The Antonyms of Peace

Today I was discussing a Holocaust novel with some of my students. There was a scene where some Nazi soldiers entered a girl’s home to search for the parents of her Jewish friend.  After a few tense moments the soldiers left, and all the characters breathed a little more easily.

“So what do you think?” I asked the class. “Is everything going to be okay now?”  No, they said, there is a lot more trouble ahead. 

“How can you tell?” I wondered.  It’s obvious, they replied, because it’s only chapter 5 and there’s a lot more of the book left.

That was a good literary answer, of course.  It’s the one I was hoping they would notice.  But then I thought about how it was even a better life answer, although it’s one we often forget.  If there’s more of the book left, we know that more things are bound to go wrong.  Yet for some reason we are nearly always surprised in real life when some trouble we have just endured is quickly followed by—surprise!—even more trouble.

The antonyms of peace are emotionally draining words:  Disagreement.  Agitation.  Distress.  Frustration.  War.  Worry.  No one signs up for a lifetime of these experiences.  At the same time, no one can escape them.   It’s true that rich and poor, women and men, old and young do not all worry about the same things.  But none of us is immune to these disturbances.  If any pages are left in our story, then it’s certain that there is more to come in the conflicts of life.

Moreover, some people seem to embrace a certain role in life as Disturber of the Peace.  In the days of the ancient Jewish poets, one wrote:  “My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (Psalm 120:6-7).  In the days of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln spoke of agitators who had preferred to “make war rather than let the nation survive.”  It’s bad enough to think that life is difficult; it’s worse to think that someone is intentionally making it more difficult.

But as long as pages remain in our story, we should anticipate that troubles will keep coming.  The Bible view is that evil will become worse and worse, and only the Prince of Peace—that glorious title of Jesus, announced by prophets and set to music in Handel’s “Messiah”—only He will be able to establish worldwide peace.

However, we are also offered the chance to enjoy a small daily victory in this battle for peace.  A first-century Christian wrote, “Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means” (2 Thessalonians 3:16).  This is not peace in the absence of trouble; it’s peace in the middle of trouble.  The God of the Bible says that He a) wants to send us peace, b) is always able to provide it, and c) can use any method necessary to  help us receive it.

You might look at your story and think, “What if I’m only on chapter 5?  There could be a lot more trouble ahead!”  Actually, it’s wiser to expect that than to hope for the opposite.  But here’s another key:  Followers of Jesus have been told something about the end of the story.  The conflict truly does get resolved, and the peace that is so elusive now will finally have its day.  Until then, the God of peace has not forgotten us.

Still no explanations for the Las Vegas shooting

[This post was first shared on Facebook on October 5. Now, more than 10 days later, there is still no explanation.]  

The Las Vegas shooting reminds me of how I felt during the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. At the time, it was incomprehensible that an American could attack Americans like that. The first World Trade Center attack in 1993 was awful as well, but it was a terrorist attack and therefore had some kind of logic to it. But Oklahoma City didn't make sense. Now Las Vegas doesn't either.

In Las Vegas, many popular narratives about the causes of our national unrest seem to be upended.

  - Is it the Black Lives Matter people? This was a white man of apparently European descent.

  - Was he a white supremacist? Those he killed are almost exclusively other white people.

  - Was he shafted by an unequal socioeconomic system? He was a wealthy property owner who made a fine living through gambling and speculation.

  - Is it the failings of our educational system? This was a 64-year-old who finished his education long ago.

  - Was he protesting Donald Trump's policies or Democratic platforms? His brother said he had no political affiliations of any kind.

  - Was he trying to make some kind of statement about society? He made no attempt to explain who he was or to declare his position about anything.

  - Was he mentally ill? It's hard to make that case when he stockpiled weapons, purchasing 33 in the last year. He also obtained devices that would functionally convert his guns into automatic weapons, sent his girlfriend away, wired her a large sum of money, selected a well-positioned casino suite, set up cameras so he could see who was coming, and brought hammers with him so he could break the windows. This isn't someone who just snapped and couldn't take it anymore. The planning behind the attack is particularly chilling.

  - Was it because of religious intolerance? For some, it's a favorite meme that religion causes all the trouble in the world. But this man had no religious affiliations at all, said his brother. ISIS claimed him as one of their soldiers, but there is no evidence that this is accurate.

Perhaps some motive will eventually become clear. At the moment, though, the only answer is an echo from the 1960s radio drama The Shadow: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Recently an English teacher named Dan Sato posted on Twitter that, centuries ago, Shakespeare's character Iago (in the play "Othello") illustrated the "motiveless malice" that we find so startling.

It is troubling to think that such a monstrosity might never be explained. It implies that the heart and conscience can become so unmoored that a fellow human, someone shaped just like us, could drift into that realm where family and friends struggle to explain what has happened.

Our troubled minds also show us that we don't really believe in naturalism, the idea that we are just products of natural forces. We want life to make some sense. We want evil to be stopped and kindness to regain its footing. We are more than just our bodies; we are sorrow and fear and anger and empathy and love.

We need a moral center that is outside of ourselves, bigger than ourselves. A cohesive, articulate, biblical worldview provides that kind of solid footing. If you don't subscribe to that worldview, you still must deal with this kind of evil and explain what makes it evil.

But if you do subscribe to that worldview, we sorrowfully acknowledge that we know something about this mystery of iniquity. Yet we also carry with us the message of One who has said, "In the world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world."

Welcome

One time I saw a T-shirt that said, "More people have read this shirt than your blog." I smiled at that because it's probably almost always true!  There is no shortage of blogs in the world, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people writing them than reading them.

Writing a blog seems like the ultimate act of 21st-century hubris. What kind of audacity does it take for someone to think, "The stuff I write should definitely be online for everyone in the world to read"? Tapping keys on a laptop is the modern equivalent of strapping on a pair of wings:  There is always the temptation to believe we can fly closer and closer to the sun.  If you read Greek myths, then you know how that story turns out.

Yet here I am, adding one more site to the ponderous weight of the blogosphere. I'm doing it because I have appreciated other people's blogs; and I'm doing it because I just love to write, especially about Bible topics.

The name of this blog is "Let's Say It This Way." That's because I'm a bit curious but also a bit stubborn. Being curious means I like to think about what's going on in the big world as well as in my own little world.

But being stubborn means I'm convinced that all of us in general and Christian people in particular are too easily satisfied with cliches about life and faith, and I just can't do that. Bible talk shouldn't simply make us feel warm and fuzzy on Sundays; it should equip us to deal with life on Mondays.  And if we can't explain it so that it's relevant every day, I'm almost sure that we're missing the Author's purpose for the text.

So my hope is that, on some occasional basis, I can post something interesting about the Bible view of things. If nothing else, at least I hope that "saying it this way" won't be boring. Feel free to read along.