Every Church A Peace Church

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Following Jesus in nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, we love our neighbors and enemies as God loves us all, becoming a peace church to share in God’s work to save the world.

Vision: The Turn Toward Jesus and Peace

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ECAPC Vision

The last of 7 in a series. For the complete series http://www.ecapc.org/visionofecapc.asp

7. The Turn Toward Jesus and Peace

   The church’s good news is that the turn toward Jesus is a turn toward peace, and the turn toward peace is a turn toward Jesus.

   The instruction of Jesus when he sent out his disciples, or apostles, was: “When you enter a house, say “Peace to this house” (Luke 10).

   And what did he mean by peace? It is clear from the life and teachings of Jesus that for him the way of peace meant the embrace and welcome of others, the love of neighbor and enemy. We must notice that it is not first a way to peace, but a way of peace. In the words of A. J. Muste, 20th century American pacifist, there is no way to peace, peace is the way. But Muste did not invent that truth, he restated it from the life and teachings of Jesus.

   At their best, the Hebrew ancestors of Jesus did not divide peace from justice, or justice from peace, as humans throughout history have repeatedly tried to do. His blessing on those who hunger for justice and those who make peace (Matthew 5) united what no one should put asunder. He did not make justice a pre-condition of peace, as in the slogan, if you want peace, seek justice. As Miraslov Volf has so ably written, “the will to embrace the other is the most fundamental obligation of Christians....   This will to embrace precedes any ‘truth’ about others and any reading of their action with respect to justice.” He shows how this is necessary and true because the strict demands of legal justice will never be fully met. Imbalances will always remain, and the reconciliation of people will be an unattainable goal. In the will to embrace, or the search for peace, he makes clear, the economy of undeserved grace has primacy over the economy of just desert.

   One need only think of the parable of the prodigal son and the envious elder brother to see the will to embrace at the center of Jesus’ teaching.

   The words “peace to this house” are not instead of “justice to this house;’ they communicate commitment to a mutual struggle for justice by means which respect the humanity of the other. By his commitment to love the enemy, Jesus showed that respect for the life and potential of the other transcends abstract notions of justice. When he said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” he demonstrated in concrete terms what it means to love the enemy. And he made it clear that this was not to be his way alone, but our obligation too, when he said, “Whoever would follow me must take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8).

   In the church it seems that there are those who believe that Jesus did it all for us (for humanity) on the cross, and those who believe that on the cross he showed the way for all of humanity to relate by forgiveness to one another. In the latter view, either we do it as he did it, or it does not happen.

   And so peace is the primacy of embrace, the commitment to reconciliation through and beyond all experiences of threat and injustice. In the way of Jesus, the way of peace, the economy of undeserved grace does have primacy over the economy of just desert. That is what, in the end, peace means--as a way of life, not just an idealistic goal.   To repent is to change one’s way of thinking to this understanding.

   But where might this turn toward Jesus and peace find traction in the grand welter of groups and bureaucracies which are implied by the word church ? Every Church A Peace Church has identified six entities which could be pillars of a movement toward nonviolent peacemaking in the church. These are the historic peace churches, the black church, denominational and ecumenical peace fellowships, denominational justice and peace offices, evangelical and charismatic churches, and educational institutions--seminaries, theological schools and colleges. To these must be added youth and young adults. The vision of ECAPC is to see these groups make the changes necessary to live and teach as Jesus lived and taught--to be the body of Christ in the world. --end
For the full series see http://www.ecapc.org/visionofecapc.asp

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