war and Jesus

I’ve never known if it’s okay to hate war. I have a lot of patriotic Republicans in my life, and I like George W. Bush, so that makes for a tough combination if I hate war. But then, all those people surely hate war, too.

But I really hate war. I think it should never have to happen. I think if we really believe the Bible, we wouldn’t say that war is just something a nation has to do when our values are attacked. We’d do something more like Jesus did – love the enemies, and suffer if they torture us. There would be a lot of other things we could do without physically defending ourselves – evangelize, speak the truth about peace and love.

That’s the boldest message of all.

People probably think we – the good people – would be exterminated if we just took all the hits as they came. But I don’t think so. I don’t think God would let His witnesses be completely exterminated.

Or maybe if they were, one of the Jesus-hating enemies would find a Bible among the rubble and read about Jesus and about how he loves his enemies, and about how love is God, and how physical death isn’t the end for those who love God. Maybe then the enemy would look at the bloody, rotting body lying at his feet and see the peace all over the dead face, and he’d feel sorrow for the first time in his life. And then all the witnesses wouldn’t be exterminated anymore; there’d already be a new one.