"Peace on earth, to all goodwill, from heaven the news we bring"

Edmund Hamilton Sears, Unitarian minister and anti war activist helped define the meaning of the Christmas holiday with his carol "It came upon a Midnight Clear." The last verse has shaped generations of religious liberals understanding: "for lo! the days are hastening on by prophets long foretold, when the ever circling years comes round the age of gold: when peace shall over all the earth its ancient spendors fling, and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing."

Sears wrote his carol as an anti war song. The United States had invaded Mexico as part of a premeditated plan to seize resources and extend the system of slavery. The United States had been engaged in a war of genocide against the indigenous peoples of this land, and its racist contempt for the people of Mexico was a logical extension of the exclusive covenant upon which the nation had been founded. Sears wrote his carol to protest the violence and imperial arrogance of his government. Sears was a Unitarian, and a real patriot.

This carol was his Christmas gift to his faith community and to other real patriots of his time. (Abraham Lincoln resigned from the Illinois legislature to protest the vote to call up the militia for the invasion of Mexico. Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay his taxes to support this war. Sears had lost his pulpit due to the vicious criticism from jingoists within the Lancaster, Massachusetts congregation, but had been welcomed by the Wayland, Massachusetts congregation

My anti war commitment began in Unitarian Sunday School, and I have no problem asserting that while Unitarian Universalism may not be a pacifist church, we are a faith community that has a long, and consistent tradition of opposition to unjust war. Our present stance of opposition to the racist and murderous war on the Iraqi people is not because we have strayed from religion into politics as some who don't know our history would assert, on the contrary we are continuing a long tradition.

How do we discern a just war, from an unjust war? First, we need to understand that the political elite who runs our government has a long history of lying, rationalizing, and spinning their policies. What do I mean by long? I would go back to well before Independence was declared. My Cherokee ancestors had experience with the lies.

But what about now? How do we put an end to the "two thousand years of wrong" [Sears was referencing the betrayal of Jesus teaching by his followers.]

Let me suggest one resource that exposes the lies and spin of the modern war making elite. War Made Easy by Normon Solomon analyzes the deceptions of the government and media to mobilize the people of this nation into war after war.