A terrible mistake was made 1500 years ago and it is about time somebody corrected it.
Some 500 years before that a man came along who spoke of love and peace. When he met people his greeting was peace be with you, and he told them to not only love your neighbor but your enemy as well. Not forgive a person seven time but seventy times seven.
He was a powerful person. He could change water into wine, feed 500 people with just a few loaves and fishes, He could disappear at will, throw the moneymen out of the church and even walk on water.
In order to show his followers the proper behavior in the face of violence, He allowed His enemies to hang Him on a cross until He died.
His followers scattered and that should have been the end of that, but they regrouped, called themselves Christians and started a new religion. It spread like wildfire even tho many died because they embraced it. In a few hundred years it became the predominant religion of a great kingdom. It began to have many possessions that had to be protected from invading forces. Thus the great mistake…… the just war theory.
Since then there have been crusades, inquisitions, civil wars, world wars, revolutions, holocausts and most of the time it has been Christians doing the killing.
The commandment says “Thou shalt not kill”. It does not offer any if, cans or buts. Thou shalt not kill period. Not for love, money, execution, vengeance or even your own live.
The problem is that many more fluent and affluent people than I have espoused this theory with little or no affect……. the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Amish, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Berrigan brothers, the peace and pacifist marches and movements. But the killing goes on.
So what can we do. As they say in the song “let there be peace on earth and let it begin with ME”. We can try to elect a government that will make peace a top priority. That will stop trying to control the world and forcing our way of life and type of government on other people. That will stop supplying weapons to people we like so they can kill people we don’t like.
We can also try to change our religions back to being pacifist as they were in the beginning. As a Catholic I believe my church should lead the way, or perhaps I should say join those that are already pacifist. If we all would just live by the Ten Commandments there could be peace on earth.
This I truly believe.