Eighth Reader:

We ask you to move powerfully in our world today so that all your creation may have equality and not ethnic cleansing;

justice and not genocide;

forgiveness and repentance,

not forcible removal and destruction;

reconciliation and not revenge.

Personal Testimonies of the Reality of Religious Persecution

(We strongly recommend that you invite several persons from different religious backgrounds, if available, to share their personal stories of suffering and persecution.)

Sermon on Religious Persecution:

Celebrant / Preacher / Spiritual Leader encouraged to deliver a sermon/homily/proclamation on religious persecution to the attendant spiritual congregation.

Celebrant: 

Let us name names of those we know who have suffered for their Faith.

Leader:

Oh Lord of all Creation,

We confess our grief and guilt

For the sin of religious persecution and war.

We confess that we do nothing as cities burn,

And thousands die,

And soldiers cry that God is on their side.

We know when we ignore the violence

Done in your name.

We are as guilty as those

Who shoot the bullets, wave the flag,

People:

We confess we blindly followed

Dictators, presidents and kings

Who raised the banner of religious war.

We fought for the Holy Land

While kings lusted only for land.

We fought for the Holy City

While dictators sought power and gold.

We went to war, hoping for the joys of heaven

And risked our souls to the flame.

We confess the sin of discrimination,

Persecution and unforgivable holy war.

We confess that we have praised and seldom punished

Leader:

We turn from truth and light,

We fall into endless wrong

Each time we ignore religious persecution,

Ethnic cleansing, or the destruction of

Peoples of other faiths.

We know well the lines that when Nazis

Came for Catholics, Gypsies, and Jews,

We did not speak out because we were not

Catholics, Gypsies, or Jews.

We wept when they came for us

People:

Today, if we do not speak out

We are among the mob that comes

To murder and to kill.

When they come for the Christians

In Sudan, Indonesia, and China;

When they come for the Moslems

In Bosnia and Kosovo;

When they come for the Jews

In Russia and the Middle East;

When they come for the Buddhists in Tibet;

When they come for the Shiites and the Sunnis ;

When they come for the Baha'is;

When they come for students in America's schools;

When they come for racial minorities;

Native peoples, victims of religious prejudice,

Leader:

When they come to kill religious minorities today

And when we do not speak out,

Then we are there among the mobs flashing our guns,

Waving our torches,

Thirsting for blood,

People:

Our faith, our Community, and our God

Demand that we end our silence.

We repent for our blindness and indifference

As our brothers and sisters suffer

And martyrs die in the streets.

We commit ourselves, this day, to speak out

Against the blasphemy of religious war.

We promise to work for an end to religious war.

We promise to work for an end to religious persecution.

And strive to bring justice, equality, and peace