Peace on earth?

The Christian Church began life as a group of Jewish believers who began to follow the teaching of Jesus. Until the Jewish revolt again the Roman occupation, it seems that these early followers remained within Judaism and attended synagogue, as the Acts of the Apostles suggests (Acts 2.46). The revolt was one of a number over many years attempting to throw off Roman rule. The Maccabean revolt, (c.140-40BCE), was the most successful giving the Jewish people around a hundred years to rule themselves.

In the revolt of 70 CE, the Christian group within Judaism refused to join the rebellion against Rome. For the failure of the revolt the followers of Jesus were blamed. The argument was that their following of the teachings of Jesus, against such things as Sabbath observance and food and cleanliness laws rendered them unclean and as such led to Yahweh’s anger toward the people. So they were ostracized from synagogue and temple.

Since that time the history of the Church is littered with a sad history of support for and in some cases the prosecution of war as a solution to international disagreements. The history of the churches support for war is a scandal. From Constantine to the Crusades, the wars of the Reformation, the thirty years war in Europe and countless local wars the Church has given either open, or tacit, support to them. The Christian Church has been as guilty of prosecuting holy war as any other religious group. Internally it warred against its own in the Inquisition. It has supported Apartheid, genocide, and slavery. Its record on human rights is appalling. That is not to say that individuals and groups have not stood out against such evil, but they have been essentially protest movements against the mainstream of the Church.

Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Ghandi is famed for his aphorisms, one of which says, “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” Our human history is littered with examples of one group seeking to put out the eyes of another. Jesus’ response to an eye for an eye was to suggest giving the coat off your back to the one you perceive as your enemy, or turning the other cheek. The latter having the effect of drawing the teeth of the anger against you!

It is the task of followers of Jesus to stand firm against war in all its forms. Christians talk at this time of the year about God being incarnate in Jesus, the word becoming flesh, and sing about Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with’, or, ‘within us’. It seems that we must mean it is within us but not the other girl, or guy, otherwise how could we contemplate killing him, or her? We pray religiously (sarcasm intended) for peace on earth, but we want it at the least possible cost. We seem to want it just to arrive and, if not, then we seem to think that the only way to get it is by violence. The history of humankind gives the lie to that.

War, who ever ‘wins’, is a defeat for humankind.

As Chair of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Desmond Tutu was asked what it meant to forgive. His answer was that we abandon the right that someone else gives us by the violence they do to us to retribution, or revenge and in so doing open the door to them, and so to us, for a new beginning.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always." M.K.Ghandi