“Whoever of you loves life, and desires to see many good days. . . . Turn from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” —The Psalmist (Psalm 34:12, 14, NIV)

In early 1918, as World War I intensified, Canada needed to strengthen its armed forces and started drafting all young men, aged 20–23 years. There were no exceptions. One young Brethren in Christ man, Ernest Swalm, had strong convictions that the Bible’s call to nonresistance and peacemaking included non-participation in war.1 When the letter came demanding that he report for duty, he did not resist the order. However, when he arrived in Hamilton, Ontario, at the appointed time, he refused to put on a military uniform and requested to be allowed instead to do humanitarian service that would not support the war effort. For his refusal, he was arrested and put in jail, where he remained for four months.2

More than 70 years later, in the period between Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War in early 1991, Gwen White, a pastor’s wife from Riverside, Calif., traveled to Baghdad, Iraq, with a delegation called a Christian Peacemaker Team. The team’s aim was to promote nonviolent resolution of the conflict. Gwen carried with her messages of peace and friendship from her son’s sixth-grade class to the children of Iraq. When she returned home, she wrote about her “unlikely journey.” Reflecting on her experience in Iraq, Gwen called her readers to “choose to gain our security from God and not from weapons, and then may we speak from that position for peace.”3

Ernie’s and Gwen’s methods of witness against war in favor of pursuing peace were different, probably reflecting the times in which their witness took place. While both confronted those who were making war, Ernie did not resist the order to report for military duty. He simply refused all other orders to participate in the war-making system. Gwen, by way of contrast, confronted her government more directly by openly traveling to an enemy country.

At the same time, their witness had common elements as well. Both Ernie and Gwen desired peace and believed that God wills peace and not war. They believed they were doing the right thing and what God wanted them to do. They both were opposed to war and participation in war, and they both demonstrated love for their enemies. For Ernie and Gwen, pursuing peace was a core value. It was something they had to do, regardless of the consequences and whether or not they were successful, because of their deeply-held beliefs about the nature of God, what it means to follow Jesus, and how God wants us to live in the world.

Pursuing peace is certainly not just about opposing war, as these two stories might suggest. But I’m telling the stories to make a specific point. It is easy and common for almost anyone to say that he or she wants peace—who doesn’t? But it is not so easy or common to believe that Christians can practice—and boldly give witness to—life-saving and life-giving alternatives to conflict and aggression. It is not so easy because the culture we live in assumes that violence and war are acceptable solutions to aggression, and the majority of the Christian church basically agrees. Undaunted by prevailing opinion, however, the Brethren in Christ actively promote forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, and nonviolent alternatives to conflict and war.

The Brethren in Christ belief in the importance of pursuing peace is more than 200 years old. Peacemaking has always been part of our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is good news, and peace is also good news. We celebrate and share it with the world. We know everyone wants peace, and we know something about how God can help us be peacemakers, so we are not shy or apologetic about sharing what we know. After all, there is a world out there that clearly hasn’t been particularly successful at achieving and sustaining peace.

What exactly can we share with the world? What do we believe about peace and why? In this essay, I intend to summarize our long-standing understandings about pursuing peace, including what we believe the Bible says about peacemaking. Then I will explore each part of our eighth core value to show what it means to pursue peace. Finally I want to challenge us to be assertive about sharing this part of God’s good news with the world.

What we believe

The earliest Brethren in Christ confession of faith declared that it is “completely forbidden to use the sword for revenge or defense.”4 Our current confession says that “Christ loved His enemies and He calls us as His disciples to love our enemies. We follow our Lord in being a people of peace and reconciliation, called to suffer and not to fight.”5 These brief confessional statements show that the Brethren in Christ understand the Bible and the example of the early church to teach that war and violence are wrong responses to conflict, and that love, even for enemies, is the right and ultimately most effective response. Although God in the Old Testament appears to condone and even promote violence, what with all those stories of sending the people of Israel into battle against enemy nations, the Brethren in Christ have placed more emphasis on the life and teachings of Jesus as the culmination of God’s revelation to His people. Even in the Old Testament, however, there are clear teachings that point to a different way to respond to violence.

God repeatedly reminded the people of Israel that they were not to trust in their own strength or in military might for their deliverance: “A king is not saved by his great army. . . . Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him . . .” (Ps. 33:16ff), or “Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots . . . and in horsemen . . . but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord” (Isa. 31:1). The concept of loving enemies was introduced in the Old Testament where the writer of Proverbs talks about feeding hungry and thirsty enemies (Prov. 25:21–22), and God said that revenge should be left to Him. The prophets foretold how Jesus as the “suffering servant” would model meekness and absorb violence, and provided visions of the future when nations would not learn war any more but would beat their swords into plowshares (Isa. 53; cf. Isa.2:3–4 and Mic. 4:1–4).

The bottom line for me and for many Brethren in Christ in terms of the biblical basis for peacemaking has always been the example of Jesus. Try as I might, I can’t imagine Jesus pushing the button to release a bomb, firing a gun at someone, or engaging in a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with an adversary. This is not to say that Jesus didn’t vigorously confront evil and wrongdoing; in fact, he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and condemned the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and self-righteousness. But I just can’t imagine him deliberately hurting or killing another human being.

From before his birth to the time of his death, Jesus proclaimed peace. Zechariah, speaking of Jesus at the time of his own son’s birth, talked about the one who would “guide our feet in to the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). The angels, on the night of Jesus’ birth, declared peace on earth and goodwill to all (Luke 2:14). Jesus’ most famous sermon blessed peacemakers, calling them God’s children, and pointed to a different way to deal with enemies and people who hurt us and demand things from us (Matt. 5). At the time of his arrest, Jesus didn’t fight back, reprimanded Peter for cutting off a soldier’s ear, and told Pilate that because his kingdom was not of this world, his disciples wouldn’t fight to protect him (John 18:36). Paul and Peter, in their letters to the churches, instructed their readers to live at peace with everyone, overcome evil with good, follow the example of Jesus who did not retaliate or threaten when he was attacked, and seek peace and pursue it (Rom. 12:17–21; 1 Pet. 2:21–23; 3:10–11).

Jesus’ witness and example were so powerful that for almost 300 years, Christians did not go to war, and for 2,000 years, at least some Christians have continued to believe that war and violence are wrong. One example is Origen, an early church leader, who said, “we no longer take up ‘sword against nation.’ Nor do we ‘learn war any more,’ having become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader.”6 With roots in the Reformation, the Historic Peace Churches, which include our denomination, the Brethren in Christ have maintained a commitment to peace and nonresistance despite the fact that most of the rest of the Christian church has moved away from this same commitment.

What pursuing peace involves

We have defined “pursuing peace” to mean that “we value all human life and promote forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, and nonviolent resolution of conflict.” Each part of the statement addresses a different aspect of the pursuit of peace. Together, they portray an approach to life with enormous potential for good in the world.

“We value all human life . . .”

The statement begins with the rather bold declaration that “we value all human life.” The “all” word is the challenge. Do we really mean all human life—the murderer on death row; the ruthless dictator who massacres his own citizens while amassing great personal wealth; the unborn baby conceived by rape; the homeless alcoholic who won’t accept help; the nasty coworker who is always criticizing? Surely there are limits! We haven’t allowed ourselves any escape clauses, however.

We know that God created all human beings in God’s own image, and we believe that humans are special in a way that other parts of God’s creation are not (Gen. 1:26–27). Now we have to figure out what it means to have the image of God in us, and what that implies about how we treat other people, regardless of how they may have perverted that image within themselves.

Among other things, it is not enough to say we value all human life and still think there are circumstances where it is appropriate to take human life deliberately. Is there ever a point when we can determine that someone has forfeited his or her right to be treated as a person made in the image of God? To do so seems to decide that an individual is beyond God’s reach and beyond redemption, and hence to decide that he or she cannot and will not ever choose to accept God’s offer of grace. Perhaps the choice will never be made. Perhaps the person has already made so many evil choices that a good choice is impossible, but no one except God can ever know that for certain.

Practically, then, this means that as a Christian I can’t support the death penalty. I can’t participate in activities that demonize people for bad things they’ve done or choices they’ve made, or because of their race, the country in which they live or their religion. I can’t participate in war on the one hand, and I can’t condone abortion, infanticide, or euthanasia on the other hand. I can’t do these things because I value all human life.

“. . . and promote forgiveness . . .”

Jesus’ life was premised on forgiveness. He willingly died on the cross so that we don’t have to pay the penalty for our sins. He forgave those who participated in his crucifixion and death. He taught his disciples to pray for forgiveness and to extend it to other people, warning that if we don’t forgive others we shouldn’t expect God to forgive us. Recognizing that forgiveness is not a once-and-done thing, he said that we should forgive the same person for the same thing over and over again (Matt. 18:21–22).

Just what is forgiveness, though? As a non-theologian, my definitions are fairly practical, beginning with a simple dictionary definition that says forgiveness means giving up resentment against or the desire to punish someone. It doesn’t say anything about forgetting or pretending the wrong never happened. Forgiveness also doesn’t dismiss responsibility or the need for people to be accountable for their actions, and doesn’t mean that I am not careful about how much I trust people who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

But forgiveness, it seems to me, also means that I don’t forever hold people’s misdeeds over their heads as a club, always reminding them of what they’ve done wrong. Forgiveness means that I don’t seek revenge, or wish evil on those who have done bad, even really awful things to me or to people I love. Forgiveness helps to break the cycle of violence, whether the violence is physical and literal or more emotional and subtle. Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily change the person I forgive (although it may very well do so), but it changes me and allows me to let go of the desire for revenge and punishment. Harboring resentment uses up energy that could be directed to more productive and loving activities.

The difficulty of forgiving becomes very real when we consider actual people who may need our forgiveness: the father who sexually abused his daughter for years and still refuses to admit he did anything wrong; the person who brutally murdered a family member and has been sentenced to death by the state; the drunk driver who caused an accident that resulted in permanent paralysis; the bully who constantly threatens a child; the coach who cut a child from the basketball team and damaged his self-esteem; the church member who constantly criticizes and hurts others with her negative and complaining spirit. Forgiveness for these and countless other situations is probably not possible on our own. Forgiveness requires us to allow God to work in us to release the normal anger, pain, resentment, and desire for revenge we feel when we are wronged.

“. . . understanding . . .”

The word “understanding” has several meanings. The ones that apply in this context are sympathy or empathy and tolerance or respect. To begin to understand others, we need to listen to them, hear their stories, and learn to know what it is like to walk in their shoes. Understanding takes time. Understanding also values the person, recognizing the image of God in him or her. Understanding recognizes the many factors that influence a person’s character, personality and actions. The person who always seems to criticize everything may have experienced much criticism as a child. The person who is having a really bad day at work may be going through a rough time at home. The person who seems to have reached the point of no return by committing brutal crimes may never have known what it was like to have someone love him or her unconditionally. So often we condemn without knowing or even wanting to know the life circumstances that contributed to the bad choices people make.

This does not mean that to understand we have to excuse bad behavior or limit accountability. It certainly seems like this is what frequently happens in the courts, as people who have committed horrible crimes “get off” with very little punishment because juries are convinced by defense arguments of childhood abuse or whatever. Understanding doesn’t mean we don’t require people to take responsibility for their behavior or its consequences, but it ought to mean that we learn to know where people came from, what made them what they are, and why they act as they do. That kind of understanding, then, ought to help us develop caring relationships with people that will give us the right to prod them to be responsible. It also ought to help us determine the root causes not only of one individual’s behavior but also of societal and cultural behaviors, and perhaps help to prevent the hatred, violence, and war that come from lack of understanding.

Another aspect of understanding that promotes peace and prevents violence is tolerance. Although tolerance seems to have fallen into some disrepute lately because we keep being asked to tolerate behavior we think is wrong, at its core it is another word for respect. We can and should tolerate and respect people their beliefs even when we don’t agree with them. Lack of tolerance leads to hate crimes, violence, and war far too often. Tolerance and respect, on the other hand, help to create an environment in which understanding and eventually reconciliation can more easily take place.

“. . . reconciliation . . .”

When the bank and I don’t agree on how much is in our checking account, I have to reconcile the difference. Sometimes this means that I find a mistake in subtraction or addition or I’ve forgotten to record a check or a withdrawal, and sometimes (although not very often) it means the bank made a mistake—like the time they inadvertently printed our account number on someone else’s checks and our balance all of a sudden began to dwindle. When I can’t find the reason for the discrepancy, and it’s not obvious that the bank has made a mistake, I usually assume the bank is right and I change our balance to agree with theirs. I put aside my differences and agree that from this point on the bank and I are in agreement.

I think reconciliation between people and groups works in a similar way, although no analogy is without limitations. Ideally, reconciliation is more two-sided than my checkbook example, with all parties agreeing that mistakes were made and from now on we will work to correct those mistakes. Yet God provided for our reconciliation to him with no initial reciprocal action on our part. “While we were still enemies, Christ died for us,” Paul says in Romans 5. But Paul also says that God reconciled us to himself through Christ and then entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation as well (2 Cor. 5:18–19). God made the first move and now it is up to us not only to accept his offer of reconciliation, but also to extend reconciliation to others.

Part of extending reconciliation to others is making peace with people from whom we are estranged, which is possible because of what God has done for us. The classic biblical example of this is in Ephesians 2, where Paul describes how Christ made peace between the Jews and the Gentiles, two groups that had traditionally been in conflict with each other. Christ broke down hostilities and created one new humanity, reconciling “both groups to God in one body through the cross” (Eph. 2:14–17).

The conflict between the Jews and the Gentiles and the model for reconciliation described in Ephesians 2 have many potential parallels in our modern world. Long-standing ethnic, racial, religious, and national hostilities can be broken down through the power of Jesus. People who were formerly strangers and foreigners can become friends; they can be reconciled. That’s a major part of the message of the gospel. When we participate in or stand silent in the face of actions that perpetuate hostilities and conflicts among people and nations, we are denying an essential truth of the gospel that Christ came to make peace and reconcile people to God and to each other.

One North American opportunity for reconciliation is between races. When North America was settled centuries ago, indigenous people were displaced and large numbers were killed. There’s something incredibly wrong when some of the poorest people with the greatest social problems in the United States and Canada are descendants of people that white settlers treated with so little understanding and respect.

Similarly, the legacy of slavery and racism continues to create hostility between the dominant white culture of the United States and people of other cultures and races. Racial reconciliation means coming to terms with stark reality that discrimination and prejudice against people still happen just because of the color of their skin or they are different in some other way. For white people, who still hold most of the power in the United States, it also means accepting responsibility for the privileges we have for no other reason than that we are white and working to make sure that everyone has the same privileges. Racial reconciliation leads us one step closer to John’s vision in Revelation of “saints from every tribe and language and people and nation” singing together in heaven (Rev. 5:9).

“. . . and nonviolent resolution of conflict.”

One time when my daughter was a young child, we were watching a TV movie about World War II. As we watched, she became increasingly bothered by the story and eventually blurted out, “War is dumb! Why can’t they just talk?” I’ve thought about that a lot in the years since. I have my own moments of excruciating frustration when I hear war stories from around the world or local new stories of an angry husband who shoots his wife and children and then turns the gun on himself. Obviously, preventing war and violence is not usually as simple as my daughter’s suggestion to “just talk” makes it sound, but on the other hand, it seems like nations and people assume far too quickly that violence is the only way to solve a problem.

I like to use another analogy. We are quick to point out the irony of a parent beating a child for hitting his or her brother or sister. We recognize the incongruence between the words and the actions. But we are not nearly so quick to see that we often condone the same thing when we assume that violent behavior can only be stopped with more violent behavior, which is what happens in war or capital punishment. Granted, there are major differences in the complexities of the situation, but it’s sometimes helpful to put aside all those complexities and look at a situation very simplistically. If we can see that a parent who beats a child for hitting is continuing the violence, perhaps we can see that trying to resolve violence on a larger scale with more violence also simply perpetuates violence. The best solution is to decide never to use violence, which is at least part of what the early Brethren in Christ meant when they said rather categorically that “it is completely forbidden to use the sword for revenge or defense.” Without a sword (or a gun) in the home, or a state-of-the-art bomb in the national arsenal, physical violence is not as easy an option, and there is more likelihood that other methods, like my daughter’s call for “talking,” will be used with more vigor and desire to make them work.

I can’t leave this section without acknowledging that violence is not always physical. Emotional, verbal, and social violence are also very real and can often be equally devastating. In addition, just because we have prevented war or another violent act may not mean that we have achieved genuine peace and reconciliation. Often preventing war is just the first step in a long process of establishing a climate in which real peace can happen. Logic tells me, however, that if people are not killed there is a greater likelihood that forgiveness, understanding, and reconciliation can in fact take place.

Conclusion and confession

When I was beginning to think about this essay, an editorial headline in our local newspaper about the decades-long Middle East and Northern Ireland peace processes caught my eye: “Pursuing Peace is Trying.” The editorial used the word “trying” in the sense of difficult, time-consuming, and patience-wearing. Pursuing peace is certainly all that. But the editorial also suggested a second meaning: pursuing peace is a continuous process of trying to make things right, trying to reconcile even when the odds seem stacked against the process. Just because it doesn’t work this time doesn’t mean that we don’t try again and again and again.

For the Brethren in Christ, having the pursuit of peace as a core value also means trying to reinvent our commitment to peacemaking and reconciliation in ways that are relevant to the age and culture in which we live. I said at the beginning that the message of peace is something to embrace, celebrate, and share. Instead, we often hide it for feat of ridicule or rejection, or because there is strong disagreement about the finer points of what the Bible actually teaches. Rather than focus on fears and disagreements, however, we can act on what we have always said we believe. If we do so, we will go out into the world committed to being peacemakers wherever we are. The world and our neighbors and friends need to know what we really believe and have faith that through Christ and his death and resurrection, we and they can have the power to overcome evil with good. Jesus Christ not only provided for our personal salvation; he also gives us power to be peacemakers and his agents of reconciliation in the world. Jesus showed that there is another way that genuinely respects God’s image within each person, regardless of race, nationality, creed, or behavior.

Let me close with a little personal confession. Pursuing peace in the ways I’ve described is a high value for me and one that I have worked at all my adult life because I believe in the deepest core of my being that God calls Christians to peacemaking. Having said that, I am also painfully aware that I have not always acted as though I believe it; I have not always practiced forgiveness, understanding, and reconciliation. Further, I know that there are often more questions than answers about what peacemaking really means (see Discussion Questions), and I know that many sincere Christians who also take their Bible seriously have come to different conclusions about war and peace, and violence and nonviolence.

However, by choosing the word “pursuing” to describe what we want to do about peace, we are acknowledging that it is a continuous activity. We are always going after or chasing peace. Sometimes peace is elusive, sometimes there are complications, sometimes there are obstacles to overcome. Maybe we will never quite capture peace, but we are always pursuing, always following after Christ, who indeed is our peace and will be always be with us. This has been and continues to be my goal as a pursuer of peace, and I pray that it will be yours as well.

Harriet Sider Bicksler is a member of the Grantham, Pa. congregation. She edits Shalom!, a BIC publication devoted to the discussion of peace and social justice concerns. To read more about pursuing peace and other Brethren in Christ core values, see the book Focusing our Faith: Brethren in Christ Core Values,edited by Terry L. Brensinger.

A number of words have been used over the years to describe how we make peace, both within the church and in society. Some of these words are nonresistance (coming from Matt. 5:39, “Do not resist an evildoer”), pacifism, and nonviolence. The words connote different things to different people, resulting in preferences for one word over another. In this essay, regardless of the word used, I am assuming a common commitment to a pursuit of peace that promotes alternatives to war and physical violence.
E.J. Swalm. Nonresistance Under Test (Nappanee, Ind.: E.V. Publishing House, 1939).
Gwen White, “An Unlikely Journey,” Evangelical Visitor (January 1991), pp. 9–10.
“Confession of Faith of the Brethren,” reprinted in C.O. Wittlinger, Quest for Piety and Obedience: The Story of the Brethren in Christ (Nappanee, Ind.: Evangel Press, 1978), p. 554.
“Articles of Faith and Doctrine,” Manual of Doctrine and Government of the Brethren in Christ Church (Nappanee, Ind.: Evangel Publishing House, 1998), p. 17. The complete paragraph, within the section entitled “Mission of the Church: In Relation to the World,” reads thus: “Christ loved his enemies and He calls us as His disciples to love our enemies. We follow our Lord in being a people of peace and reconciliation, called to suffer and not to fight. While respecting those who hold other interpretations, we believe that preparation for or participation in war is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. Similarly, we reject all other acts of violence which devalue human life. Rather, we affirm active peacemaking, sacrificial service to others, as well as the pursuit of justice for the poor and oppressed in the name of Christ.”
Cited in John Driver, How Christians Made Peace with War (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1988), p. 26.

This chapter originally appeared in the book Focusing Our Faith, and is reprinted with permission from Evangel Publishing House, Nappanee, IN.

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