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Last Sunday I was scheduled to speak on “Why I am Still a Pacifist” at the UU Fellowship of Panama City, FL. but I actually addressed the question “Is President Obama a Pacifist?”  Of course, he’s not. As Obama pointed out in his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, no head of state could be a pacifist like Gandhi or Martin Luther King.  However, compared to the previous US president one could make a case for the preposterous accusation that Obama is a Pacifist.  Which I did last Sunday.

One of these days I’ll get around to putting the lecture on this site, but  I’m posting today to urge you to see, if possible Tavis Smiley’s moving PBS program, “A Call to Conscience.”

http://video.pbs.org/video/1456944662/

on  Martin Luther King’s April 4, 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam.”

In that  speech,  delivered exactly one year before his assassination,  Dr. King maintained that the war in Vietnam was “destroying the soul of America.”

Is the war in Afghanistan destroying  the soul of America?

In addition to audio clips from Dr. King’s 1967  address, PBS showed video clips from Obama’s Peace Prize lecture of December 10, 2009, “A Just and Lasting Peace” in which Obama honored and quoted King.  In that lecture Obama addressed  the issue of “Just War” and defended the war in Afghanistan.

Obama has thought deeply about this issue.  But I  believe he has come down on the wrong side.  He believes there can be such a thing as a just war.    I believe there can be no just war.   But I also recognize that to give up war as an option we must be willing to give up the things that war exists to protect.

What do you think?

Watch Travis Smiley’s program or  listen to the audio version by going to

http://video.pbs.org/video/1456944662/

Rev. Bob