In an age when religion is too often used to justify war, a dissenting voice spoke at Hart House, at the University of Toronto, on October 21. Author and theologian Anne Primavesi's talk was sponsored by the Student Christian Movement, ACT for Disarmament, OPIRG-U of T and other groups. An excerpt is printed below.

"War, no matter how it is presented, ultimately brings injury to bodies. That is what war, militarism, is about. And if you'd like to extend that notion, then the image of war is very much part of our relations with the planet -- the images of invasion, taking over, stripping, denuding, all these images that are part of the militarist mindset, have to do with injuring bodies ... In the narratives that I have alluded to, the God that wields this power of life and death over bodies, that God has no body; that God has or is only a disembodied voice. The voice of command is literally that, nothing more. There is apparently no appeal to compassion, to experience, or to identification with bodily suffering, against that voice.

"This disembodied male voice has ruled women's lives throughout the history of Christianity. It has ruled our military structures, it has ruled our governments, it has acted as the controlling instrument within our societies. ... We must extend that awareness and see how it has also controlled our relationships with the planet. The male scientific voice, the male military voice, the male political voice ...

"[In the early history of Christianity] there was a different understanding of the power of the spirit, as a power which empowered women, and empowered communities, and was not power over other bodies. Around 310 A.D., Lactantius of Bithynia said, 'It would not be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier, nor to accuse anyone of a capital offense. Because it makes no difference whether you kill him with a sword, or with a word, since killing itself is prohibited.'

"That comes from a time when Christianity believed in an incarnate God who was the victim of military power, who died on a cross erected by military power, and who refused to wield power over anybody, who only exercised the power of healing and reconciliation. But there was a tragic change, and we have been wrestling with this duality of our vision of the Messiah, the suffering Messiah who came to bring peace ... that vision was exchanged for that of a triumphant Messiah, who would come back at the end of time to destroy the wicked, and to wield a sword.

"We live with this idea of a God of unaccountable power, who exercises coercion over bodies, we live with that deeply planted in our understanding and our psyches, and yet we struggle towards the vision of an embodied God, a God embodied in Jesus and in the body of the earth."