A significant slice of American religion has always been and is now dedicate to peace
Foremost are historic "peace churches" such as The Church of the Brethren, Quakers and Mennonites.
In addition, the ecumenical councils that represent the broad scope of main-line Christianity, have been deeply involved in the anti-war movement. Over the years, any significant peace protest has seen deeply embedded in it a preponderance of those there for religious reasons, joining those of non-religious persuasions as colleagues in the effort.
At the opening of our Democratic Campaign headquarters this afternoon, almost one half of the crowd were probably in some church this morning.
Every Friday afternoon since the beginning of the Afghanistan war, a score of religiously motivated people have stood with protest signs at a major intersection near us.
Many denominations have long-since issued statements against war and have backed up these statements with action. Here is one from a major denomination issued in 1936.
"We believe war to be morally and ethically wrong and a direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus Christ. We therefore disassociate ourselves from the war system and serve notice upon all whom it may concern that we will not support future wars not will we as a religious body permit our co-operative agencies to be used either directly or indirectly for such purpose."
-1936 Disciples of Christ International Convention held in Kansas City-
To call for the prohibition of religion in public life--in this case war and violence--would be to seriously injure the peace movement and violate the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Well, that's a force to be reckoned with. I mean, compared to the numbers of the religious right, you go a lot of power there.
for the impaired.
That's a megachurch. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of them in this country, and they are devoted to war and profit. Not a few of our elected officials are syncophants to their ughy ideology. They have billions of dollars in assets. What have you got? What guarantee can you offer your ideology won't morph into the same sort of beast if it gains power?
We have been struggling against the backward drag of religious power for five hundred years. Yours is a hopelessly regressive vision of cultural development.
for the clueless
I'm surprised one of our Google-fuehrers hasn't hammered you on it yet.
"Gott mit uns" was inscribed on belt buckles of the regular German Army (or Wehrmacht-Heer, for the uber-pedantic.) Not the SS.
The official motto of the SS, inscribed on their buckles/daggers, was "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My Honor is Loyalty). Which is pretty ironic, considering their leader Heinrich Himmler ended the war frantically trying to do a deal with the Allies behind Hitler's back.
Interesting note from the Wikipedia article on the SS: Members of the SS could be of any religion but atheists were not allowed.
They apparently lived up to that as Germany started recruiting more foreign SS troops. For example, the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division "Handschar." They were mostly Bosnian Muslims with a few Catholic Croats.
Their headgear was a stylish fez decorated with the SS death's-head symbol. In the picture below, they are studying a pamphlet entitled "Islam and Judaism:"
