…The signs are clearly all around us. The mission and purpose of the United States is now that of a permanent war economy patrolling the globe and exterminating the infidels (1 Samuel Eight).

The office of the president, with the acquiescence of the Congress, is fast becoming the office of a supreme leader who can change law through “signing statements” and extinguish law through an assumption of war powers. We have become a nation that practices torture. We have become a nation that targets and kills civilians. We have become a nation that disappears people. We imprison people without trial. We monitor what we say,who we say it to, when we say it, where we say it. All of this in the name of freedom and all of this disguised as justice. All of this covered with the silence and blessing of the clergy who will not blow the trumpet.

The signs are clearly all around us. We have students spying on their professors. We have government agencies spying on us. We have our computer transactions monitored. We have our children accosted by military recruiters at school, through the mail, through the media, at the mall. Meanwhile the price of war rises into the multiple billions even as spending cuts slice through the poor and the working class. But, from the pulpit, we dare not speak its name: this name that has become the reality of our time.

Within the Church there is an irreconcilable divergence emerging (1 John 2:18-19). At its extremes we see the birth of Patriot Pastors in Ohio even as liberal churches become targets for IRS investigations.
We see Justice Sundays and the growth of theocratic nationalism even as more are jailed because of their faith-based resistance to the further production of war.
From the pulpits of the nation the Sermon on the Mount, christian identification with the poor, the declaration to love our enemies are all replaced with strategies of church growth or manipulations to infiltrate political parties.

Congregations insist that clergy dare not speak its name.
Congregations insist that clergy stay embedded in their role as chaplain and golf partner. They insist that clergy provide comfort and offer therapeutic guidance. And clergy, with paycheck in hand, and a desire for career advancement in heart, oblige their congregations with false words of “peace, peace” (Jeremiah Eight).

But when does it get said? When do we clergy preach I Samuel 8, Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 8, Ezekiel 33, 1 John 2, Revelation 18? When do we prepare our people for the next act of terrorism and the next seizure of power? When do we clergy declare that allegiance to a military security state committed to permanent war is idolatry? When do we cease our support for the regime that sends troops out to oppress, dominate and die while it chants the empty slogan “support our troops?”

I rarely read sermons, but between the Justice Sundays by The Family Reseach Council, trying unsuccessfully to get a response from a Kentucky church about military recruitment in their church, and a few reactive blog posts I read yesterday about Joel Stein’s article in the LA Times, I thought I’d put this up. 
This is only a clip of the sermon, if you are interested you can read it for yourself.
I hate .pdf’s but this is how it’s been put online and it’s a worthy response to some of the discussion I read on blogs yesterday.

Since this is about social justice and politics in the US (but relevant for all of us!) I’m going to close the comments because I’ve found that when a citizen (in this case Rev. Richard Lang) speaks this clearly, it is perceived as either/or/oppositional and I need to be available to monitor the comment section so quieter voices don’t get verbally boot stomped.