Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – The Culture of Peace and Evangelism
Thus our ability to proclaim God’s good news of salvation is measured by how well we, as the Church, embody the new reality of God’s kingdom of peace in our communal life. When churches reflect the same divisions, injustices, unresolved conflicts and violence of our world, the integrity and credibility of our witness to God’s transforming salvation is severely damaged. A good litmus test involves asking ourselves two questions:
- Where in the world do the churches grow the most?
- Where in the world do brutal and bloody civil wars take place the most?
If the answer to both questions is the same, that indicates a serious problem for our ability to faithfully proclaim the gospel. On the contrary, when churches understand embodying peace as an integral part of their mission, they become compelling, living signs of God’s reconciling love that attract people to love Jesus Christ and follow him.
Church History and Peacemaking
Church history and the New Testament both demonstrate that many of the earliest Christians understood embodying a culture of peace in their churches as an integral part of their calling. Justin, a teacher who was martyred for his faith in Rome in the second century, stated an early Christian understanding; namely, that Isaiah 2:2-4, in which the prophet anticipates the transformation of swords into ploughshares, has been fulfilled in the Church. Justin reported about their experience:
We…delighted in war, in the slaughter of one another, and in every other kind of iniquity; [but we] have in every part of the world converted our weapons of war into implements of peace—our swords into ploughshares, our spears into farmer’s tools—and we cultivate piety, justice, brotherly charity, faith and hope, which we derive from the Father through the crucified Savior.1
Justin knew that God had done something new for the human race through sending the crucified Savior Jesus and causing people from many nations to gravitate to Jesus, the new Zion. The result was a people of peace made up of former enemies. People of different tribes and nations, who used to hate each other, now shared life together and dismantled the ways of living that had divided them. Together, they created a culture of justice, faith and hope. For Justin, as for Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen and other early Christian fathers, God’s peace, which Isaiah anticipated, has been realized through Christ. The Church, in which former enemies have become reconciled as brothers and sisters, is evidence of this new reality. Justin’s belief that the Church is called to embody a culture of peace comes from the Church’s earliest beginnings. In Acts, the founding of the Church was the product of God’s peacemaking activity. Pentecost brought together Jews from many parts of the ancient world (Acts 2:9-11) who spoke many languages. The linguistic chaos of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) was transformed at Pentecost as God united people who had previously been separated into one body.
Pages: ALL Prev 1 2 3 Next
|
|
Paulus Widjaja is secretary of the Mennonite World Conference Peace Council. He is a professor in the theology department at Duta Wacana Christian University in Jogjakarta, Indonesia. |
