May 1, 2003

Despite opinion polls showing strong public support among US churchgoers for the military action in Iraq, religious leaders who publicly opposed the war said they have no regrets about the stance they took.

The Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCC), and one of the most prominent opponents of the war, said he was keenly aware of the apparent "disconnect" between his and other leaders' positions and the support given to the war by those in the pews. Still, biblical prophets "didn't have a large following among people in the pews," Edgar said in an interview with ENI.

"Prophetic direction," such as the NCC's support for the civil rights movement in the 1960s is rarely judged as popular at the time, noted Edgar, an ordained United Methodist minister and a former Pennsylvania congressman.

The strong opposition to the war from religious figures - particularly mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics - represented a much-needed corrective, he suggested, to political acquiescence by political leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties.

With an unusually high level of patriotic fervor in the air, Edgar said he was gratified that opinion polls consistently showed that as many as one third of Americans opposed the war. It was surprising, given US domestic realities, he added, that the percentage of support for the war among Americans did not reach 95 per cent.

Edgar said he and other religious leaders are happy to have seen Saddam Hussein fall from power, but still believe their position on the war was sound. He cited the war's unnecessary loss of life, post-war chaos and uncertainty facing Iraq and what he described as an increasingly aggressive US foreign policy.

Asked if religious opponents of war were demoralized, Edgar said no, but said they were "shocked and angry" by a "rush to the Right" in US politics.

ENI