Peace Is Not Found. It is Built.
Humanity often seems doomed under a canopy of hate and retaliation. Oscar Romero helps us understand the Christian's call to peace-making.
Sometimes it seems that humanity is doomed under a canopy of never-ceasing hate, conflict and retaliation. At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the 20th century. Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout human history range from 150 million to 1 billion. The combined armed forces of the world have 21.3 million people standing ready to fight. In 2023, 12,500 nuclear warheads exist in the world.
Humanity is clearly in the mood for and prepared to engage in combat. Hey! Let’s fight and kill some more—it really seems to be working to make the world a better place! Edwin Starr, the Vietnam-era musician, laid bare the public cry of millions of people who doubted the goodness of endless killing: War—good God y’all—what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
Not content to stay in this miserable predicament, I have been seeking an education. I want to know how spiritual formation into Christlikeness can lead to seeking justice, which can then be the basis for consistent, lasting peace. For this education, I have made myself a student of people of color. I have enrolled in their school of life—reading dozens of their books and engaging in many enlightening conversations. People of color are often exemplars regarding issues of injustice. They know how violence only produces more violence. In response—and I have so much respect for this—many of them know how to be formed in God as peacemakers.
Among my teachers has been Oscar Romero, fourth archbishop of San Salvador. Romero was not a political radical, but a patient, pastoral teacher and evangelist aflame with the love and justice that naturally flow from following Jesus. In his book, The Scandal of Redemption: When God Liberates the Poor, Saves Sinners, and Heals Nations, Romero said of himself:
“I want to affirm that my sermons are not political. Naturally, they touch on politics, and they touch on the reality of the people, but their aim is to shed light and to tell you what it is that God wants.”
Later in the book, Romero went on to say:
“To serve society, [the Church] must understand how power is used and abused—how people are subject to systematic economic and political exploitation…[and in response the Church] simply preaches the kingdom of God, which means pointing out sin in any human situation, even when the sin is found in political and economic situations.”
Empathizing with the people of San Salvador, Romero concluded:
“We want peace, but not the peace of violence and cemeteries, not peace imposed or extorted. We want peace that is the fruit of justice, peace that is the fruit of obedience to God.”
Romero wrote:
Peace is not found, it is built. The Christian is the artisan of peace.
As Christ-followers, we do not find our hope in the isms of the 20th century —Communism, Marxism, Leninism, totalitarianism, etc. It is clear they have not delivered on their promises. Those systems make use of corrosive power. Jesus, on the other hand, is animated by self-giving love. Famous social theories have nothing to offer that even remotely compares to the world-healing ethics Jesus articulated.
As Tom Wright says in The Challenge of Jesus:
“When God wants to sort out the world…he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice-hungry, the peacemakers, the pure-hearted and so on.”
Wright observes in For All God’s Worth—True Worship and the Calling of the Church that we live in a world where war in one country means business for another…[and that] the Church needs to stand in the middle and say there is a different way of being human, a different way of ordering our common life. It is not a sign of the kingdom among us when children in Ukraine wonder whether they will wake up tomorrow morning. Instead, it is a sign of humans misusing the power of God’s creation to make weapons of destruction and killing.
In Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah prophesied that a day is coming when The Lord will settle international disputes; all the nations will convert their weapons of war into implements of peace. Then at the last all wars will stop and all military training will end (TLB).
Co-author of Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence, Shane Claiborne understands “hammering swords into plowshares” and promotes it in the most endearing, provocative way. The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace recently hosted Shane on our Peace Talks podcast [episode releasing in June]. It affected me deeply when Shane showed us two different weapons for killing that had been turned into instruments of nourishment—a small garden hoe and a shovel.
Power, guns and weapons are first a matter of the heart. A Christian can affirm the historicity of the Second Amendment, but prefer and long for—in alignment with Isaiah—a world where there are no assault rifles stored in our homes and no nuclear or hydrogen bombs on hand just waiting for the moment when a few human beings in a human government decide, “This is a critical moment to protect our national interest, and therefore we must push the button.”
Jesus-followers don’t long to pull the trigger or push the button. We know there is a wisdom that far surpasses the wisdom coming from the “Situation Room” of a government. As James wrote,
The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
James 3:17-18
James is expounding on the words of Jesus:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:9
Again, Romero calls us to this biblical worldview:
Peace is not found, it is built. The Christian is the artisan of peace.
As a Christian, I want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, James and Romero. They know something I want to learn. Thus, I pray:
Change my heart, O God.
Let it ever seek justice.
Let peace be the overflow of my heart.