We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Lion, the Witch and the War

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

 sandy Poore via Compfight

Red Letter Christians featured some of Greg’s thoughts in their recent article entitled The Lion, the Witch and the War. The author of the article talks about the C.S. Lewis story and the subtle ways that it reflects his bias and has encouraged Christians to embrace a wrong-headed view of war. Really excellent.

From the article:

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in following the teachings of Jesus is our tendency to do whatever we want, and to then convince ourselves that Jesus supports our agenda. This is especially true when it comes to His peace teachings. I’ve talked to church leaders who really want to speak the truth about peace but are afraid of repercussions from people in their congregations who are either in the military or related to someone in the military. There are a couple of things I’ve learned from thinking through this issue. The first is that we can love and respect people without agreeing with all of the choices they make. Many Christians do join the military, or support going to war, but I believe that there are much more Jesus-focused paths that we can take. The second is that none of us is perfect at following Jesus but we do need to be honest with ourselves about what He taught. He is the Prince of Peace and His teachings on this topic are incredibly clear, so if  for some reason we don’t want to follow Him in all situations, let’s just admit that and not pretend that He didn’t actually say what He said.

 

Related Reading

Swords into Plowshares

Eneas De Troya via Compfight Kelley Nikondeha over at SheLoves wrote a penetrating essay on the work of peace and the prophet’s dreams of replacing the work of war into the work of feeding people. Peace isn’t passive. It’s hard work. From Kelley’s essay: Beating swords into plowshares is hard work–hammering, melting, reworking and shaping new…

How Jesus Cursed the Curse

People who have committed to following Jesus are called to mimic even this aspect of Jesus’ life. As much as possible, we are to model what creation will look like when God’s Kingdom is fully come. We are to manifest as much as possible God’s original design for creation not only by how we love…

Praying for Peace During Political Hostility

Jesus calls his disciples to be “peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). During this season of political animosity, we have a great opportunity to practice being disciples by offering an alternative way of interacting with each other. One primary way we do this is by using the unique authority we have to affect the world through prayer to…

True Serenity

Andrew Sullivan pointed readers today to this meditation on two sources of spiritual serenity. Rather than relying on the absence of conflict or our own privilege, the writer asks us to go deeper to the source of all real peace. From the article: Such reliance knows God to be a rock that enables us to…

Tags:

You’re Not a Pacifist Are You?

 Jayel Aheram via Compfight Brian Zahnd wrote a great piece the other day on this topic. He contends that when he is asked this question, it often has the same flavor of the question, “You’re not a pornographer are you?” Why is this question so contentious among believers? Brian has some interesting ideas about it.…

Anabaptist Response to the Attacks in Paris and Beirut

https://youtube.com/watch?v=paUtIl-oRpM&feature=youtu.be Our friend Bruxy Cavey, the pastor at The Meeting House in Toronto shares some thoughts on how to respond to the violence that is going on in the world. He writes: The Meeting House is a Historic Peace Church. In responding to terrorism, we don’t presume to tell governments what they should do, for…