Feature: Shifters

Picture from the Jimmy Carter Center: http://www.cartercenter.org/peace/index.html

To read the entire letter..this is posted @ http://salsa.net/peace/conv/8weekconv7-5.html

Pray for Peace but Pay for War?
by Maurice F. McCrackinMaurice F. McCrackin, born in 1905, was a Presbyterian pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1948 he stopped paying his federal income tax because a portion of the tax would be used far military affairs war preparations. He stopped filing his returns in 1957 because they aided the revenue department in collecting the taxes. When he was subpoenaed to appear in court with his financial records, he refused He was carried into the courtroom and sentenced to six months in jail. On his release, the Cincinnati Presbytery censured him and in 1960 suspended him from the ministry. This is his statement to the presbytery during his trial.

"This evil chain of violence and death must be broken and it will be broken when enough individuals say to the state, "You may order me to do something I believe wrong but I will not execute your command. You may order me to kill, but I will not kill nor will I give my money to buy weapons that others may do so." There are other voices that I must obey. I must obey the voice of humanity which cries for peace and relief from the intolerable burden of armaments and conscription. I must obey the voice of conscience, made sensitive by the inner light of truth. I must obey the voice heard across the centuries, "Love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you." In obedience to these voices lies the only path to brotherhood and peace. And these are the voices I must obey. "
From Instead of Violence, Beacon Press, Boston 1963