Living as People of Peace in Times of Fear and Terror

The second way Christians can witness to the “principalities and powers” that control both our politics and our economy is to engage them as peacemakers schooled in the Way of Christ.

Jesus’ call for his followers to be “peacemakers” is not a mere suggestion. It is not an option for us only when it is convenient or safe to do so, for there are risks when it comes to non-violent peacemaking. 

Indeed, love-infused peacemaking is really difficult and often unpopular. It runs counter to the culture that glorifies and even sacralizes violence and war. 

Yet it inspires a moral vision that is so needed in a world that is determined to self-destruct through its own agencies of escalating violence. When two of the world’s leaders banter with nuclear weapons like two school children fighting in the school yard we know that our children’s world is seriously in danger of annihilation.  

Violence and war captures the impressionable imagination of our youth today especially through lifelike videos produced and sold to glorify them both (not to mention make a mind-boggling profit). These lifelike videos, including Hollywood’s own contribution with movies that sacralize killing (e.g., “American Sniper”), glorifies and normalizes violence as the only way to defeat violence.

Ironically this portrayal of violence as an appropriate response to violence actually makes sense. It is reasonable and logical. When coupled with the goals of nationalism (safety and security) it is the only course of action that will work (it hardly ever does). This is why young men and women are so willing to lay down their lives for the political aspirations of those who govern them (and often are unwilling to do the same).

Yet war continues. Violence is not eradicated but in today’s world only intensifies and expands—it is even glamorized as mentioned above. 

So into this violence prone and war saturated world Christians are called to take a much different path in making peace—the road less traveled as it were. 

I am so disappointed and saddened that much of the Western Church has favorably looked upon the Augustinian Just War Tradition as ample justification for its participation in perpetuating violence in the world. Just War for Christians needs to be seriously challenged and rethought if we hope to regain our moral bearings as Christ followers.

The belief that violence can forcefully produce peace may be logical but it remains delusional. It is disheartening for me to witness the perversion of Christianity exposed by much of the Evangelical Church’s kowtowing  to this worldly contagion of reciprocal violence.

The logic of such violence offers our children and grandchildren a truncated vision that has expanded about as far as it possibly can. There is absolutely no room for this vision to grow since the potential for a disastrous end is upon us with the possibly of a nuclear war.

It has used up all of its capital. 

But there is hope. 

Indeed, our children and grandchildren need a much larger vision for the world we are handing off to them. It is a vision that is filled with a hope that is grounded not in the promises of elected leaders, who themselves hold dearly to their own toxic vision for the world.

But first we must capture this huge life-giving vision ourselves. We must be willing to let go of that tried-and-yet-to-be-proven method that reciprocal violence is the only sustainable way to ultimately defeat violence. It may beat aggressive violence back for a while but it will never eliminated it once and for all. At best violence simply begets violence.

One of the great texts we Christians love to recite at Christmastime was composed by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah who saw prophetically God’s answer for Christians living in a world terrorized by violence:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (italics mine).

The real hope of this world is the Prince of Peace. It is in the illogical response of his followers to practice non-violent peacemaking. It is in our regenerative capacity to recognize the powerlessness of the Cross (Romans 1:16-17) as being the answer to the world’s persistent drive towards violence.

It is only by faith that Christ’s peacemakers stand against the Principalities and Powers of this world—a faith that is animated by the love of God for all of humanity.

In the words of author Marcus Peter Rempel: “Jesus’ answer to violent reasonableness is an unreasonable love.” 

I close with the words of the martyred Catholic missionary, Oscar Romero:

“The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.”