Corruption and nominalism are not new, and neither are misplaced priorities and confused notions of what God wants from us… but there’s a lot of good Christians have done in the past (along with the bad), which I think can be an inspiration for our future.

Whether or not peace is the right policy for nations, I can’t imagine under any circumstances that the man Jesus who lived in Palestine in the first century would have been in favor of war. He didn’t give a damn about the fate of nations because he thought God was going to overthrow them all.

The Bible’s general attitude towards war is that Israel would prevail if God was on their side, and they would not if he was not. Jesus was opposed to war, IMO, because he expected God to implement the final solution in his lifetime, which made national conflicts meaningless.

In the kingdom set up by God through Israel, there would be no war, no conflict, so Jesus was advocating that people start acting that way in preparation.

I’m not discussing whether there are times when war is necessary. I’m saying:

1) Jesus would not have seen any war as necessary. I

2) Christians by-and-large have the opposite opinion as Jesus on the use of force, which makes it kind of ridiculous that we have a religion in which people allegedly worship Jesus but have an ethical code that is a polar opposite of his.

My point is simply that there is a line to peace. Bonhoeffer and Lewis found themselves on the far side of this line during WWII, as did many other Christians. When a nation decides, as policy, to kill each Jew, gypsy, and pole, the Christian response is not to give a lesson on peace. First deliver the helpless from the adversary, then wax eloquent. Uncompromising pacifism is misguided piety. I believe that armies of militant pacifist have much blood on their hands.

My brother plays volleyball at a level where the ball gets driven very hard. His advice to me on how to position myself on the court was, “you’ll know you’re in the right place if you’re scared.” Doubtless the men who rose and offered their lives during the invasion of Normandy did something noble. I imagine they were scared. I’m not similarly stirred by the actions of the pacifist in that situation, but maybe my affections are far from redeemed. If the decision for war or pacifism is not entered with fear when seriously confronted with the alternatives, then perhaps there was a wrong decision.

Another way of stating my point is that the minimization of violence, a Christian desire, is sometimes achieved through violence. Is that Orwellian? Matthew and Luke 12:48 and many many old testament episodes suggest otherwise. (Acknowledged that this is opening a big can or worms!) Like I opened, Bonhoeffer and Lewis came to this conclusion as well.

The problem isn’t that force is sometimes justified, it is that “christians” in practice tend to be in favor of force practically all the time. Worse, they assign their bloodlust to God and Jesus, which adds an element of dehumanizing the opposition into the mix. It also prevents them from looking at the world rationally. If God is on your side, then the other person has to be completely wrong and no compromise is possible.

The other problem with force is whether what is justified from a national point of view (opposing Hitler was no doubt good for allied countries) can be justified from a “christian” point of view. I doubt Jesus would have cared about the fate of individual nations. But there is little overlap between what Jesus would have seen as proper and what people who allegedly worship in his name see as proper.

In other words, following Jesus would truly be bad policy for most nations. And my point is not that nations should follow the non-violent policy of Jesus, but that people should be honest about the fact that Jesus and national welfare have nothing to do with each other. And therefore stop trying to justify whatever notions they have as the will of God.

Coming from a non-Western culture, and having read the Bible many times from a non-doctrinal view point, I find the idea of “story” most appealing. Let us enter into the stories in the Bible (above all, the stories of the Messiah), and allow them to create and transform our own life stories and those of the world.

http://craigbenno1.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/society-needs-the-foundation-of-love/

Thats a good set of points you have brought into the equation there. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about how it seems to me”piety” has been replaced by “personal blessing” in contempory christendom and if that has been a hinderance to the churches mandate to care for the environment?

I like Jewish political philosopher, Michael Walzer’s reflections. He writes about the significant influence the Reformed tradition had in the formation of democracy, but how it lost its influence over time to a more Lockean and optimistic democratic tradition. “In this world, the last word always belongs to the worldlings and not to the saints. It is a complacent word and it comes when salvation, in all its meanings, is no longer a problem. But the saints have what is more interesting: the first word. They set the stage of history for the new order.” (Revolution of the Saints, 319) As a church, we need more first-word initiatives like you have listed above, and less focus on preservation (which always leads to conservatism). That may be a little strong, but I’ll stick by it.