On God's Side??

Religion can never justify war, Pope says

ASSISI, Italy — Pope Benedict said Monday that religion should never be used as a justification for war and appealed to hundreds of religious leaders to use their faiths to bring about peace.

“No one is therefore permitted to use the motive of religious difference as a reason or pretext for bellicose behaviour toward other human beings,” Benedict said in a message that was read to 200 leaders of different faiths meeting in this central Italian town for a summit held every year since the late pope John Paul II started it 20 years ago.

Ahmad al-Tayyeb, rector of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's most important seat of learning, echoed the Pope's appeal to use religion as an instrument of peace.
“When the guides of humanity and the builders of human history turn their backs on religions and on their sublime philosophies, they become like a group of blind people who are incapable of guiding themselves, let alone others,” Mr. al-Tayyeb said, speaking in Arabic.

The headline mentions only the Pope, but I think it is a very important part of the story that a Muslim leader and the Pope agreed on the fundamental issue that the key purpose of religion is to promote peace, not war.

We criticize, rightly, the jihadist viewpoint that killing is justified by Allah. But here in the US many come to a very similar point of justifying war with religion.

During the Civil War in the US, both sides often claimed, in some way, that 'God is on our side.' Abraham Lincoln wisely said that the issue was whether 'We are on God's side.'

I have trouble seeing God as often on the side of war.

Both the Pope and Mr. al-Tayyeb do well to remind of us that.

GP