I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon: Fleeing the incessant news updates, my husband and I chose to escape the tension of heightened terror alerts by touring a local California mission. Under the cool of the adobe walls we paused momentarily and prayed for peace.
As we left, I noticed a faded sedan parked nearby with a bumper sticker I’d read a hundred times: “If you want peace, work for justice.” These words, which had made sense to me years ago, sounded hollow in light of recent events. Is social injustice really an issue in the situation we face today? Should we not consider other reasons for the absence of peace?
The magisterium of the Church has had much to say on this subject in the last twenty years. Because the foundation of Catholic social teaching is the Bible, I chose to begin my search for answers there. I was surprised to find the richest deposits of teaching on social justice buried in some of the books I had previously avoided. But peace, I discovered, is not always part of the formula. Here are some scriptural reasons that may explain why peace is often so elusive in this world.
Selfish Ambition
Catholic social teaching affirms the values of human dignity and respect for life found in the story of creation. It defends the equality of all persons, especially the weak and defenseless. It endorses the establishment of provisions for the poor championed in the book of Leviticus. It echoes the call of the prophets to uphold the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves. But does the Bible guarantee that the realization of such conditions will automatically lead to peace?
The answer is no. We live in a world that is stained by original sin. Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, we have struggled with dissatisfaction, self-indulgence, and greed. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), wrote Paul. It is for this reason that the world does not function as God intended.
Often we are like spoiled children who upset the entire household by arguing over a box of cookies. James said it this way: “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (Jas. 3:16). Apparently even the early Church had its share of discord. “What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you?” he wrote. “Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill” (4:1–2).
Utopian idealists claim that a perfect society can be created by social reform. If we engineer the right conditions, they proclaim, we will usher in an age of order, harmony, and prosperity. But the human condition of selfishness will never allow it. Sin is too deep. Social justice alone will never be enough to satisfy these fallen human hearts of ours.
Opposition to Truth
No one lived out God’s commands as perfectly as Jesus Christ, and yet his life was certainly not marked by peace. Whole chapters of the Gospels record the confrontations Jesus had with the religious leaders of his day. These were no abstract, theological discussions. Things got personal—very personal. “Which of you convicts me of sin?” he challenged. “If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?” (John 8:46). Even though Jesus had done nothing wrong, the truth he spoke invited violence and hatred.
We often forfeit peace by speaking truth, especially if it is perceived as a challenge to those in power. Reputations can be smeared, positions suddenly eliminated. In many places of the world today, it is dangerous—even life threatening—to change your religion or to speak the truth. Jesus warns those who follow him that “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me” (John 16:2–3). Clearly, at times, truth may be the enemy of peace.
Spiritual Evil
In Ephesians 6, Paul acknowledges spiritual forces whose goal is to defeat the Church. They are not enemies of flesh and blood but rulers and authorities of “this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12). Those who are tempted to dismiss such notions as mere fantasy should remind themselves of Jesus’ own confrontation with Satan and the authority he gave the Church to defeat him (cf. Matt. 16:18). If the Son of God believes in spiritual evil, so should we.
The first recorded act of aggression in the Bible is the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. I find it notable that Cain held no legitimate grievance against his brother. Cain’s rights had not been violated; his human dignity was never questioned. “Why did he murder him?” asks John. “Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12, emphasis added).
We live in a country where the message of tolerance has become ubiquitous. The dominant moral relativism asserts that one person’s convictions are as valid as any other’s. The concept of evil is laughed at, and we hesitate to defend absolute truth.
But evil does exist, and we are not inherently responsible for sins committed against us. Injustice is not always to blame. “They hated me without a cause” (John 15:25), Jesus told his disciples. Likewise, Jesus never promised peace to those who pursue justice: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
God’s Displeasure
God often used war to express his anger in the Old Testament. God was so displeased with the pagan nations occupying the Promised Land that he used the Israelites to carry out his judgment. “You shall utterly destroy them” (Deut. 20:17), God told the Jews. Although this sounds harsh, we need to remember that God takes sin seriously. Like a cancerous growth, the pagans’ idolatry, sorcery, and child sacrifice needed to be removed or else they might well have contaminated the virtuous life God required of his chosen people.
But God did not play favorites with the Israelites. King Asa’s reign of Judah was marked by peace because he “did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Chr. 14:2). This refrain is often repeated in Chronicles. The blessing of peace came as a reward to those who obeyed him. But when King Asa forgot God, God withdrew his protection. “You have done foolishly in this,” he told Asa. “From now on you will have wars” (2 Chr. 16:9).
The most obvious example of God’s displeasure came in 722 B.C. The King of Assyria invaded the northern kingdom of Israel. The inhabitants were captured and dispersed, never to be a nation under God’s divine protection again. The southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Their temple was destroyed, and the survivors were hauled off to Babylon to lament their fate for seventy years before they were allowed to return.
Scripture is unambiguous for the reason behind these events: “And this was so, because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God” (2 Kgs. 17:7). A simple truth of the Old Testament is that God’s displeasure was often behind the turmoil the Israelites experienced as a nation.
A Gospel of Peace
How then are we to understand the message of the Church as a “gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15)? First, we must understand that the peace of the Bible is much more than the absence of conflict. It suggests completeness, health, justice, prosperity, and protection. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, something God produces in individuals and communities when they abide in him. It is the supernatural unity experienced among people who worship the same Lord.
How does this come about? It happens only through conversion—one person at a time. Jesus’ first triumph was to establish peace between human beings and God. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, sin no longer blocks our relationship with God. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). The work of peace begins in individual human hearts that have surrendered to Jesus.
Peace is also Jesus’ gift to those who follow him. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” Jesus told his disciples (John 14:27). Peace is the blessed assurance we can experience in any given circumstance, more powerful than the human mind can comprehend. It stands guard over the hearts and minds of those who find their life in Christ (cf. Phil 4:7). Many people search for this kind of peace and give up when they cannot find it. Jesus offers it generously to those who will submit their lives to him.
But peacemaking is a responsibility as well as an effort. “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it” (Ps. 34:14), exhorted King David.
Paul charged the early Christians to do the same: “If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18). This is the real challenge of Christian living: We are called to empty ourselves of pride and selfishness to become channels of peace. Often the world dumps its garbage in empty channels, but only those who have the power of the Holy Spirit will find the ability to live as the Bible instructs. Only those who know Jesus Christ personally and depend on him will have the spiritual resources to live out their baptismal promises (cf. Phil. 2:13).
As the Church moves into the twenty-first century, we need to trust that peace is neither a pipe dream nor the dividend of a social contract. It is a promise made by God to be filled in an age to come. It is the hope of a future ruled by the Prince of Peace when he returns in his glory. It will be the mark of his kingdom, which will have no end.
Until then, we are caught in the tension between the present reality and our future assurance. “We hope for what we do not see” (Rom. 8:25), wrote Paul, as we wait for God’s plan of redemption to be completed. God calls us to participate in his plan by being salt and light to the world, rather than sitting on the sidelines.
To do so we must recognize that transitory peace is not the ultimate good, but neither is conflict the ultimate evil. For a time we may have to sacrifice peace to pursue justice. We may have to hate peace to speak the truth, and if we end up looking more like warriors than plastic saints, that’s okay. The Bible promises that God’s action through us will transform society. But the work of redemption begins and ends with God.
As the ambassador of peace, the Church proclaims a two-fold message. The first is that the world’s promises are false. Peace will never be found in positive thinking or the absence of conflict. This world can never achieve the kind of peace we crave, given the solutions it offers.
The second points to our only hope for peace: Jesus Christ. Paul’s letter to the Colossians expresses the Church’s responsibility most plainly: “Him we proclaim” (Col. 1:28). Only Jesus Christ can offer the kind of peace for which this world hungers, because he alone is the source of peace.
There is little doubt what Paul’s reaction to the bumper sticker would be. He would advise us to “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). He would exhort us to not be led astray with the kind of empty philosophy that comes from human thinking and not from Christ (cf. Col. 2:8), and he would challenge us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. At the end of the day, peace will belong to those, and only those, who have Christ himself.