Bishop Victor Brown is senior pastor of Mt. Sinai United Christian Church and a suffragan bishop and founding board member of the Worldwide Fellowship of Independent Christian Churches. The following post is based on his remarks during the panel “Religion: A Catalyst for Peace?” at the ICLRS 31st Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2024.

We gather at this Symposium under a heavy cloud of national and international unrest and warfare. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas, which resulted in the highest number of Israeli lives lost since the Holocaust. In addition to conflicts in Haiti and Sudan—and the ongoing wars in Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, Yemen, Russia, and Ukraine—on the American national front, the United States presently stands as a nation divided.

One of the greatest tenets of our democracy has always been that we are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”[1] Without question, this tenet is under heavy assault. The political landscape of the United States has been marred by mean-spirited and visceral engagement that has reduced healthy and spirited debate to a state of tribalism and power play. The interests of the needy have been supplanted by the interests of the greedy, and I suspect the Founding Fathers are turning over in their respective graves, never having imagined that the day would come when partisan politics would eclipse patriotism and when control of the branches of government would remain more important than an unwavering and uncompromising conviction to uphold the Constitution.

In the last 10 years, acts of racism and prejudice have resurfaced to tear the fabric of an allegedly united America. According to USA Facts, between 2014 and 2022, the three most prevalent biases were anti-Black, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay-male. Over that period, anti-Black hate crimes increased 108%, anti-Jewish crimes increased 83%, and anti-gay-male crimes increased 76%. These statistics do not even take into consideration the reckless and irresponsible rhetoric espoused by certain politicians regarding asylum seekers aspiring for a new life here in America.

Against the backdrop of the insidious madness of warfare abroad and the challenges of political, racial, and religious unrest at home is the clarion call affirmed by David in Psalm 24:1, wherein he emphatically observes, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”[2] It is into this madness that God is seeking participants and change agents to join His campaign to exalt peace where there is war, hope where there is despair, love where there is hatred, order where there is chaos, and unity where there is division.

Without fear of contradiction, I would advocate that religion can and should serve as a catalyst for peace in the world. Each religion has a primary source of dogma that gives foundation to its belief system. Whether it is the Bible embraced by Christians, the Holy Qur’an embraced by Muslims, the Torah embraced by Jews, the Vedas embraced by Hindus, or the Pitaka embraced by Buddhists, each teaches: (1) submission to a higher authority or power, (2) trust that good ultimately triumphs over evil, (3) that the sanctity of human life is to be cherished and protected, and (4) that peace and justice are ineluctable moral virtues bestowed on the whole of humanity, not simply as a privilege but as an unalienable right.

And so I must remark that I thoroughly enjoyed all who have presented before me and the myriad ways in which the topic of religion’s role in taking up the gauntlet of peace’s pursuit has been engaged.

For the remainder of the time afforded me, I want to mount the platform of my own Christian faith and offer you a hermeneutic sub specie aeternitatis, or perspective of heaven, as it relates to the process involved in becoming an instrument of peace. It is a three-step process that begins with a conviction captured in the head. It is then given context by way of a transformation of the heart. And it culminates with the commission of the hands.

As to the conviction of the head, I point to the eighth-century theologian and philosopher Saint Augustine who postulated the existence in the human order of a twofold truth. Augustine says there is a truth that can be arrived at by the employment of the human senses: what is seen, what is felt, what is touched, what is heard. But then, Augustine suggests, there is a truth that lies outside the realm and reach of the human senses, and it is called revelation.[3]

My faith teaches me that the Bible contains the revelation of the word, the will, and the way of God, and in perusing the Bible, we encounter the revelation of the Jehovistic attributes of God. Study long enough, and you will discover that God is identified as

• Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who makes provision (Genesis 22);
• Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who grants healing (Exodus 15);
• Jehovah Nissi, the Lord our banner (Exodus 17);
• Jehovah Mekadesh, the Lord who sanctifies (Exodus 31);
• Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is ever present (Ezekiel 48); and
• Jehovah Shalom, the Lord of our peace (Judges 6).

One definition of peace is a solid, enduring relationship of harmonious living together based on respect, serenity, cordiality, and mutual understanding. This definition of peace, in my assessment, can never be achieved in any of us if it simply remains a matter of the head. Pursuing peace as a standard will always remain high and lofty to the human disposition, which innately leans toward being at peace with those who bring peace and being in conflict with those who bring conflict, and which will seek to match any level of aggression it encounters. The disposition of spiritually and morally unregenerated humans is to match hate with hate, aggression with aggression, assault with retaliation, and persecution with revenge.

True peace can never be realized if it is simply a cognitive concept couched in the head. In order for us to become instruments of peace, in order for peace to stand a chance, it cannot simply be a cognitive conviction of the head but it must be matched by a transformation of the heart. In my faith tradition, this is the work of Holy Spirit. It requires a level of submission by faith to the sovereign prerogative of God, who is always seeking to stretch us in ways that assault our base nature’s proclivities. How can we love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to them who despitefully use us and persecute us,[4] unless we experience a transformation of heart that causes us to perpetually seek the moral high ground when confronted with conflict? Transformation of heart requires that we understand and embrace the love ethic of God.

A study of the New Testament will reveal that whenever the word love is employed, etymologically it is never eros, which is superficial; it is never phileo, which is reciprocal; but it is always agape, which is unselfish and unconditional. In Mark 12:30–31, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, declares, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” There is none other commandment greater than these. The love ethic of God teaches us in 1 John 4:20 that it is theologically impossible to be in right standing with God if we claim to love vertically without concomitantly loving horizontally. It is within the parameters of God’s love ethic that we come to understand that we are not called to love others for God, but that we are called to love others like God. So becoming an instrument of peace in the human order not only requires of us a conviction of head and a transformation of heart, but it is culminated by the commission of our hands. Transformed hearts have the capacity and the power to mount the stage of ecumenism.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was clearly correct when he observed that change never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.[5] Says David in Psalm 34:14, “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” Mahatma Gandhi was also right when he challenged us all to become the change we wish to see in this world.[6] Dr. King warned, “It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and to sacrifice for it.” And “[t]rue peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”[7]

In Luke 4, Jesus walked into the temple and read from the book of Isaiah. He declared, among other things, that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him and that He was appointed to preach the gospel to the poor. The etymology of poor in this text carries with it a dual obligation from the Hebrew word ani (עָנִי): the first obligation is to attend to the destitute and deprived, but the concomitant obligation is to challenge the systems that create, support, and perpetuate the state of deprivation.

The tricky business of peacemaking is that arriving at the destination of peace more often than not requires that we not hold our peace. Ineluctable from the pursuit of peace is the challenge of creative and strategic confrontation. The deafening silence of the prophetic voice of the faith community will always have peace as an aspiration but will never experience it as a reality. We are called by God to speak truth to power and to challenge institutions of structured evil that perpetuate warfare and unrest.

In conclusion, Jesus declared in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” God is calling each of us to become instruments of peace. Let us all experience a conviction of head, a transformation of heart, and then a commitment of hands to the hard and tedious, yet rewarding and liberating, work of pursuing peace. Pursuing peace is true religion at work. May we all embrace the challenge with the understanding that all that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in this world is for enough good people to do nothing.

References:

[1] See 4 U.S.C. 4 (Pledge of allegiance to the flag; manner of delivery) (2024).

[2] Editor’s note: All Bible references are from the King James Version.

[3] See, e.g., 1 St. Augustine (of Hippo), The City of God 469–71 (T. & T. Clark 1888).

[4] See Matthew 5:44.

[5] See Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – 1966 Convocation, Illinois Wesleyan U. (last visited 20 Nov. 2024).

[6] Editor’s note: Mahatma Gandhi expressed thoughts reflecting this sentiment in 1913. See Brian Martin, Opinion, Falser Words Were Never Spoken, N.Y. Times (29 Aug. 2011).

[7] Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (2011).