By By Fred Jackson and Jody Brown
March 28, 2003

(AgapePress) - The anti-war movement in the U.S., which includes various religious figures, has continued its campaign in the midst of the Iraqi battle.

Two bishops and one church official were among about 65 people arrested in an anti-war protest near the White House earlier this week. Among them was United Methodist Bishop Joseph Sprague, a controversial figure in that denomination because of his questioning of basic biblical teachings on the deity of Jesus Christ. He and others were taken into custody after they decided to break through police barricades to carry out their demonstration.

Also arrested along with Sprague were Jim Winkler, general secretary of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit. United Methodist News Service quotes Winkler as stating, at a pre-demonstration press conference, that he feels it is "time to get out there on the front lines."

"Our board has stated that war is wrong -- and now that it's started, it's still wrong," Winkler said. "This war is unjust, unnecessary and uncertain."

In the same report, Sprague is quoted as saying "the White House is not hearing from the Council of Bishops [of the United Methodist Church]. Given that reality, it demands strategies that are out of the ordinary -- atypical rather than typical."

Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, DC. He calls the arrest of Sprague and Winkler "really embarrassing" for the denomination.

"The incoherence of these church officials reflects poorly on our denomination and even on the anti-war cause they seek to promote," Tooley says in a statement. "Bishop Sprague and Jim Winkler represent the radical fringe of America's religious community. Unfortunately, they also occupy senior and very visible positions of influence that will distort how the United Methodist Church is portrayed to the nation."

There has also been more disturbing news of protests against U.S. military personnel. Fox News reports a recent incident in which a group of teenagers in Vermont threw rocks and yelled obscenities at a National Guard soldier.

On a related note, Associated Press says Rev. Ken Joseph, Jr., went to Iraq this month as a "peace activist" -- but left convinced that Iraqis desperately wanted a war to free them from Saddam Hussein. The Assyrian Christian minister says some Iraqis even said that they would commit suicide unless the United States invaded.

Joseph and two other anti-war activists were in Baghdad for two weeks -- escaping into Jordan the day before the U.S. bombing began. He plans to take relief supplies back into Iraq as soon as it is safe enough to return. Joseph says he has reluctantly come to believe that war is necessary to overthrow a dictator who is feared and loathed by his own people.

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