War and Peace

War is not something noble. It is something we must engage in as a last resort. It is a symbol of our failure to follow Gods Golden Rule to love one another. Similarly the army is not something to be proud of. It is not a noble profession. Fighting other human beings who are also God’s children like you is not heroic. It is sad. It is a tragedy, moreover it is unnecessary. It is not inevitable. It would be unnecessary if we followed God’s will and lived our lives according to the way God wants us to. Wars would not happen if we followed Jesus teachings. If we treated other human beings the same way we would like to be treated we would automatically treat them well. 

One of the greatest men who ever lived, my idol, Peter Tosh gave us the formula for peace. He sang, ‘there will be no peace ‘till men get equal rights and justice’ (Equal Rights/Down Presser Man Live). Equal rights and justice; that is the formula for peace! If every human being has equal rights and is treated justly, then there will no one holding a grievance. No human being will feel the need to fight for their rights or to fight for justice. Peace is not simply the absence of war. It is the absence of injustice. If all is quiet and there are no wars but some human beings live under oppression and suffer injustice then that is not peace. Undergoing military training (referred to in the bible as ‘learning war’) is not a goog thing. It will have no place in the kingdom of God (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4: 3). So how can we pretend it is now a good thing to be a soldier and that soldiers need our support while they are out at war killing other children of God?