Right after the first Iraq war broke out, I
saw a panel discussion on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour. When asked about God and the war, a famous
pastor, and then a famous rabbi said “God is with us; God will be on our side;
we trust God will bring us victory,” etc. The third panelist, Rev. James Forbes, instead
of commenting simply read from his Bible – those words Jesus uttered about
loving your enemies, and putting away your sword. The famous pastor literally shouted at him
and said “That’s not relevant now; we’re at war!” To which Forbes responded, “If it’s not
relevant now, it’s never relevant.”
Jesus’ life and death cry for peace is
always relevant. The basic Christian
default position will always be against war. Christian theologians are divided: some say
our default position need not require every Christian to be opposed to every
war, while others are adamantly and always against waging war. The follower of Christ is likely to suspect
that we get into too many wars for insufficient cause, and for self-indulgent
reasons – and we shudder over the way war is glorified excessively. Sometimes we forget that there are ways to
resolve conflicts other than by force.
Some wars have been anointed as “holy war,” but the likelihood is always
that it’s an all-too-human war with God pasted on the outside.
Christians need to ponder how we follow
Christ, whose dying passion was peace, in a fallen world where wars
happen. Governments fight wars, not the
churches – so how do we as citizens lean toward peace, or toward the kinds of
policies and initiatives that might make the world more peaceful?
No simple answers present themselves. But we who follow Jesus never take our eyes
off the goal of peace. We never cheer
war, but we grieve with our Lord. We are
the people who resist the glorification of fighting, explosions, and gunning
down people in the media. We are the
first to count the cost in human suffering, and unintended consequences. We are always among those who are intrigued
by and by default supportive of creative ways to rethink how we might find
peaceful fixes to conflicts.
Being for peace does not
mean being against soldiers. We honor
soldiers and pray for them; we can be absolutely sure they of all people want
peace. They are the ones who bear the
burden when they return home only to discover grossly inadequate programs to
help them with post-traumatic stress complications.
We humbly recognize that
while we yearn for peace and refuse to rest until peace dawns, it is not always
clear which candidate or which party is more likely to embrace this Christlike
ideal, or even how to negotiate international life in an increasingly violent
world. But we are always, always, the
peace people.
