in the way of new agenda's for Christ. When I was young Christ was held up to me as the Prince of Peace and our guide to heaven based on principles embodied in his teachings. The most violent act of his life was chasing the moneychangers out of the temple, no one was killed or even injured as I recall. It is interesting that on this Easter morning we are still cleaning up the remains of bodies blown apart by our Shock and Awe bombing campaign. Christ would have recognized the Imams in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East as seekers after the truth and condemned their oppression by Saddam. It is a long far reach from that fact to assume he would have endorsed this war. The Empire that terrorized the world of his time was merely consolidating power in the Middle East when they killed a minor teacher and preacher of the Jews by crucifixion. The same Empire eventually embraced his teachings and spread them far beyond the point where they could be suppressed. Today a great many of his followers in this nation are declaring this war a victory in his name. He would be appalled at these followers lack of respect for their fellow man's lives and the meaning of his teaching.

Christ was a kind and gentle person with a fine respect for the value of all lives. He never endorsed war nor did he endorse the rights of Emperors in spite of the misreading of his words "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and God that which is God's". The dispute over whether Caesar should control Judea went on long after the death of Christ. Christ was killed because there were opponents of the Roman Empire who wanted to use his stature as a teacher to oppose Roman Rule. It was easier for the Romans to kill him than to eventually put down the rebellion that they feared that he would lead. He had no ambitions related to leading his people, the Jews, out from under the oppression of Rome. He taught the innocent peace of internal freedoms: freedom from greed, freedom from envy, freedom from fear, and most of all freedom from hatred.

The Roman Soldiers were far cruder than our soldiers are today, they were accustomed to their rights of Rape and Pillage against conquered people. They were patriots of their empire and death was no stranger to their lives. They brutally dominated more than half the known world at the time of Christ and kept extending their power until long after his death. Their peace was the peace of oppression and slavery. Their war was a war of close quarters brutality and maximum Shock and Awe. They used maximum force against the "barbarians" that stood against them. Empires have no conscience about the deaths of people who oppose them. Christ was not an imperialist nor was he a warrior. He was a simple teacher of great truths. He taught that giving of yourself in order to help even the lowest of the low was honoring God. He taught that tolerance was better than oppression, and love of your fellow man covers more than just the tribe or family or nation. The Romans were not a tribal society. They had a Senate and an Emperor and retained some of the trappings of democracy at the time of Christ's death. The Romans were not really "Republicans" in any modern sense of the word. We think of them as great because they successfully oppressed far poorer people for nearly a thousand years.

We are a great nation at a fork in the road on this Easter morning. Will we continue to take the path toward Empire and impose our version of peace on the rest of the world? Will "Pax Americana" become "a pox on every house except our own"? Will we appoint "legates" to control the preachers and teachers of Islam in our conquered nations now and in the future? Or will we really withdraw and allow the people of Iraq decide who will lead them in the future? Oil is the only power that we need out of Iraq for our economic stability and the stability of our civilization. Will we be content to take that oil commercially and leave the Iraqi people define their own nation? It is our constitution and our principles that have guided the revolution in human thought that has ended slavery in most of the world. Will we change our course and lead it back down the road toward suppression of liberties and dominance through fear? It is an open question on this Easter morning.

Let there be no mistake. There are worse than moneychangers in our temples of worship on this Easter Morning. There are ideologues of every stripe; all of them will hasten to tell you that Christ endorses their vision of the future. I recommend that if you really want to follow the Carpenter you embrace internal peace and love of your fellow man. His way was not the way of dominance by force or wealth. His way endorsed no emperors and knew no boundaries in love of fellow humans. His way was a way of peace, justice and mercy toward all. If our leaders cannot grasp that simple fact perhaps they can learn from our soldiers in the field. Our troops want the people of Iraq to be free badly enough to die for their freedom. Will our leaders have the integrity to deliver that freedom? I hope that we choose the path of peace for the sake of our nation, for our own sake and for the sake of all humanity. God bless and keep you, our troops and our protestors safe now and always.