Thoughts on Peace
Jesus never condemned anyone for being too compassionate. God can handle the retribution part. (James 2:13)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person.” Jesus was obviously raising the standard of behavior for those who would follow him. If you aren’t supposed to respond to someone gouging out your eye or breaking your teeth, at what point in the assault are you authorized to stop loving your enemy and say: “You just crossed the line, now you’re gonna DIE!” How do you know if they’re going to kill you, and if so, that Jesus wants you to kill them first? He didn’t say, “This doesn’t apply to people trying to kill you. They’re in a different category that will unfortunately go unrecorded by my biographers.”
Interpretation of Luke 23:34 and Acts 7:59-60: love your enemies even as they kill you. We exist at the pleasure of God. When and how we die is allowed by Him; He is with us in that moment.
Rather than addressing a local face-slapping epidemic, when Jesus said “turn the other cheek” he knew the next blow could be fatal. He also knew it risked an emboldened enemy moving on to other victims.
Jesus didn’t come to bring us common sense. We already had that. It is the wisdom of the world (1 Cor 3:19). Contrast with James 3:17-18. He placed ideology above practicality (Matt 5:29-30, for example) and expects the same from us.
Is your salvation dependent upon a madman or should you take him seriously? I agree with Job that, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
True Christianity is truly inconvenient (and counterintuitive).
Overwhelmingly, non-Christians see Jesus’ life as a model of pacifism and are disgusted by Christians who don’t. This is a great stumbling block for non-Christians.
One would think that Christian fundamentalists, who place a premium on taking the Bible literally, would be the most ardent pacifists.
We think others commit “big” sins while we commit only “little” sins. Do non-believers who appear to be good people and commit only “little” sins just need Jesus a “little” bit?
Regarding the security of our families, we assume: “Surely, God wouldn’t test our obedience to Christ as He tested Abraham’s obedience when He told him to sacrifice his son!” See Luke 14:26.
Many Christians want to stay out of heaven as long as possible. At the very least, they feel entitled to stay out for at least 70 years before having to spend the rest of eternity with God.
If our highest priority is staying out of heaven as long as possible, is God's highest priority keeping us out of heaven as long as possible?
A prime example of the results of “End Justifies the Means” thinking:
“Mr. Nash said Laos is the country most saturated with unexploded cluster munitions, including types that attract children because they look like “little baseballs.” They are a legacy of United States bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War.”
I would suggest that for God, it is the means that justify the end.
The fact that God views hating your brother the same as killing him suggests that His perspective on murder is different than ours. Hatred = Murder. Who among us has not hated?
All who are not reconciled to God are His enemies and worthy of death, including you and I before our salvation. For some reason God does not reveal to us those people who will never submit to Him; otherwise we could just hate and kill them and focus our love on the rest.
If you kill someone and then slide into depression, do you have authority from God to kill yourself? If you don’t have the authority to kill yourself, a murderer, then whom do you have authority to kill?
And if we don’t have God’s authority to kill for love (euthanasia), how can we have God’s authority to kill for hate (war)?
Regarding the notion that war brings peace: wars fought to certain victory always bring peace, whether won by the “good guys” or the “bad guys.” Everyone who uses violence wants to establish peace – on his own terms.
If Christians can refrain from killing abortion providers they should be able to refrain from going to war.
When we become Christians we give up some luxuries that non-believers continue to enjoy (it’s called “taking up your cross”). One of those is the “right” to kill others to protect our Pleasant American Lifestyle (PAL) as defined by freedoms and prosperity. Killing for our PAL can be justified on political, economic or Humanist grounds but there is no Christian justification for it. Neither Jesus nor his Apostles would have killed to maintain their lifestyles or their lives. The Mafia kills to maintain its lifestyle.
Christians are commanded to give aid and comfort to their enemies (Rom 12:20).
The legacy of Constantine is the belief that the Christian response to provocation can be the same as the world’s and that God’s stamp of approval is on it. Christianity has morphed into a force believing it has a mandate from God to help the state eradicate the “evil” people of the world. Many Christians are deceived into believing they are neutralizing the enemies of God, while in reality, they are ignoring Christ’s commands regarding enemies in order to neutralize their own enemies.
Jesus never suggested that we need to be in a never-ending struggle to exterminate wicked people.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully,” commented Blaise Pascal, “as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Did Jesus regard self-preservation a high priority for himself or his disciples? Did the martyrs fail to get the word?
Many Christians believe murderers are unredeemable – doomed to hell. They would have killed Moses, David and Saul of Tarsus.
“There is no reason to imagine that we cannot overcome torture, war, hyper-nationalism, vengeance, and retribution.”- David Swanson, afterdowningstreet.org
It’s pretty sad when atheists sound more like Christians than many Christians.
If you want to fight back, you shouldn’t be a Christian. You should try some other religion.
The Christians’ proper response to oppression from others is forbearance, not violence.
Concern yourself not with being loved, but with loving.
Seek justice for others without demanding it for yourself.
When used in reference to the military, the word “fight” is a euphemism for “kill.” Schoolboys fight; soldiers kill. For example, fighting for democracy is actually killing for democracy.
Many Christians follow a Christianity that supports their worldview.
The best defense against terrorism is to not be terrified.
One thing America has in common with its enemies: the conviction that if you just kill enough people, the world will be a better place.
Americans, by and large, are better suited for Judaism. Jews are not required to love their enemies.
Many Christians like to cite the Canaanite genocide (when God commanded the Israelites to slay every living thing among the enemy) as precedent for God’s endorsement of war (what about genocide?). Does this mean that, throughout history whenever an army has taken to the field, it was by God’s instigation? If He was pleased when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, beginning a rampage of conquest and modern-day genocide, who were we to oppose them? Or does the Canaanite example only apply to the United States? Is there any scripture to support the view that the US is the “new” nation of Israel, with carte blanche to go to war whenever it pleases? Recall that it was a sin for the Israelites to not kill every living thing among the enemy. Throughout our history we have never done that and we would condemn any nation that did.
So what lessons might we draw from the Old Testament? “You are authorized to war against Canaanites, but must surrender to Babylonians (today's Iraqis).” UH-OH! There are lots of things God told the Israelites and Judeans to do that we don't do today.
Acts 10 tells the story of Peter’s encounter with Cornelius the centurion. Before this encounter, Cornelius and his devout soldier likely were gentiles who worshipped the God of the Jews and served in a nearly all-pagan army of the pagan Roman Empire ruled by a pagan self-deifying emperor. They served the most powerful dictator in the world and could have been ordered to kill any enemies he wanted destroyed. In order to use this story to justify Christian service in the military we would have to concede that, throughout history, it has been permissible for Christians to serve in ANY military, including those of Germany and Japan in WWII. Assuming that Christians serving in the military are authorized by God to kill enemies of the state, then it was appropriate for German and Japanese Christians (yes, there were some) to kill Americans and that God expects Christians to kill each other in war. (During the Viet Nam war, one of John McCain’s North Vietnamese prison guards in the “Hanoi Hilton” was a Christian.)
We don’t know if Cornelius ever killed anyone after his baptism of the Holy Spirit or if he even stayed in the military. Two who didn’t stay were Martin of Tours and Marcellus the Centurion (who was martyred for putting Christ above the state). Maximilian of Tebessa was also martyred – for refusing to join the army as a Christian. The idea that just because an earthly ruler wants some people killed that God also wants them killed and wants Christians to participate is surely questionable.
Luke’s account of Jesus and the Centurion differs from Matthew’s in that Matthew has the two meeting face to face while Luke has them communicating through intermediaries. Regardless, like everyone Jesus encountered, the Centurion was not a sinless person. Yet Jesus did not bring the man’s sins to his attention and admonish him. Jesus focused on the positive here and commended him for his faith. It is likely the Centurion’s servant was a slave, but Jesus didn’t ask him to free his slave. We’ll never know what Jesus would have said if the Centurion had asked him, “Lord, as a soldier of the Empire, the enemies of my pagan master - the Emperor - are also my enemies and I am duty-bound to kill them. Yet you have said we must love our enemies. What should I do?”
There is no evidence of Jesus striking any people when he cleared the temple. He likely would have been arrested for that. Had He followed one of them out of the temple and caught up with him, what do you suppose He would have done to him? Any more than his chastisement of the Pharisees?
Nowhere in the book of Revelation are we commanded to kill anyone. Nowhere in the entire New Testament does Jesus or Paul even suggest that a follower of Christ should kill anyone for any reason.
When Jesus said: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” would you have said: “My sin is irrelevant. The Law demands that we kill her. Here's the first stone!”
When an American is asked who won World War II, the answer is invariably "We did." It is never "God did." We give ourselves glory for saving the world, but does God deserve any glory, and if so, how much? If Christians had not participated in the killing and destruction of that (or any) war where would that leave God and His creation? In other words, what would God do if ALL Christians obeyed Christ by loving their enemies and not resisting evil persons, rather than killing them? Would He be powerless to stop the servants of Satan from taking over the world, powerless to carry out the Second Coming? If so, Satan would be delighted for us to obey Christ so faithfully, and God would be powerless to save us from hell. If He’s not powerless, He doesn’t need Christians to disobey Christ to save His creation. If He doesn’t need us to disobey Christ, why should we? Can we not trust God for an outcome that is acceptable to Him? It's His world, after all, not ours. Let Him take responsibility for the consequences of our obedience. In the first three centuries, the Church came closest to realizing the ideal of loving enemies - a rejection of violence that did not result in calamity for God. He doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it since He wants us to repay evil with good. Does that guarantee our personal safety? No. But if you’re willing to die for something Jesus never promoted – political freedoms – you should be willing to die for what was important to him – the kingdom of God. Let God decide whether to allow your enemy to kill you.
It is better to be a victim than a victimizer.
It is better to die than to kill.
It is better to die than to torture.
It is better to die in obedience to Christ than to live in disobedience.