Second Week in Advent – Day 1 – Christians for Peace

Regardless of what one thinks of Anabaptism, all true Christians must be for peace. This does not necessarily mean that we must all be pacifists. But even if one believes that violence may become necessary in emergencies, we are all to be peacemakers. The Gospel is a Gospel of peace. God is the God of peace. As followers of Christ we must think about peace, talk about peace, pray for peace, and work for peace. Politics inevitably seeks to use religion for narrow political purposes. The church, however, should be an entity that transcends all earthly loyalties and that constantly calls the power of the state into question. This is what the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century believed and taught, and, I think, it is worth believing and teaching in the twenty-first.

David Alan Black, The Jesus Paradigm, p. 54