Anglican Perspectives

It is time to fill the bowls of heaven

In the Southern part of Sudan and Northern part of South Sudan lie the Nuba Mountains. The gentle people of the mountains come from several different tribal backgrounds. Despite the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (“CPA”) that led to the creation of the new nation of South Sudan, there has not been peace, much less a comprehensive one.

 

President Omar Al-Bashir seized power over Sudan in 1989, ousting then Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi in what started as a bloodless coup. Now a better term would be a bloodlust coup. Since the peace agreement, there has been little peace in the Nuba Mountains, at least not enduring peace. Al-Bashir continues to deploy air strikes on the Nuba People. The problem is that they are very resourceful people. Shelters have been built against the constant bombardment. When aircraft are heard approaching, the people duck underground to cover, limiting the injuries.

 

Dissatisfied with the lack of carnage, President Al-Bashir has deployed a new kind of weapon. It is 800 pound bombs with parachutes. People run for cover when the aircraft is approaching, but when the airplane noise dissipates, people come out. The bombs that have been falling silently from high altitude don’t reach the ground for a long time after the plane is gone. As a result, people have come back out and are injured or killed when the bombs reach the ground.

 

Nuba Mountain Bombings
There is no way that such weaponry could be used unless approved if not deployed by direct order of Al-Bashir. Friends have sent me pictures of the dead and maimed people in the Nuba Mountains. They are too violent to show here but include death and destruction, limbs blown off, and bodies mutilated beyond recognition.

 

There was a time when Western powers were guided by a moral compass that would not allow this to continue. Stateless terrorists don’t have jet bomber aircraft to deploy. Intelligence services know where the planes take off and where they land. They know where they rain down death.

 

This raises the question of what to do about it. I think it is time to fill the bowls of heaven (which Revelation 5:8 describes as heaven’s incense bowls filled with the intercessions of the saints) for these “leaders” to repent or be removed. It is such situations that motivated Augustine to articulate his “Just War Theory.”

 

On May 30, 1998, Archbishop Joseph Adetiloye of Nigeria went to see General Sani “Sonny” Abacha because of death sentences that he was handing out. Archbishop Joseph told him, “If you do not repent, God will take your life, and it will be soon.” As a result, the Archbishop’s passport was seized, though he was not arrested. On June 8, 1998, at just fifty-four years of age, ten days later, General Abacha collapsed, dead. It was not the hand of the Archbishop that felled him. Archbishop Joseph gave a word of repentance that could have led to mercy.

 

Psalm 89:14 says: Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

 

May it be so in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and Southern Sudan.

 

Bishop Bill Atwood is Bishop of the International Diocese of the Anglican Church in North America.

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