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Introduction to Counting Ants
Violence, war, poverty, disease, and oppression are not new phenomena. As we enter the twenty-first century, however, there seems to be an escalating trend in human suffering around the world. Extreme poverty, AIDS, war, and corrupt or incompetent governments have plunged nations into downward socioeconomic spirals. These conditions have created a vacuum where hopelessness has bred, providing incubators for terrorists and fodder for more wars and acts of violence.
Meanwhile, many American churches have become inwardly focused institutions, debating and dividing over issues such as homosexuality, biblical interpretation, and creationism. Often the church seems to ignore, and in some instances even supports, policies that deny basic human rights, that justify the waging of preemptive war, and that contribute to the daily deaths of 20,000 children globally from preventable diseases. We quietly watch as our president and leaders of Congress openly debate the use of torture, ways to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, the value of the United Nations, and the waging of war for peace.
At a time when 87 percent of the Christian Right supported President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, blatantly turning their back on Jesus' message of peace and social justice, the mainline churches were disturbingly silent.
In refocusing attention on the vision of Jesus Christ, Counting Ants helps us explore what it means to be Christians and peacemakers in our post-9/11 world and inspires us to build God's peaceful kingdom through actions of grace, love, mercy, and social justice.
Wayne Lavender is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and is currently a doctoral candidate at George Mason University's School of Public Policy in Fairfax, VA
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