Kevin Zeese: An Interview with Rev. Sekou on Iraq

Kevin Zeese: An Interview with Rev. Sekou on Iraq: "The interview below examines how people of faith are organizing to oppose the continued occupation of Iraq.

Kevin Zeese: So often God is invoked in war -- God is on our side, God bless the United States, God protects our troops -- can you discuss generally, your view of how Christianity and other religions should relate to the question of war?

Rev. Sekou: The biblical narrative has powerful critique of empire. Equally, the text takes seriously the poor in opposition to power over them. I think the call for prayer should be centered on our troops not being in harms way. The ideal that God is only interested in America is deeply problematic. Moreover, there have been a number of religious folks who spent a lot of time discussing the just war theory. When St. Thomas Aquinas distills just war theory in Sum Theologica, he does so at a moment when there are a number of warring tribal groupings with in the empire that do not possess quantity and quality of weapons of mass destruction. With a lone superpower, United States, and its unfettered access to weapon of mass destruction, there very notion that there can be a just war is obsolete. God in the Biblical tradition is the God of the least of these. The most vulnerable citizens who God has great compassion for. In the Hebrew tradition God is moved by the moans and groans of the Israelites as they suffer under Pharaoh in the empire know as Egypt."