Christian Group Deplores Support for Contras

Representatives of Witness for Peace, the Christian group whose members were apparently kidnaped last week by U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebels, charged Wednesday that the Reagan Administration, by supporting the rightist contras, has embarked “on a collision course” with the American religious community.

The representatives included three Roman Catholic bishops and the president of the United Church of Christ, all of whom serve on the group’s advisory committee. All endorsed Witness for Peace’s mission in Nicaragua, where members maintain a permanent presence in the hope of halting U.S. support for the anti-Sandinista guerrillas .

“Our government’s war in Nicaragua is a national sin and disgrace. It is a moral offense to our religious ideal,” said Jim Wallis, a pastor and editor of Sojourners magazine, who is chairman of the group’s advisory committee. “We say to our government today: In the name of God, let the violence stop.”

Christian Duty

The religious leaders acknowledged that there is considerable disagreement among Christians as to what U.S. policy toward Nicaragua ought to be. But they denied that they are using religion to justify their political views and said they spoke out of “religious conscience,” believing it incumbent upon Christians to oppose violence.

“We are not being political,” said Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Va. “We are trying to stop a bloodbath in which 50,000 or 100,000 people will die--all in the name of freedom or salvation or whatever.”

The group blames the violence and bloodshed going on these days in Nicaragua on the United States, arguing that an organized rebel fighting force would not have formed without U.S. military backing and financial assistance.

Stronger Every Day

Wallis said the Administration is “on a collision course” with religious opposition that “becomes stronger every day the violence and deception continues.”

In a speech in June, the Reagan Administration’s highest-ranking official on Latin America at the time charged that some U.S. churches have allowed themselves to be used “as window-dressing” by Marxists, and he asked clergymen in “Podunkville” to stop criticizing theAdministration’s Central America policy.

“The pulpit, I believe, is misused when devoted to secular political causes,” said Langhorne A. Motley, then assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, who has since left the Administration to return to private business.

In the last year and a half, more than 1,300 U.S. citizens have traveled to Nicaragua under the auspices of Witness for Peace to document contra attacks, according to the group.

It was on the organization’s “peace flotilla” last week that 29 volunteers and a number of journalists were detained for more than a day by armed men they say were members of the guerrilla faction commanded by Eden Pastora.

In the statement, Witness for Peace used strong language to deny suggestions--made by contra spokesmen and anonymously by U.S. officials--that the group had staged its own abduction for propaganda purposes. Witness for Peace added that allegations that Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime staged the capture were “equally ridiculous.”