I am Committed to Peace
“For he (Jesus) is our peace, who has made two groups, one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. “The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, chapter 2 verse 14.
My mother and father were refugees as children from the Ukraine. Their parents left to survive the famine and the violence that was happening in the Ukraine. My dad could never talk about the violent events that happened to his family. I lived in the Alsace region of France for six months in 1980’s. The mother of the farming family that I lived with for six months remembered the Nazi tanks that came over the border. A Mennonite minister from Alsace was conscripted into the army, but refused to load his gun. While at seminary, I read the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Daniel Berrigan, John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas, all pacifist theologians. Shirley and I worked in a refugee camp in Thailand for three years. The refugees that we worked alongside were fleeing the after effects of the Indochina War. For the most part, they were innocent civilians, but not all. Two Vietnamese brothers came through our camp, both soldiers. One said that he wanted to kill all those communists, while the other said there has been enough killing. We listened to Cambodian refugees talk about the horrors of living under the Khmer Rouge for almost four years. It seemed that no Cambodian family was intact. We left Thailand battered and shaken, after listening to the violence that was done by human beings to other human beings. During my time at Floradale, we have had many short-term mission projects to places of war and poverty, from Labrador, Toronto, to Texas, Guatemala and Costa Rica. I believe these kinds of experiences have continued to shape us into a community of peace and compassion. Our daughter, Hannah, works in human rights in Colombia. After over 40 years of civil war in Colombia, a peace treaty has been signed by all the warring factions. We pray for peace there. Our youngest son, Caleb, spent a year in Lebanon helping to facilitate aid to help refugees outside and inside of Syria. He worked for Mennonite Central Committee. It was a tough assignment.
All these life experiences have shaped my dedication to peace-keeping and peace-making. I accepted Jesus Christ as my guide to life and faith in and around 1977, and have walked this journey of peace since that time. Peace is never the easy way out. When everyone has a gun, then it is the more difficult decision to not have a gun. Jesus chose, near the end of his life, that he would go to the cross because he loved everyone and the world. He chose not to send down thousands of angels to destroy the military, political and religious authorities, when his followers that this would be a good idea. Jesus said, while on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. “He was praying that the God of all creation would find forgiveness to those who were killing the Son of God. War and violence are never the answer, and if we go to war, we have already lost our way.
If God is the most powerful being in all the universe, God does not need me to violently defend him anywhere or anytime. Violence on any side, is always counterproductive. This does not mean that I have not done violence. I had violent thoughts about the Khmer Rouge, and the recent coup attempt in Turkey has shown to me that I still have violent tendencies.
One of my favourite writers is Stanley Hauerwas. At the beginning of the Iraq War, he was the only person who said that the War was unjust, at the Society of Christian Ethics. He also said that he does not have a “pacifist bone in his body “. He is a sinner and as violent as any other person. He believes, as I do, in the peace and grace of God. As a Christian this is what I believe, and try to live out everyday. Go in peace, to love and serve our Lord.