A Safer World

"Daddy, would you feel safer in the world if there were no guns or swords?"

This was the question posed to me by my eldest daughter. She had apparently picked this question up at school somehow.

No, I said. I wouldn't feel safer. Unfortunately people have been finding ways to kill each other since the very beginning. And they didn't need guns or swords to do so. The problem is not with guns and swords, it's with our hearts. When we choose to hate instead love or to be angry instead of forgiving, we start to walk down that way that leads toward death.

"I know that." she says.

It's good to know that at seven she already knows as much as me. There is hope for the future.

You know this analogy breaks down, but I wonder sometimes what would have happened with this "war on terror" if we'd had sought out more creative ways than just "shoot 'em up" to deal with the problem. Sometimes war is inevitable, I know that. And what happened on September 11, 2001 was more than "unjust". I'm not advocating pacifism, but sometimes (and as Christ taught) there are more creative ways to make statements about injustice; ways that dignify the human spirit and restore humanity to both the both our enemies and the innocents. As a student of History I am well aware of the "myth of redemptive violence" that says it is only force which can restore peace. Cain was was sure that killing Able was one way to get justice from his favored brother. And there has been very little progress since. Creative non-violent approaches to injustice is certainly a "Christ(ian) value".

As a people, we in America are of the most resourceful, creative, inventive, and giving people on the face of the planet. I wonder what good America could have done for the entire world with 4 trillion dollars spent differently. Perhaps it will have to be the future generation that will move us out of this myth of redemptive violence and into the age of "redemption" that Christ inaugurated.