4/30/50

Do We Want Peace?

Scripture: Isaiah 2: 1-5

The prophet Isaiah spoke to the little nation he knew in his day. He tried to lift the attention of people, preoccupied with their fears and determinations, to a plane of understanding above mere consideration of who was strong enough to enforce what. Quite beyond what the warriors and officials thought, he tried to get his listeners to consider what God would say to all of them. “Let us go unto the mountain of the Lord.” “He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths.” “He shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many people; and they shall make over their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” “Nations -- shall not learn war any more.” “O --- come ---- and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

If God spoke through the words and the concerned soul of a prophet in ancient times, does he not speak just as insistently to all of us in this time of history? For do not we who eye each other with warring suspicion - with hot accusation - and with “finger on the trigger” need to be reminded that there is a God above all of us, whose judgments ought to be sought? In other words, while we consider the fateful question, “Who is strong enough to curb the evil that the other fellow may be planning to do?” ought we not to be considering even more earnestly the question, “What are the right things that God wants all of us to do?”

More important than the question: “How hard can we hit if we have to?” is the question: “Who are we?” Not “How shall we discover the means of violent death?” but “What is the secret of life for all people?” The primary problem of our present world is to discover and build peace among the peoples and nations of the world.

We are filled with the reminders of war and the threat of war. Tomorrow the Soviet nations of the earth, and their sympathizers, will celebrate the anniversary of their violent revolution in action with parades of strength and military might. Some of the patriotic organizations of our nation and community urge us to counter Soviet demonstrations with renewed declarations of loyalty to God, to our nation, and to our flag. This I think we should declare and demonstrate.

I think our declarations and demonstrations should be much different from parades of military strength; much more prophetic than remembrance of former sacrifices, victories, vital as those have seemed.

An ancient voice endeavored to put into words the urgent outreaching of God toward all of His people when, writing in the 30th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, he gave us this thought: “I have set before you life and death; now, therefore, choose life.” [Deuteronomy 30: 19].

We have seen a good deal of both in our time. The past decade has witnessed the massacre of certain minorities; the violent destruction of soldier and civilian in total warfare. And we are warned by events and competent observers of the death that can be far more widely visited upon the earth should we resume open warfare as our sole hope of resolving our conflicts. If we are to have life, it must be by choosing it and building it; by finding a moral equivalent for war. Should we fail to build a peace, we shall be engulfed in another, and likely far more destructive, conflict than any we have hitherto known. To avoid further regimentation, far beyond what has already come upon us in the process of meeting two wars and a disastrous depression, we must choose freedom and its consequences.

There are those who darkly proclaim their conviction that another general war would destroy civilization. That is not necessarily the case. It is altogether possible that the appalling destruction evidently possible with the use of the most modern weapons would not only wipe out untold lives and destroy untold property, but so disrupt communication and the production and exchange of all those commodities upon which we have become interdependent that the survivors would face terrific hardship and suffering. But God is still God. His word and his ways have been preserved through the perversities of human behavior before. And they will continue, indefinitely, in the experience of those devoted to Him. God seems even to intervene in the affairs of men. Why did Napoleon’s great plan of strategy at Waterloo fail? Why did not Rommel go on into Alexandria? What accounts for Hitler’s failure to cross the English channel? Perhaps there was another plan, a different alignment of facts, not arranged by the tyrants, but by the Universal Moral Force, that intervened to change the course of history.

There still stands the decree of the Creator that man was formed in His divine spiritual image. Sometime, men will burn their way through to the realization of the divinity within them and the divinity within every man.

The lovers of freedom, the lovers of humanity, the lovers of right, will do all they can think of to prevent another war. If we choose life, and choose liberty, we will consecrate ourselves to methods of positive peace without counting its cost any more than we have counted the cost of waging war.

We will not abandon our defenses as a nation any more than we abandon individual defenses. Suppose we choose peace as individuals. We still want, and support, police. But the police power does not build the community; it merely helps to keep safe the builders. All of our defenses will never build a cooperative world. All that our defenses can do is to give the builders a chance. The late war did not bring peace and will not do so. It merely preserved for us, for a time, the opportunity to build peace.

Suppose we want to build peace personally. What are some of the implications? (1) First, we find out who we are. In prayer, we discover that we are, by true nature, the sons and daughters of God and of good. By His grace we become free to love, and to believe. Then we exercise that freedom, loving and believing as fully and intelligently as we can in every walk of life. We may become sources of love. We become peace builders wherever we go. In deepest prayer we resist the temptation to be God, to rely on our own supposed omniscience and omnipotence. We remember that we are the sons and daughters of God and that our sole mission in living is to do His will.

(2) Then also, we do everything we can to make our family a unit of God’s spiritual kingdom. We try to make our churches the body of Christ - the expression of his spirit. We take a fundamental interest in turning the neighborhood, the state, the nation into a beloved community. We take seriously the privilege of voting and of becoming informed voters, by inquiry and by choice of the good literature on what is going on.

(3) Another thing we can do is to choose some group that works constructively for better world relations. Those who believe in the development of a world government might want to choose the United World Federalists. Those who do not look on that group as a good fellowship may look for a group in which they do believe. But we shall get farther by uniting with others in looking for world betterment than by nursing along a few private thoughts by ourselves alone.

(4) We ought further to understand the possibilities inherent in the United Nations and its various organizations, such as the world health organization, UNESCO, and others. United Nations is probably making more progress than the press is inclined to tell us. For we find it more startling to read of the sharp differences that develop in the UN than to read, when printed, its constructive moves.

Now suppose our beloved (but not omniscient nor infallible) nation chooses to build peace. What are some definite things to do?

(1) While maintaining our defenses and keeping them strong and in order, it might be well for all of us, including the President, to stop talking about how strong we are. Nations are not as different from neighborhood kids as one might wish. Just let one or two youngsters keep boasting about how tough they are and how full of ability to lick somebody else, and see how quickly the kids congeal into gangs that back them up on one side, and on the other side start daring them to “get tough.” While maintaining the full defenses necessary to survival, we ought to be putting major effort into a mighty peace offensive -- talk of peace, urge peace, plan the steps of peace.

(2) It seems to me our government should do everything in its power to strengthen the UN and all of the UN agencies. If we have done well, it is still not enough; for we must do still better, We ought not to by-pass it, and we should use its agencies in all ways possible.

(3) Perhaps we ought to have a Department of Peace. I share a common weariness of Americans over bureaus, governmental controls and agencies. Yet we do have a War Department and we pour tremendous quantities of time, attention and substance into its work. Is the building of peace any less important? Ought not much more time, attention and expense be poured into the organized building of peace?

We parade our military units all over our nation on Armistice Day and Memorial Day. What is the equivalent in a “parade” of peace? Why don’t we work it out and use such equivalent where we can all see it just as we can see a military parade?

Of course there are movements abroad for the construction of peace. Eisenhower is at work on a plan to set up important studies on nutrition as a major research program in Columbia University. Why not such studies at the University of Wisconsin? And how could we dramatize the battle to find nourishment for everyone? If hunger breeds war and invites despotism, then food abates war and nourishes freedom. Which is more important for us to see and know?

Of him we delight to call “Father of His Country” it was said that he was “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.” The achievements which gave rise to the first phrase are fairly obvious. How can we underline and make more vivid the second phrase, “First in peace?” We need an understanding of the pursuits and accomplishments of peace that shall enable us to have a peace offensive.

One thing new we can watch with care and interest. A large group of initiating sponsors has called a Mid-Century Conference For Peace in Chicago on May 29th and May 30th under the auspices of a Committee for Peaceful Alternatives. Christians and Jews; clergy and laity are represented on the sponsors’ list. It is a positive step in study and possible courses of action for peace. One thing I notice: as is so often the case, the list of sponsors is heavily loaded with the names of clergymen - pastors, rabbis, and teachers. There are many educators. There are some who appear to be active in the field of writing, and perhaps a few who have had some kind of government experience. A fair number of women are listed - there ought to be more. And I feel that there ought to be many more men from the world of business and of government. It is all right for ministers and educators to initiate and even, to a degree, to lead off in such a study. But the deep convictions, the thinking and experience, and the dynamics of laymen ought to be poured into the cause of peace. I hope the conference on May 29th and 30th will attract the interest of large numbers of lay people as well as the sincere good intentions of clergymen. The American people, and all peoples, ought to be making such moves instead of wondering helplessly what will happen if atomic and germicidal war should break loose.

War is a sin -- sometimes of cunning purpose, sometimes of neglect. A majority of us justify it, when it comes to us at least, as the lesser of evils. But it essentially involves evil, mass murder, suffering, impoverishment.

(1) Church people ought to pronounce consistent moral judgment upon it in the light of God’s will and love. No great reform is accomplished without hot indignation and moral wrath. But there is needed an appeal to all of the higher forces of right rather than to the immediate resort to force.

(2) The church folk ought also to find a position above the conflicts of nations and of power blocs, from which they can seek and speak the will of God.

(3) The church can examine and constructively criticize the methods by which statesmen try to preserve the peace of the world. Probably the church should encourage Marshall plans and “bold new measures” that will improve on the living standards, social welfare, and political strength of people still free from tyranny.

(4) Church people can demonstrate methods of fighting evil that are in harmony with the way of the cross. Fighting evil is right and inevitable. The noblest fight -- and in the long run by far the most effective -- is the sacrificial route by which the Redeemer opposed evil with all He had! He did not inflict evil upon the enemy, but bore its impact without any moral yielding to it. So doing, he revealed its hideousness and broke its power.

Now “the cross is not a success story.” Hearts of stone are not surely softened even by divine sacrificial love. Paul was changed some time after he witnessed and approved the stoning of Stephen. But he was changed!

There are at least some helping hints in the non-resistant route by which Indian at last got freedom. Possibly is nations proffered to bear suffering rather than inflict suffering, we should see peaceful times dawning somewhere ahead.

May the church and Christian folk especially learn to provide positive, constructive examples of fighting the struggles of peace without resort to arms!

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 30, 1950.