Struggling with war and peace – Boots of Peace, Preview

With war raging in Ukraine, Israel, and Myanmar, I wondered how many wars are happening across the globe right now as I write in fall 2023.  One tracker I found lists 32 countries currently involved in war, and my country, the USA, is not one of them.  Of those wars, 18 are terrorist wars, 9 are civil wars, 2 are drug wars, 2 are regular wars, and 1 is due to ethnic violence.

Though the USA is not currently involved in a war, we spend the most money on war-making capabilities.  We have the most war-making equipment, technology and vehicles.  Our populace also own the most guns per capita of any country in the world by far, 120 guns per 100 people.  The next closest is Yemen with 52.8 per 100 people.  But Yemen’s population is one-tenth that of the US.  In fact, none of the other top ten most populous countries in the world (Russia, China, India, Brazil, Japan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria) are on the top ten list for gun ownership. 

Why am I telling you this?  My point is that we live in a sometimes violent world.  Is it possible that our Anabaptist brothers and sisters in Christ are on to something?  If you’re not familiar with that term “Anabaptist,” think Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren.  As it pertains to this discussion, Anabaptists are famous for being pacifists.  They are for peace and not war.  They have varying degrees of commitment to nonviolence, of course. 

For me, I am what might be called an “almost pacifist.”  By that I mean that I hear Jesus’ teaching, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and turn the other cheek, and believe that when he says “blessed are the peacemakers” he means it.  But I also believe there are those rare, and I believe they should be extremely rare, situations in which one nation is just in going to war against another nation in order to stop evil.  World War 2 is perhaps the best case in point.  In every other situation, however, Christians are to be people of peace.

I know I am in messy territory here, as I could seem to be conflating Christianity with America. I do not believe they are one and the same. Not even close. The church should never, ever, take up arms. And I believe a secular nation, like America, should only take up arms in those rare cases in which it is just to stop evil.

How does a nation know when a situation satisfies the requirements of what is just? Obviously, just war theory is highly debated. I believe a just war should be exceedingly rare, to the point where I believe it is unlikely that the American Revolutionary War was not a just war. Yet, I think we can look back in our history, both nationally and culturally, and see quite easily that we often struggle with peace.  What does it mean to be people of peace?

In fact, the next part of the Armor of God that we will study this coming week is sometimes called the “Boots of Peace”.  I say, “sometimes” because the text, Ephesians 6:10-20, doesn’t mention boots.  There is, however, a clear mention of footwear and of peace.  Can you think how footwear might be related to peace?

Join us next as we talk about peace and why it is mentioned in the Armor of God.

Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash