Pacifism and Christianity
Jesus spoke of it, Kahlil Gibran wrote about it, Mahatma Ghandi demonstrated about it, The Beatles sang about it and most importantly is has been shown through the ages by humble deeds - Peace that is. The way to peace is through love. Love cannot be forced and it cannot be found through sloth therefore for peace to flourish it must be wanted and acted upon accordingly by the people who will grow under it. However to have peace there must be only peace, it cannot be interrupted by acts of violence or aggression and it especially cannot exist when those who are supposedly working for it also engage in violent acts on the side. In other words pacifism is the only way to achieve peace. Catholicism supports pacifism but it also supports the Just-War Theory which is a set of rules that must be followed to make a war just. It includes: a just cause- war must confront a real and certain danger, competent authority- war must be declared by those responsible for public order, there must be right intentions and it must be a last resort. It is unclear how anyone could call themselves a Christian and fight in wars at the same time when in the Ten Commandments it clearly states "Thou
Pacifism can bring change to the world as has been shown to us by the actions of many including Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Ghandi, King and many, many others but the greatest example of this is not these men but the one who lives humbly for the cause of peace in pacifism. John Lennon made the statement "All you need is love" which is so simple yet so hard to follow and see. Peace and love have become almost interchangeable with each other because they are so very much alike. With peace there is inner contentment and with love there is benevolence, kindness and fraternity toward all life. The two forms compliment each other in such a way that it is either not possible to have one without the other or it is just foolish to have only one. This being said it is true that pacifism is the only way to have peace because peace and love are so close yet war is the opposite of peace so it cannot logically be reasoned that war is close to peace. John Lennon's statement could just have easily been "All you need is peace". Peace brings with it prosperity, knowledge and opportunity. War brings death and the wasting of resources however it can be used to energize a nation's economy an
Some common words found in the essay are:
Earth Christian, Commandments Thou, Mahatma Ghandi, John Lennon, John Lennon's, Just-War Theory, Ghandi King, peace love, peace peace, , Kahlil Gibran, war stop, earth christian, peace peace love, minds bodies,
Approximate Word count = 797
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|