John Thomas seeks arrest at White House
Friday, October 05, 2007
The absurdity of our UCC leaders just gets more interesting by the day.After a failed attempt to collect 100,000 signatures in support of his pastoral letter against the war in Iraq, John Thomas is now planning to deliver around 40,000 signatures to the White House on Wednesday, Oct. 10 and "not to leave the gates of the White House until our message has been received or until we are arrested".
Personally, I couldn't care less what his message is. If Thomas feels called to protest the war, he should. I just question the effectiveness of the tactic.
How does the White House "receive" Thomas' message? Is it like a FedEx delivery where he'll drop off the letter and signatures? I'm really not clear on what "until our message has been received" really means. I suspect the vagueness is intentional.
The only thing that is clear is that Thomas is looking to get arrested for a publicity stunt. Bob Edgar tried the same stunt when he protested outside the Sudan Embassy in 2004. The funny thing was, the stunt backfired: not a single major news source covered Edgar's arrest.
Thomas wants to be arrested. It's his self fulfilling, although meaningless, martyrdom of arrest that he'll wear like a Boy Scout merit badge. After it's over, he'll convince himself that he's paid a significant price in the name of peace. He'll delude himself that it's "the cost of discipleship" while missing the obvious: Out of a denomination of 1.2 million members, he mustered up 40,000 of the flock to sign on to his pastoral message. There's a message in there, but it's not about peace.
UPDATE:
According to a United Church of Christ press release, the idea that the petitions are "received" means that they want someone official to retrieve them from the front gates of the White House. "As of Friday, requests from the UCC that someone from the White House's public liaison office meet with Thomas and Jaramillo, and receive the petitions, have not been granted." It's just a guess, but they are probably asking themselves, "Who in the hell is John Thomas and he wants to drop off what?"
