Peace in Our Time

This blog originally posted Monday, April 13, 2009 at 2:10pm

My daughter attends a Montessori school where they worship the idea of peace. They believe that, if we just teach the children, then one day we will have world peace. They have a peace pole, a peace garden, and lessons on peace. While I was on campus the other day, I heard one of the teachers telling a young boy, “There is NEVER any reason to hit someone!” Now, the boy in question was just playing with another boy and they were bopping each other in the shoulder for fun. (Boys…It has something to do with that Y chromosome.) Nevertheless, this teacher, whether she meant to or not, taught these boys a very dangerous lesson in life.

Over the years, as a youth minister, I have had quite a few kids from this school come through our program. While there is much to admire about the school, this veneration of peace at all costs is an unwise philosophy, and they inculcate the children with it. Even driving into the parking lot of the school, you see bumper stickers that say, “Visualize World Peace” or “Imagine a world where the military has to hold bake sales to buy battleships” or, “You cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war.”

They are basing their belief system on a false assumption – “People are basically good inside.”

That sounds nice, and I am sure many of us have heard it or even believe it ourselves. The only problem is that this concept is patently false.

Before I became a Christian in my early 20s, I searched through various religions and belief systems trying to find out, which, if any, were right. This was a primary issue that caused me to disregard many belief systems. You see, it was easy for me to look at the people around me, the events in the world, and truthfully within myself to see that people are NOT basically good. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Humans are basically selfish, destructive, and petty little creatures that are occasionally capable of beautiful acts of goodness.

Take a moment and stew on that.

It may not be the nice or upbeat, but it is the truth.

In fact, it was ultimately Christianity, and only Christianity that gave an answer to this: The fallenness of mankind. Mankind is a broken creature that, only by the grace of God has the ability to rise above our selves towards something greater. Anyone who has ever worked with toddlers knows, you don’t have to teach selfishness, brutality or cruelty. We lie, steal, cheat, and abuse from the start. You must teach goodness.

This brings us back to the teaching at my daughter’s school. I applaud them for teaching the importance of peace. I agree, war is bad, violence is awful. However, violence is not always the worst thing.

Sometime, violence IS the answer.

I cannot imagine them lecturing a perpetrator on the error of his violent ways as he is kidnapping their child. Let that teacher say, “There is NEVER any reason to hit someone,” as she watches her daughter being raped.

Sometimes, violence IS the answer.

Have we learned nothing from history? Hitler was not stopped by talking. It took the blood sacrifice of millions of young men to end his evil. Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Achmadinijad, and their evil associates are good examples. As the quote in Cool Hand Luke says, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate, some men, you just can’t reach” Sociopaths do not listen to reason, they do not respect talk, they don’t care about peace – the only thing that will get their attention is force and the willingness to use it.

Sometimes, violence IS the answer.

Between 800,000 and 1 million people were hacked to death in the Rwandan genocide.

The diplomats talked.

Thousands were killed in Srebrenica and other cities and towns during the ethnic cleansings in the breakaway republics of former Yugoslavia.

The diplomats talked.

Saddam Hussein gassed Kurds in Halabja.

The diplomats talked.

Murders, rapes, and killings go on in Darfur, Sudan today.

The diplomats still talk.

Peace has never come through talking, alone. Peace has only ever come through fighting for it, or using the threat of violence to bring the errant parties to the table.

Peace will only come to our world, one of two ways. When Jesus Christ comes back to judge the quick and the dead – there will be final peace.

Until then, peace only comes by those who wish to do good being willing to use violence to defeat those who are evil.

Alternately attributed to George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling, and Winston Churchill there is a quote: “good men sleep soundly in their beds because rough men stand ready in the night to do violence on their behalf.”Whether it be a soldier, sailor, marine, airman or a policeman, Thank God for those who ironically bring peace through violence.

Rodger S. Loar 13 April, 2009