What is Peace?
Reader comment on item: "Working Undercover as Christian Peace Activists"?

Submitted by dds (Canada), Dec 15, 2005 at 13:15

It's surprising, in fact, to see the word "Peace" associated with the anti-war movement anymore. It's easy enough to see how major (= well-heeled) churches can get conned by people using "Peace" and "Christian" in the same sentence and probably claiming they're going into a war zone to try to bridge some kind of cultural gap. But by and large, the people marching and putting up placards and burning leaders in effigy have dropped the word "peace" from their titles. They now sport names like "Mobilization Against War And Occupation" and "Solidarity Movement" and so forth.

Why? Because someone has caught on to the fact that true peace comes when the will of God is allowed to operate. The Old Testament is filled with instances in which, when a king of Israel or Judah does good in the sight of God, peace ensues. That doesn't mean there's no war: it just means that when they're attacked, regardless of the physical odds, the enemy is crushed. When a king does evil in the sight of God, nothing goes right. So the anti-war forces really don't have "peace" on their minds, because that would mean many people who do evil in God's eyes would be wiped out and the protesters, themselves, would have to turn their own lives over to God.

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