Thoughts on Peace, North Korea, Pessimism, and Optimism

Yesterday, I suggested three reasons that the North Korean government's announcement that it possesses at least one nuclear weapon came as no surprise. The third reason I enumerated was:

nuclear weapons appeal to the dark nature of the human race. They give the impotent the illusion of power, which is the appeal of all impulses toward violence. As God told Noah, "the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth." (Genesis 8:21) Like Adam and Eve, we human beings are constantly falling prey to the temptation to "be like God." (Genesis 3:5)

This may have left readers with the impression that I am pessimistic about human beings or a fatalist when it comes to the work of diplomacy and statecraft.

At one level, I am pessimistic about human beings. Barring a reconstruction of our psyches and spirits, we are prone toward seeking advantage for ourselves at the expense of others. That's as true of nations as it is of two year olds in a day care center. Sir Alfred Zimmern, an expert on international relations, was once asked what the greatest obstacle "between us and the building of an enduring world peace" was. He replied, "The small scale individual."

The small scale individual is the person steeped in self. The Bible teaches that we are all, using Zimmern's phrase, small scale indivduals. One definition of evil or of what is demonic that emerges when reading the Bible is of people turned in on themselves, their hearts and wills closed to God and others. Hell is seen then, not as a place where happy rebels enjoy an eternity of cantankerous fun, but rather as an archipelago of incommunicado islands, each with one occupant consigned to live with their choice of hollow self-aggrandizement for all eternity. (No wonder Jesus says that they will gnash their teeth forever; without anyone to lord it over, what good is it to have one's own island?)

It is small scale individuals who become despots and enslave nations. It is they who go their own ways, no matter the cost to others. I am not optimistic that left to their own devices, or the standards of their own crippled consciences, that unreconstructed human beings can ever avoid these pitfalls.

But I am entirely optimistic about what can happen in the lives of those who follow Jesus Christ.

A Jesus-Follower is like a formerly musty old house. The shutters have been thrown wide open and the windows are raised. The fresh, cleansing wind of God's Spirit has been let in. Suddenly, rooms that had been locked tight from God and others are open and the goodness of God surges through, changing everything. Paul writes, in one of my favorite Biblical passages which I've cited here before:

"...if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ..." [Second Corinthians 5:17-18]

I've seen the transformation Paul talks about happen in hundreds of lives.

It's the work of the Church and of individual Jesus-Followers to present the transforming news that when we follow Jesus--which is what the Bible means when it talks about believing in or trusting Jesus--our lives are made new. Paul even uses diplomatic language to describe this part of the Church's mission:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us... [Second Corinthians 5:20]

Every Jesus-Follower is called to reach out to others with the love and goodness of God, serving and loving others in the Name of Jesus, so that everyone experiences this reconciliation.

That's long, hard work. So, what do we do about the North Koreas of the world if they haven't been reconciled to Christ and undergone spiritual reconstruction? Should we just grab their cute despotic hands and ask them to join us in singing Kumbaya?

Of course not.

According to the Bible, God has established governmental authority, including diplomacy and statecraft. (Romans 13:1) Why? Martin Luther, in his phenomenal essay on what he calls God's "two kingdoms," says that if all of us were following Jesus Christ--in other words, if we were all living the opposite of the evil life and were instead, turned upward to God and outward to neighbor, rather than inwardly toward the interests of the self--there would be no reason for governments, armies, or diplomatic agreements. All would live according to the ethic commended by the New Testament to Jesus-Followers:

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

This is the life style that Jesus summarized in His great commandment to love God and love neighbor. [Matthew 22:34-40]

But as Walgreen's is wont to remind us, we don't live in a place called Perfect. So, God established governments whose job it is to create oases of fragile and imperfect (and often porous and violable) stability and safety in a dangerously sinful world.

(This isn't to say, by the way, that governments ought always to be obeyed. When governments ask us to go against the will of God, it is imperative that they be resisted. Brave people, like the martyred theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, showed us this in their resistance to Nazi Germany. Christians are taught, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect." [Romans 12:2])

The work of diplomats and generals and others in government is important. Like all good, productive, helpful work, it comes from God. But it would be naive for diplomats, generals, presidents, prime ministers, kings, or anybody else to think that their good work can stand the long tests of time.

There will always be another generation of small scale individuals who work to undermine even the most wisely-crafted peace agreements.

There will always be another unscrupulous person who finds loopholes in reforms enshrined in law.

So, while we must value the work of diplomacy that must now happen in the wake of North Korea's announcement and pray for its success, those of us who are Jesus-Followers need to also attend to the deeper work--prayer, service in Jesus' Name, telling His Good News to others--that will bring real peace, eternal peace, to people.

True transformation that ensures peace among family members, communities, and nations only comes from Jesus Christ.