Jim Loney's colleague was tortured, then shot

Tom Fox, the Christian peace activist abducted on November 16 with Saultite James Loney and two fellow members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, has been found dead in Baghdad.

CNN is reporting that the 54-year-old Quaker from Clear Brook, Virginia had been shot in the head.

The television network said it was told by Iraqi police that there were signs of torture on Fox's body.

Fox's body was found on a main road near a train station in western Baghdad.

It was wrapped in a blanket.

The American had been bound hand and foot.

The following is a news release issued last night by Dr. Doug Pritchard and Rev. Carol Rose, co-directors of Christian Peacemaker Teams, followed by a message written by Tom Fox the day before he was abducted:

****************** In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion.

The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain.

Tom Fox's body was found in Baghdad yesterday.

Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis. We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.

We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember.

Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus's prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.

In response to Tom's passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done.

In Tom's own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation."

Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence.

That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.

Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand.

These words and actions sustain us.

While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God’s movement for just peace among all peoples.

At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful.

Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.

Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom.

Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing, and in so doing may we hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes.

In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.

Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: "With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God’s grace, we will struggle for justice. With God's abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies."

We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman's safe return home safe.

******************** Reflection written Tom Fox the day before he was abducted

November 25th, 2005 - The Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs (financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project.

It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why are we here?

If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God.

Again, if I understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves.

In its essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the realm.

I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" in the word "agape."

Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all God's children.

I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as "never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow human beings."

As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the operative means of relating to each other.

U.S. forces in their quest to hunt down and kill "terrorists" are as a result of this dehumanizing word, not only killing "terrorists" but also killing innocent Iraqis - men, women and children in the various towns and villages.

It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I dehumanize a person.

That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically, structurally or physically.

As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.

"Why are we here?"

We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization that exists within us.

We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization.

We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

**********************