For Peacemaker: the Possible Dream

By Neil Earle

Dr. Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary's Professor of Christian Ethics

To rephrase Mark Twain, “Everyone talks about peace but no-one does anything about it.”

Of course this is an exaggeration. One group that does do very much about it is led by Fuller Theological Seminary’s Professor of Christian Ethics, Dr. Glen Stassen. In 1992 Professor Stassen outlined biblically-based principles of practical peacemaking along with actual case histories from political science and recent history in his textbook Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Westminster John Knox Press, 1992). He followed this with a five-year project featuring twenty-three ethicists and international problem-solving specialists titled Just Peacemaking: The New Paradigm for the Ethics of Peace and War (Pilgrim Press, 1998, 2004, 2008).

Not Pie In the Sky

“Jesus was no Platonic idealist,” Stassen wrote in the Spring, 2009 issue of Fuller’s Theology: News and Notes. “He was a Jewish realist…[w]hen Jesus taught leaders in Jerusalem that they needed to practice peacemaking or the temple would be destroyed, he was talking realistically about a real threat and the practical ways to avoid the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem – which happened.”

Stassen and his colleagues present ten practices in the realm of practical peacemaking, an issue they feel can move Christian problem solvers and others beyond the traditional “just war” or pacifism dichotomy. Stassen laments that many churches “have no Christian guidance when debates about peace and war arise.” Hence members “are undefended against ideologies that blow back and forth through our nations and our churches” (Ephesians 4:14). The goal is to teach broadly enough so that individual Christians “can decide prayerfully, which ethic seems right to them.”

Even Stassen’s critics have to admit he has an intriguing approach.

Ten To Ponder

Here are the ten practices of just peacemaking as outlined in Theology: News and Notes as supplemented by comments from other contributors. Reconcile’s readers will be more than a little interested in what is being offered here as the principles this newsletter has consistently expounded for ten years are echoed in much of what follows:

  1. Support nonviolent direct action. This is drawn from the famous “turn the other cheek” teaching in Matthew 5:38-42. Some Christian expositors insist Jesus is not advocating simply being a masochist and allowing oneself to be smashed in the face for no purpose. Rather he counsels us to act in such a way that a well-thought-out, peaceful and determined response might oblige your opponent or onlookers to reconsider what is true justice in the situation. Thus Jesus is seen as reacting non-violently to the High Priest’s false and deadly charges (Luke 22: 66-71). He quietly but calmly asserted his rights before a kangaroo court. Our generation saw this method employed to great effect, says Stassen, by the non-violent civil rights protestors of the American South in the 1960s.
  2. Next: take independent initiatives. Matthew 5:25 urges, “agree with your adversary quickly.” Stassen argues that President George Bush Sr. (1989-93) and Mikhail Gorbachev applied this in disposing of 50% of their respective nation’s nuclear weapons. Fuller student Kent David Sensenig sees Abraham taking an independent initiative with his nephew Lot when both men’s herdsmen were quarreling over pasturage. “Abraham willingly conceded to his younger nephew, Lot, the first choice of land, in order to keep peace in his family” (Genesis 13:2-12).
  3. Use cooperative conflict resolution. President Jimmy Carter helped achieve lasting peace in the 1979 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel with just this tactic. For more see www.matthew5project.org.
  4. Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness (Matthew 7:15). ORM Chapter leader Evelyn O’Callaghan Burkhard sees just this principle at work in the largely successful Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa this past decade.
  5. Work in our communities toward worthy grass-roots initiatives for human rights, religious liberty and power-sharing. President George W. Bush was right when he insisted that in the twentieth century democracies did not fight each other. The often chaotic-seeming approach to democratic decision-making nevertheless tends to let destructive forces spill over in non-violent ways. Ballots are better than bullets.
  6. Where possible, foster equitable and sustainable economic development. This could be called the Erin Brokovich resolution. One town’s waste disposal facility may be another’s toxic health hazard.
  7. Support cooperative initiatives in the international arena. Historically, argues Stassen, “the more nations are involved in travel, missions and international trade, the less they make war.” The United States and China showed the value of beneficial cultural exchanges during the famous Ping Pong Diplomacy of the early 1970s. This led to much greater things as we all know. Reconcile’s parent organization, then known as Worldwide Church of God, helped sponsor the musical troupe “Little Ambassadors of Shanghai” to the United States in 1985 and the effect was electrifying.
  8. In general, where possible, work to strengthen international efforts for global cooperation. Though it is far from a perfect model, nations more engaged in the United Nations, for example, tend not to attack each other as easily. As Winston Churchill said, “The United Nations was not intended to lift us to heaven but to save us from hell.”
  9. Support moves to reduce offensive weapons and the scandalous trade in weapons (Matthew 26:52). No less a personage than American-born Queen Noor of Jordan is one of 100 political and civic leaders behind Global Zero, a new initiative to eliminate nuclear weapons—mainly the 26,000 still owned by Russia and the U.S. “The presence of nuclear weapons drives more proliferation and insecurity,” Queen Noor warns. It also exposes nuclear powers to the threat of hypocrisy when they try to curb right states.
  10. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups. Taking back our cities begins a block at a time. Peace activism starts in our own neighborhoods. ORM, a para-church ministry we support, won an award in 2008 for its contribution to reducing tensions between police and gangs in the city of Pasadena, CA. Other links can be found at www.ecapc.org and atimetoreconcile.org.

David Gushee of Mercer University in Georgia concludes: “Just peacemaking obeys Christ’s peacemaking mandate. It is a crucial aspect of a Christian vision.” In fleshing out this vision, Stassen colleague and professor of Islamic studies Evelyne A. Reisacher explained why she responded enthusiastically to an open dialogue between Muslim and Christian thinkers. “There are too many misunderstandings between evangelicals and Muslims to reuse a warm invitation.” In such ways do real reconciliation and just peacemaking coincide.

Neil Earle with contributions from Parade magazine and Evelyn O’Callaghan Burkhard.