Dignity is the only way

PHOTO: Peter Sensenig, right, in Qom, Iran, in 2024 with Positive Global Ethics conference participants, from left, Mohammad Kashani, Mohammad-Taghi Eslami, Hamid Makarem and Mohammad Suri. — Courtesy of Peter Sensenig

Talking on the phone with a friend in Iran, in the middle of a U.S. bombing campaign, my intention was to offer condolences. But to my surprise, the main thing he wanted to say to me was, “You need to come back. Let me know what I can do to make this happen.”

What my friend is communicating, even as his country is being bombed, is that there is only one way out of this mess: deeper attachment to one another — as Christians and Muslims, as Iranians and Americans.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has elicited all kinds of reactions. Some focus on the human toll — the number of lives lost, disrupted or displaced. Some highlight the economics of it — the staggering cost of war, its economic impact.

Others draw attention to the rationale, theology or eschatology behind it, still others the security implications for the region and beyond.

What is often missing is perhaps the most fundamental to understanding how something like this could happen and how to find our way out of it: the power of dignity.

Read the full article at: https://anabaptistworld.org/dignity-is-the-only-way/