For months Christians held their collective breath, awaiting the fate of four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) taken hostage in Iraq in November 2005. The body of American CPT member Tom Fox was found tortured and murdered in a garbage dump in Baghdad in early March.
However, just two weeks later, international forces rescued the other three hostages (two of them Canadian) unharmed, without a shot being fired.
Who are these people working with the CPT? Why are they in Iraq when warned to stay away and when many relief agencies and NGOs have withdrawn because of the volatile situation? Why have they risked death?
Why was it “inevitable that a Christian Peacemaker Teams’ [member] should be taken hostage somewhere in the world and find their lives on the line?,” as ChristanWeek founder and former editor Harold Jantz wrote in January.
CPT’s “violence reduction” role has often been controversial. Their motto is “getting in the way.” They clearly blame the U.S. and Britain for many abuses in Iraq, and call the invasion of Iraq illegal.
Mark LeVine, professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies at the University of California, says CPT members “serve as first-person ‘witnesses’ to the violence of occupation and war [hindering] the ability of governments, guerrillas and occupiers to hide the truth from the world.”
Established through Mennonite, Quaker and Brethren in Christ churches, the idea for CPT was inspired by a 1984 speech by Mennonite theologian Ron Sider. He challenged Christians, “Unless we are ready to die developing new non-violent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword.”
This is the same type of pacifism modeled by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 20th century. Gandhi believed antagonists would find peaceful solutions if shown a path of non-violence—even if it meant the pacifist would have to stand in the aggressor’s gun sights.
CPT has worked in many countries, holding governments and military accountable. In Iraq, CPT uncovered and documented the abuse of 72 Iraqi detainees by U.S. forces in the Abu Ghraib prison—four months before the scandal became public. Currently they are in Colombia, monitoring human rights.
In Ontario, CPT had a team in the Kenora area for several years, supporting the Grassy Narrows native community blockade against clear-cut logging on traditional Indian lands. According to the CPT website, their goal was “to build awareness in Kenora’s white community around the problems of racism.”
In Nova Scotia, CPT had a team at Burnt Church for two fishing seasons after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of native lobster fishers in the Marshall decision and the situation became volatile.
I find CPT’s vision and commitment to peacemaking impressive and biblical. It is troubling, however, that they seem to turn a blind eye to what Scripture has to say about homosexual activity. One of the freed hostages is avowedly gay, a fact kept under wraps for his protection while he was in custody.
That aside, Christianity has and does serve as a resource for unravelling tensions, calling people to live up to their own highest principles. Christians should never turn a blind eye when deliberate cruelty is tolerated under the guise of war or violence.
Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, not just peacekeepers. CPT believes in active pacifism, perhaps a more aggressive approach than I am comfortable with, but it gives one a lot to ponder. Jesus inevitably calls us to face hard questions with no easy answers. In the end, being a Christian peacemaker is more a journey than a theological position.
