Entrevista: Garrison de Becky, Satirist
Abril 18, 2008
Logan Laituri: Cobarde Courageous
Abril 6, 2008
Hoje nós retrocedemos fora da seção nova das entrevistas do Manifesto de Jesus entrevistando Logan Laituri.
JM: Hello Logan, diz-nos um pouco sobre quem você é.
Bem, eu não posso imaginar responder a essa pergunta sem momentaneamente dirigir-se a quem eu era. Eu cresci acima dentro Condado alaranjado, CA, que a pareceu mim ser o capital do materialism do mundo. Sendo uma classe média mais baixa, eu senti muito disadvantaged. Meus povos fizeram um trabalho awesome que fornece para nós, embora, e eu caí na rotina do grupo da juventude depois que eu fui prendido shoplifting em 14. Meus pais tinham rachado acima e eu senti aparentemente que era uma maneira grande começar alguma atenção. Por quatro anos na High School, eu desgastei quase literalmente minha religião em minha luva; Eu pu-lo sobre quando eu estava na igreja e retirei-o assim que eu fosse home. Não me comece o erro, eu amei minha igreja (e ainda, eu retorno cada vez que eu sou home), mas eu vi muitos da fé superficial, e eu pensei realmente que que era tudo havia a estar um cristão. Minha fé era justa uma série das coisas que eu não fui suposto fazer (a bebida, fumo, tem o sexo, etc.). O Christianity era um lifestyle simplistic, restritivo que eu seguisse muito intermitentemente. Eu fiz exame desse perspective com mim quando eu assinei acima para o exército alguns meses antes que eu me graduei.
Looking back on my past, I am very grateful for the things I learned, the easy and the really difficult lessons alike. I completed my Military Service Obligation (MSO) a few weeks ago, and I am hoping to start college next fall. In the meantime, I am working for peace in every way I can find. Currently, I am employed as a developer for a very small but ambitious nonprofit. Additionally, I am very active in an organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), because as a Christian, I feel it is imperative that I reject war in all forms, and I also happen to be an Iraq War veteran. I might be a unique member in that I came to these beliefs not as some political reaction to the war, but as a direct response to the call of Christ to be nonviolent; to love, not destroy, our enemies. I always hesitate to call myself a pacifist, however, because the root of the word implies that such a person is passive. Nonviolence, and similarly Christianity, is quite a vigorous endeavor, far from being docile or merely a reaction to the culture around us. One should take close notice that in the Beatitudes, the folks who most directly reflect God’s character (who are called ‘children of the Most High’) are called to make peace (not keep, or enjoy or just promote it); to deliberately and actively create peace where there is none. I hope that I am known as a peacemaker, as a blessed son of God.
Yours is an interesting story. There are (thankfully) many peacemakers in our world, but you’re the first peacemaker I’ve talked to who came to their nonviolent convictions while enlisted. What led you to the conviction that you cannot love your enemy while trying to kill them?
The first time I considered that I might have the wrong take on the Bible was many months after I had returned from my combat tour in Iraq. I had met a family that really lived out the word of God everyday. They knew the Bible was not just a Basic Instruction Manual Before Leaving Earth (B.I.B.L.E.), it was a romance novel describing the dynamic relationship between the Creator and His creation. When I sought advice about various issues, the father of the family almost had a script it seemed. Every question I brought before him was answered by a simple “It’s about love Logan.” A four letter word contained the solution to every problem I could imagine. It seems a bit too simple minded, but in a world that is as individualized and materialized as ours, you realize that it really is very complicated to apply that ideology. Christ even said that we would be persecuted and cursed because of it!
When I began to accept the truth in what he had taught me, I knew I had to objectively consider whether I could fulfill that great commission while employed in very indiscriminate forms of violence as a forward observer in the US Army. When I returned to him to ask his thoughts on justice and war, the story changed. He expressed his belief that we were serving divine justice in the Middle East through our violence against Muslims. I had had discussions with other Christians within the military and heard similar thoughts, but none of them jived with the repeated exhortations by our King to love our enemy. Regardless of where I went with nonviolence, my mentor reminded me, he would respect and support me, as it was a decision he had never been asked to make, and he could sympathize with the immense pressure I faced in concretely answering no to violence and yes to grace. As much as I could explain the roots of the Christian practice of vicarious suffering (wherein we adopt our neighbors’ sufferings as our own, never forcing that yoke upon their shoulders), it will forever be a bit of a mystery, a sacrament of the Church, that must not be displaced from it’s centrality in Christian discipleship.
