James Loney: Convictions Put to the Test

James Loney served in Baghdad 3 times with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Loney responded to his commitment to nonviolence by training to enter war zones and engage a peacemaking role in Iraq, to stand with Iraqis during the United States invasion. On November 26, 2005, James Loney was captured in Baghdad with 3 other CPT members. After two and a half months in captivity, one of his companions, Tom Fox, was killed by the captors. Six weeks later British soldiers freed Jim and his remaining two companions.
At this time when the United States is engaged in military fighting in 3 wars, James Loney brings his life to us as occasion to ask ourselves, if we don’t want war, if we believe in nonviolence, what is our active response to war making?
James Loney was one of 3 gay men, including his life partner Dan Hunt, who co-founded the Toronto Catholic Worker in 1990. While living in community with people who were homeless, he witnessed the consequences of poverty and felt challenged to look more deeply at the structures of inequity. This moved him into further activism, and he trained for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in 2000. He first went to Baghdad with CPT in 2003, before the war began. In 2004, Loney served in Iraq ten weeks with CPT. The work was to build relationships with Iraqi human rights and peace activists and document abuses of security detainees and denial of their basic human rights by the United States. In 2005, he joined a 10 day delegation, and began documenting the torture of Iraqi citizens by their own government before he was captured.
James Loney has just published, Captivity: 118 Days in Iraq and the Struggle for a World Without War. Loney will reflect on the commitment to nonviolence in times of war. What can we do when the United States leads its international relations with military means? What are the dilemmas, fears, and hopes we face in practicing nonviolence?