My undergraduate college years spanned 1964 to 1968 some of the headiest years of protest and upheaval in American history. Race riots, freedom marches, political assassinations, the counterculture and the unpopular war in Vietnam. Chants of All we are saying, Give peace a chance.I sat in rapt attention in the balcony of Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames, Iowa, as the Rev. John Davies eloquently spoke out against the war in Vietnam with its high death tolls and destruction. Week after week, he made sure his congregation prayed hard for peace and questioned the war. That war roared through the 1960s to the loud outrage of peacemakers, students, believers and common citizens. In the campus protests and rallies, you would always find city pastors taking their turns sounding off at podiums. In those years, the faith community seemed to have put up a forceful objection to war. Lots of churches had their factions of peace activists who regularly marched, picketed and protested. Churches were a partner in the quest to end the war and injustice, at least as I remember it. I remember putting on black arm patches and marching through Ames in sympathetic support for civil rights work in Selma, Ala., in the fall of 1964.So, I have been waiting this time around. I have long been amazed how the war in Iraq seems to roll along with limited outcry from the faith community. With all its bloodshed and death of more than 3,000 American service personnel and untold tens of thousands of civilian deaths and an entire country trashed, it seems that American faith communities have almost sat it out, perhaps careful to protect their tax exemptions. Perhaps conflicted to avoid looking like the troops were not being supported. Perhaps because they never see the human casualties in a war of volunteer servicemen. Perhaps because it seemed like something for the political sides of ourselves to deal with.When the World Council of Churches met last year in Brazil, it crafted a message that was written like a prayer of repentance and got backing from 34 Christian churches of the council. It said the WCC churches mourned those who have died or been injured in the Iraq war. "We confess that we have failed to raise a prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders from this path of preemptive war."Given the litany of failures and the human destruction in Iraq, we have to ask: Where have been the people of faith? Why hasnt there been thunderous outrage, massive groups from faith communities filling the ranks of protest? Have war and violence just become so pervasive that weve given up? What do you think? Has the faith community really spoken out for peace and an end to this war? What will take for that to happen?

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