...Peace demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. The Christian fight for peace is not to be confused with defeatism...
...The Christian is and must be by his very adoption as a son of God, in Christ, a peacemaker. He is bound to imitate the Savior who, instead of defending Himself with twelve legions of angels, allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross and died praying for his executioners...
...The Christian is one whose life sprung from a particular spiritual seed: the blood of the martyrs who, without offering forcible resistance, laid down their lives rather than submit to the unjust laws that demanded an official religious cult of the emperor as God...
...Christian nonviolence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the unity of man. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for the healing and reconciliation of man with himself, man the person and man the human family...
...If it does happen to be impossible for some of us to love our enemies, there must be a reason for it. The reason is that we love money and possessions more than we love our fellow man, and so when he seems to threaten our material interests, we are compelled to hate him...
...The human race today is like an alcoholic who knows that drink will destroy him and yet always has "good reasons" why he must continue drinking. Such is man in his fatal addiction to war. He is not really capable of seeing a constructive alternative to war...
...The Christian is and must be by his very adoption as a son of God, in Christ, a peacemaker. He is bound to imitate the Savior who, instead of defending Himself with twelve legions of angels, allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross and died praying for his executioners...
...The Christian is one whose life sprung from a particular spiritual seed: the blood of the martyrs who, without offering forcible resistance, laid down their lives rather than submit to the unjust laws that demanded an official religious cult of the emperor as God...
...Christian nonviolence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the unity of man. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for the healing and reconciliation of man with himself, man the person and man the human family...
...If it does happen to be impossible for some of us to love our enemies, there must be a reason for it. The reason is that we love money and possessions more than we love our fellow man, and so when he seems to threaten our material interests, we are compelled to hate him...
...The human race today is like an alcoholic who knows that drink will destroy him and yet always has "good reasons" why he must continue drinking. Such is man in his fatal addiction to war. He is not really capable of seeing a constructive alternative to war...
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