Peacemaking after Christendom, Simon Barrow, Ekklesia, 13.07.08[excerpt] After Christendom there is both fresh hope and fresh challenge for Christian peacemaking. The core question is: “how is peace written into the fabric our lives and our Christian commitment?”, not “OK, I’m a Christian. Now, what sort shall I decide to be, a pacifist or a just warrior?”
If 'just war' means “just another war”, the defence of “Christian Empire” or the overwhelming conformity of the church to an ethic promulgated by the modern delegates of Caesar, then it is the wrong path.
If, however, it is a way of moving away from violence ... a kind of Christian equivalent to the lex talionis (the Jewish law for limiting retribution), then it has a role to play. Not as an end in itself, but as part of a journey whose destiny is the shalom, the just-peace, that is ... shaped by Jesus and the great Hebrew prophets.
The point is this: the Body of Christ is a broken body offered unconditional life by God, not life grabbed at the expense of entrapping others in death. To be baptised into this body is to share a life in Christ that is brought about by grace not guns. More here.
1 comment:
Thanks for this Simon. This is shte sort of reflection we need to try to encourage as we move towards the International Ecumenical Peace convocation in Jamaica in 2011. Reflections on a just peace rather than just war declaration are underway and quite alot of responses have been received already by colleageus in the Decade to Overcome Violence office at the WCC.
Must try to blog about that sometime!
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