If every church was a peace church....

IF EVERY CHURCH WAS A PEACE CHURCH 

 Gary G. Kohls, MD

Given the fact that Christian theologians and most of the non-Christian world knows without a doubt that the pacifist Jesus preached active nonviolent resistance to evil (rather than justified violence against it) and was a merciful and compassionate idealist who renounced homicide and violence in all its forms, one has to wonder what has been going on these last 17 centuries. It is helpful to recall that Gandhi, a Hindu follower of Jesus, often said that the only people who don't think Jesus was nonviolent are Christians.

And therein lies a serious spiritual problem for the church. History documents clearly that the Christian church of the first three centuries took Jesus' teachings of unconditional love of friend and enemies seriously. In fact, the church of Jesus Christ started out as a peace church. So, if the church of the first few centuries was a peace church, and the latter church of the last 1700 years has been a Justified War church (and usually with a vengeance), one has to wonder: "What would the world be like now if Every Church Had Been A Peace Church?" A little clear thinking for those who know a modicum of history would come up with a multitude of tantalizing possibilities, including the following:

1) The baptized Catholic Adolph Hitler would have been raised within a progressive peace church by a strong pacifist Catholic mother who would have nurtured and loved and protected little Adolph from the cruelty of his father and the cruelty of his society.

2) The Lutheran Adolf Eichmann, the Orthodox Christian Joseph Stalin, and the baptized Catholics Benito Mussolini and Joseph Goebbels and most of the rest of those of fascist infamy were Christians, but none of them were ever taught, with any emphasis, that the Sermon on the Mount was central to the theology of Jesus and that nonviolence was at the core to his teachings.

3) If every church had been a peace church, the American Christian churches of the South would have rejected slavery (or their faith in Jesus) and the American Civil War would not have happened.

4) If every church had been a peace church, Christian European monarchs and their obedient Christian soldiers would not have brutalized and raped Africa, Asia and the Americas into colonial submission over gold, silver and slaves, and the bloody armed revolutions of liberation from the European colonizers would not have happened a century later.

5) If every US church was a peace church, a unified, benevolent United States Christianity would be working hard right now to nurture and reconcile with, rather than demonize and marginalize, the officially feared minorities such as Muslims, Palestinians, blacks, gays, lesbians, and non-white foreigners of many colors and religions, including Colombian peasants, the Iraqis, Sudanese, Hispanics, Orientals, Jews, etc., etc.

6) If every church was a peace church, there would not be the current crippling military spending to defend America's unjustly obtained excess luxury wealth going on decade after decade, making it a struggle to obtain funding for every program of social uplift.

7) If every church had been a peace church, there might have been no World War I, no oppressive Treaty of Versailles, no Nazi party and no World War II.

8) If every church was a peace church Christian children would not be cruelly bullying their weaker brothers and sisters in the Columbine high schools of this land, and the victims of those bullies would have no reason to shoot back.

9) If every church had been a peace church, professed Christian presidents would not be trying to outspend their predecessors on lethal weapon systems, nor would they become gleeful hanging judges with a need to disprove their suspected wimphood by saber-rattling their nation back into the Cold War.

10) And if every church had been a peace church, those who claim discipleship to the non-violent Jesus would be leading the world to peace, rather than into war -- and the Peaceable Kingdom of God would be at hand.

© Gary G. Kohls, MD 1306 E. 8th St, Duluth, MN 55805 Ph/fax 218-728-9756.

Dr. Kohls is the Mid-West coordinator of Every Church A Peace Church (ECAPC), a national, interdenominational movement of Christian peacemakers that are urging their mainline and fundamentalist church brothers and sisters to become more prophetic in their peace and justice ministries. He was instrumental in organizing the movement's April 2001 inaugural conference in Duluth, MN. John Stoner is the national ECAPC coordinator and can be contacted at (jstoner@ecapc.org). Detailed information about ECAPC can be obtained by accessing the website at (http://www.ecapc.org). For a Bible study on Jesus from Every Church A Peace Church, check out (http://www.ecapc.org/jesusinbible.org).