​A Declaration to End War Forever
A Plea to the entire World

 PURPOSE:
The purpose of this declaration is to speak to the people of Earth, of all faiths and cultures, seeking a common resolution toward eliminating the ungodly, pernicious and universally destructive practice of WAR. Further, to locate people of all faiths and nations to lead in this effort, regardless of what their governing MEME espouses.
WAR DEFINED:
1. WAR is the movement of armed military combatants from the country of their origin into and upon another country, resulting in death, dismemberment, disembowelment, blinding and incinerating of indigenous people. And/or:
2. WAR is the targeting of another nations land for bombing, burning and the employing of blunt force, ending in the destruction of homes, towns, cities, infrastructure and culture. And/or:
3. WAR includes the unavoidable and universal by-products of rape, torture, starvation, abandonment of homes, families and children, disease and suffering, mainly upon innocent weaker populations and the poisoning of the earth and its environment. And/or:
4. WAR is the secret and clandestine use of covert intelligence forces, embedded among a target nation, deliberately causing civil rebellion and sever damage to the targets economic and governing stability. And/or:
5. WAR is the intentional long distant interference of the governing authority of another nation by manipulation of trade, communications or economic markets or agriculture and environmental destabilization, with the goal of replacing the target nation’s government with that of the aggressor nation’s choice of governments, so the aggressor nation can plunder the resources of the target.
WAR is NOT:
1. Police Actions are not war, BUT only if carried out by the United Nations under the sole authority of the world body with no national identity and with no reward to any nation. These actions are instituted against a target nation or group
of nations who have either crossed onto another nation’s territory or who internally are committing acts of war against humanity or genocide upon their own citizens or residents. Said police actions may be used to arrest violence and render a victimized population safe from their own government or agents thereof (as in Darfur) while negotiations, sanctions and other non-lethal force is brought to bear against the offending governing authority.
2. National Defense is NOT war as long as a nation is defending its borders against invasion by another nation, groups of nations or massive bands of “hostile” refugees.
CHRONOLOGY:
1. The pre-human ancestry of war lies in the primate family who’s fighting and rule through force has been passed on and adopted by humans as normal.
2. In the beginning when the human species was small in number and widely separated, the human propensity to violence was held within local tribes and involved small groups of individuals. Said altercations were usually males fighting to procreate with females.
3. About 4000 BCE settling on the land replaced hunting and gathering. Agricultural civilizations replaced wandering and the holding of land became the source of armed conflict as settled farmers had to defend their holdings against landless people, grown too large in numbers to live as gatherers (Hebrews taking of Jericho and the land of the farmers of Canaan, and the hill people of Pakistan and Iran taking the delta land of the Sumerians are the best documented cases in history).
4. From 4000 BCE to approximately 1000 BCE and following, these new mini civilizations (city states), primarily in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Syria began to fight among themselves “taking the field of battle” for additional territory, primacy one over another and tributes of slaves, women and the newly discovered metals. At this time a permanent warrior class developed. Hindu’s early author Krishna, was part of this military class.
5. From 1000 BCE onward, humans created tribal states, eventually leading the human species to the creation of nation states. These nations followed the practice, developed early on, of making war against other nations to take bounty of labor and land. The only things that have changed throughout millennia are the spoils taken and the methods employed.
• SPOILS OF WAR. For the ancients, metal, women and slaves were the primary goals or spoils of a successful WAR. Actual territory was useless because of limited ability to plow and plant. Conflict was short, results were immediate, and most damage was limited to casualties among armed warriors.
Eventually, as the earth populated, land itself became the primary goal of conquest. Armed conflict became longer and more brutal developing a longer term revenge and rage component.
Today, conflict is long term and the spoils are no longer land but resources. For conceivably the next 200 years petroleum and energy will be the primary reason for WAR. It will be couched with ideology and religion and promoted by state and church politicians, when in reality oil and energy will be the goal. Over-population will be a driving actuator, forcing millions of people into refugee status while the fear of westernization and feminization among eastern male dominated societies will supply the dread and theologically motivated rhetoric needed to enflame people to WAR. Many experts believe religion will dominate war ideology over the next 100 years.
POWER NATIONS FORCE WAR.
Theodore Roosevelt (1903) and the U.S. Government started a civil war within Columbia in order to cause Panama to be governed by a power friendly to the U.S. thus allowing us to build the canal. In 1953 the U.S. worked with mini-factions in Iran to overthrow the legally elected government, replacing it with a “cleptocracy” our puppet, the Shah, in order to rob the country
of its oil. This type of activity has been repeated by the United States in Vietnam (where it backfired), Chile, and Haiti and was attempted in 2005 in Venezuela where it was exposed prematurely.
THEOLOGY:
It is nearly impossible to use the ancient scriptures, of any faith, as proof text of God’s abhorrence of WAR. All through the Hebrew Scriptures we follow the exploits of a tribal cult, their god going before, conquering the area of Canaan, using killing, rape, skullduggery and enslavement to steal the land belonging to others. In Buddism's Bhagavad-Gita God's man Krishna rebukes the seeker Arjuna when he decided NOT to go to war basically telling to "pick one side or the other and go out there and kill as many as you can!"
In all societies historical and contemporary the making of war requires the consent and support of its sacred ecclesiastical community or war cannot take place.
Conversely, the Christian Gospels, not tribally or ethnically driven, have only one allusion to war having Jesus say “I have not come to bring peace but the sword to separate mothers and children, husbands and wives,” etc. Many New Testament scholars consider this text an insertion added at a much later stage in scriptural development. This scripture calling for the sword has been traditionally seen as a metaphor, warning his followers that faith in his teachings on righteous behavior will separate the worldly minded from the heavenly minded. The rest of Jesus’ teachings call for forgiving enemies, turning the check repeatedly if attacked, even infinitely, “seventy times seven” in Jesus’ words.
Occasionally, in the New Testament, warfare is used metaphorically as fighting a battle for truth, not a physical battle, but a struggle for the mind and soul, not unlike the true “jihad” of Islam. Yet there is just enough verbiage in both the Koran and the Christian Scriptures to allow both Christianity and Islam communities, religions of peace, to be used by evil rulers and churchmen to lead their followers to be purveyors of violence. Currently, because of the west’s presence in the Middle East, Islam is seen as a religion of war; however Christendom historically has been at war for almost all of the past 1400 years. Throughout history Islam (the Saracens) were seen by Jews to be much better educated, embracing Jewish culture and far more peace loving than the Christians.
The central doctrine of the Christian Church in the post Jesus ante-Nicene period (34 – 325 C.E.) was peace and love following Jesus Great Commandment “you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind ... And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The passage continues “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” When asked “Who is a neighbor? Jesus replied that a Samaritan, a hated sidelined religiously inferior person was the perfect neighbor through his acts of love toward a fallen Jew.
Over the next two centuries the small fledgling Christian community became the fodder of martyrdom because of their steadfast refusal to fight in the Roman Legion. These early believers languished in prisons or were killed for their refusal to go to WAR. The ante-Nicene fathers instructed Christians to assimilate and not be separate entities in countries where they settled, but never gave a waiver on Christians not doing battle.
It was not until the emperor Constantine usurped the Christian religion, himself never converting until his death, into Roman society, itself a WARRIOR nation. Even legionnaires were forced to convert too Christ forever making the faith of a man of peace and a people of love into a religion of war and violence. It has been a warrior religion ever since.
The Renaissance Institute and our adherents are, this day, reclaiming our faith and all faith communities on earth, in our teacher’s name and the name of every Godly teacher in every age.
WAR is abhorrent to God by whatever name God is called. WAR IS injustice, it IS the cause of injustice. WAR IS NOTHING but injustice and has absolutely nothing to do with God or God’s purpose in the universe.
SCRIPTURE:
• Isaiah 1:4: They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore. Majjhima Nikaya: Without a staff or a sword the Buddhist is kind and sympathetic, and gives love and compassion towards all living things. Retribution 130: Do not kill or cause others to kill. Luke 1:79: guide our feet in the way of peace. Luke 2: 14: Glory to God and on earth peace and goodwill to all people. Matthew 5:9: in his initial sermon Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Note at no time does Jesus bless the warrior. Matthew 5:44: when asked “when do you go after your enemy?” He said “I say to you love your enemy, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you...” Mark, Matthew and Luke cite the “Great Commandment,” repeated in Romans and nearly duplicated, emphasizing love for others, in John’s Gospel. According to Matthew 26:52 "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." (THIS INCLUDES ENTIRE NATIONS) The Christian’s allegiance is defined when Jesus, using a two sided coin says in Matthew 22:17-28 “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s indicating money and wealth belongs to the state and society, but the believer belongs to God, and God never abandons the prohibition against killing.
• Restating this obligation of the believer, Paul clearly sets aside the ordinances of earthly living declaring the believer a “new person’ in Ephesians 2:14-19 now “citizens with the Saints in the household of God.” He also sets the tenets of the New Testament toward believers conduct in this life in Galatians 5:16+ listing the fruits of evil as hatred, contentions, outburst of wrath, murdering and rivalries (sounds like war), but the fruits of the Spirit include love, peace, gentleness and self-control. Later he assures the reader we all reap what we sow. WAR sows the seeds of the next war!
OPPOSITION TO THIS DECLARATION:
Everyone
• National leaders it’s their raison de etre, war is their reason for being, and their power source.
• Young Males because it’s still primarily a “boy thing” a game of fight and win. The hormone controlled young are raging literally dying to mate and angry as they force their way upon the world. WAR is an adventure.
• Young Females because it is a stimulating factor in mate selection (uniforms, testosterone indicator, etc.) and increasingly a path to upward mobility for women.
• Parents it grows their lagging sons into “real men.” If he fights and lives it’s a bragging point and good start to career, if he dies he’s a bragging point and a vindication of parenting in lieu of earlier failures. Some parents actually love their kids and fight against war.
• Big and small business the accoutrement of WAR is purchased in mass and at inflated worth to price ratios. The return to civilized life usually brings recession and seeking a reason to have a new WAR (WWI – depression – WWII).
• The Clergy because during armed conflict, government courts the church to abandon its teaching of “thou shall not kill,” stand down and turn aside from the principles of their faith in God. Religious bodies turn their young over to the state with blessings for their new task, the wholesale butchering of other human beings. Thus the creation of: “God and Country” euphoria during war and the enshrining of sacrifice afterward. Note the bronze plaque in the church narthex “Our Victorious Dead.”
• The global ruling class because their worldwide investment empires are cross invested and they profit immensely from WAR. No longer does it matter if the financiers, wealthy and owners of one country win a WAR or face devastation. All assets of this class of people are so inter-twined that as a class they win every time, even if their country is defeated.
• The establishment because “we” need to relieve pressure from below as the new generation seeks to overturn us. We send them out to take someone else’s space and riches. WAR is the win-win answer, the young go away permanently, as causalities or they bring back new riches to support themselves and the elders - “us.”
• The old because it vindicates our youthful behaviors and brings back memories of our once held bluster: “If we suffered and died; why shouldn’t they!”
THE DECLARATION:
We declare that WAR is abhorrent, evil, pathological, and destructive behavior with roots in the lower-layers of the pre-human animal brain, brought to the surface by the godless but ever present desires of greed, anger, selfishness, and lust for others’ life or property.
WAR is never an answer, it is always a problem.
WAR must be abolished if the seven billion people living upon this earth are to survive.
WAR can only be abandoned as an operating philosophy if the children of God1, all faiths, cultures and races, decry WAR and refuse the power of the state or culture around them to lead fellow citizens into this deadly, pernicious practice.
WAR can be dismantled if the peoples of the earth require both secular and sacred leaders to act out of regard for peace and justice abandoning an “us first get all you can policy.”
WAR can be ended only by the rule of law, not the force of might; therefore, all nations and national leaders must be subject to the International Criminal Court and the World Court.
WAR can only be abolished when the United Nations represents “equally” all nations ending the rule of the Security Council as a self-governing cell of national super power elites.
WAR can be ended only when military personnel, sent into a police action by a universal mandate of the United Nation are without national identity and under UN command and control. National armed services may be maintained and used to protect national borders of the homeland from outside military, internal terrorism2 and natural disaster.
WAR will be ended when all religious communities with no equivocation declare no national allegiance, that in their interpretation of the Creator’s plan, WAR has no place in the lives of the believers and adherents to their faith.
WAR will be abolished forever when all religious communities adhere to Article 18 of the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
Therefore
We the people of Earth declare this day that WAR is ended forever and resolve to join with all peace seeking people to abolish this practice from the face of the earth, affirming all people free from obligation of forced service of any kind in furtherance of WAR.
Rev. Dr. Brinton (Britt) Minshall/ Renaissance Institute of American Churches3/ www.AllOneFamily.net /2229 Pelham Ave/ Baltimore, MD 21213 / 800 944 8023/
Copy and circulate in massive quantities.
1. 1 Allah, Theo's. Great Spirit, Divine, God, Dios = The Author of the Universe by a thousand names.
2. 1 Internal domestic must become subject to the International legal system.
3.1 Renaissance Institute Inc. is a non-profit organization founded in 1992 to spread the REAL gospel to and for all religions and peoples. (IRS. 501-c-3)
A Declaration to End War Forever
A Plea to the entire World