I want to establish from the beginning of this piece that I am not, nor have I been, a pacifist. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, whom I believe Isaiah rightly heralded as “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Recently, I read an article in a magazine describing the internecine warfare between various Yugoslav factions during World War II. I regret that I did not copy the name of the writer, for I was aghast at what he wrote: “… Balkan conflicts have always been savage, and convoluted – Serbs vs. Croats; Eastern Orthodox Christians vs. Catholics, and both against Muslims; Slovenes, Montenegrins and Albanians all at each others’ throats.”

This troubled land was also “the main battleground of the long-running clash between the Ottoman Empire and the Christian West … That penchant for violence stems largely from religion.” The writer did not say the hostilities were the result of basic religious teachings per se, but that the religions were used by the various groups to condone the warfare and atrocities that issued from racial, cultural, political and economic conflicts.

This, I realized, is true of the majority of wars and conflicts in human history. It is applicable to Christianity as well, although Christians have often blessed warfare’s carnage in the name of God and subjugated whole peoples in the name of bringing them to Christ – almost always an unfulfilled pledge.

The wrong messiah

Why was Jesus, for the most part, rejected in his days upon this earth? Why did so many decide he was not the Messiah? The answer: Because the messiah they wanted was not the messiah they got.

Many of his countrymen were looking for a military deliverer who would smite the Romans and restore the thrones of Judea and Israel. It appears even some of Jesus’ most prominent disciples also thought this. Because a village of Samaritans would not receive him, his disciples asked: “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them.” (Lk. 9:54).

When one of the disciples hacked off the ear of the slave of the high priest, Jesus said: “Put your sword back into its place … Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels?” (Mt. 6:52,53). Jesus could have used force, but he was/and is the Prince of Peace, who used and still uses a cross to be victorious.

One of President Teddy Roosevelt’s sons is quoted as saying: “Sure, Pop is all for peace – so long as it doesn’t get in the way of the fighting!” I suspect there are many of us Christians who share that same propensity.

So the question I must raise with you is this: Do Christians really follow Jesus as the Prince of Peace – or only so long as it doesn’t get in the way of the fighting? Or is calling him that just a little habit we’ve acquired?

G. Valbert has computed the following: “from the year 1496 B.C. to 1861 A.D., in 3,358 years, there were 227 years of peace and 3,130 years of war, or 13 years of war for every year of peace. Within the last three centuries there have been 286 wars in Europe.”

He adds: “From the year 1500 B.C. to 1860 A.D. more than 8,000 treaties of peace, which were meant to remain in force forever, were concluded. The average time they remained in force was two years.”

Considering many of those involved on the various sides were Christians and that sometimes the Church or churches were heavily involved (as in the Crusades), is it unreasonable to ask if we Christians really follow Jesus as the Price of Peace?

How can we explain – and justify – this failure of Christians to eliminate or even reduce the curse of warfare?

In his play Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw has the Devil say: “I have examined Man’s wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes nature itself … His heart is in his weapons … Man measures his strength by his destructiveness.”

Does that mean that there is no obtainable power in the gospel of the Prince of Peace?

Reinhold Niebuhr concluded that World War I had been “made inevitable not by bad people who plotted against the peace of the world, but by good people who had given over their conscience into the keeping of their various political groups.” That was 1928; so, are we still giving over our consciences to groups and structures that are following not the Prince of Peace, but the Prince of  Darkness?

Thomas Hardy wrote this poem entitled “Christmas, 1925:”

Peace upon earth was said; we sing it

And pay a million priests to bring it.

After two thousand years of mass,

We’ve got as far as poison gas.

Except now, we have push-button nuclear weapons!

(This column is dedicated to my 18-year-old grandson, James Paul Harrison, who died during a fire in his apartment on July 7, 2012.)

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.