Why I Don't Believe in World Peace

Rick Warren's endorsement of McGrath's book Heresy (see last post), in light of his recent inter-faith bridging efforts with his mega-church's P.E.A.C.E. Plan strikes me as no coincidence. There's no sense in Muslims, Jews, Christians (and heretics alike) killing each other. I think we can all agree that we should try as best we can to work together and live harmoniously, respecting one another.  As a result, we want to have some neutral ground from which to come to the table and talk it out.  But there are couple major problems that stress the need for caution lest we fall into the trap of revising the gospel:

1. The problem is that despite our similarities, we have radical divergence of opinion as to how "World Peace" should be carried out.  Sharia and Christianity don't mix.  Period.  Certain forms of government (like democracy) do not port easily to certain faiths.  It is all well and good to establish "common ground" but this may be tantamount to compromise for more than one religion.  I remain unconvinced that many faiths, including Christianity, have not had to water down their convictions in order to start playing politics on a grand scale.  It's one thing for a politician to make sensible compromises to lead a country.  It is entirely another for an entire faith group to submit itself to a government which will only tolerate a particular (watered down) form of its theology.

Corollary:  If differences between religions are watered down to accomodate a single geo-political objective, we not only lose the uniqueness of said religions, but we then run into the problem of perpetuating the one thing we all have in common: evil.  World peace becomes essentially a code word for PAX ROMANA; there's peace because there's nobody who can have individual beliefs anymore without appearing as a virus in the system.  We tar these individuals as "bigots" "racists" "sexists" "Islamophobes" "homophobes" "anti-Semites" "heretics" "fundamentalists" "infidels"...and they are criminalized for having unpopular opinions that 'rock the boat'.  But of course, the extermination of dissent is not peace.  


2. There is no such thing as a neutral unbeliever.  Part of my love for a Muslim or Jew or Hindu would include being honest with him, where required, about his status before God.  He is not "saved" and he is not going to heaven and furthermore he is a child of the devil on the road to hell.  I owe him that much to tell him that he is in the same place I was before I trusted Christ as Saviour.  This deeply offensive message, as you can imagine (or as you are foaming at the mouth with rage about at this very minute or scoffing with indifference), does not lend itself easily to inter-faith dialogue writ large. I do not think this radical honesty annihilates dialogue, I believe it should actually strengthen it; but there will remain those who will only fume with rage.

The reason for this is that this is not an ideology of man we are talking about, this is the Word of God, and man's rebellion against it is far deeper than any issue-driven pet-peeve.  The continual witness of Scripture is that Christians will meet with hate, threats, imprisonment, torture, death, attempted extermination and so on.  I don't know what your eschatology is like, but our relative hey-day in the free west will not last forever.  The writing is on the wall.


I don't believe in World Peace.  It is a myth, and not a neutral one.  It's a lie.  We are not good.  We don't get along.  We never will.  Jesus calls me to be a peacemaker and perfect: I have done my best and I try, but I have failed at both and will continue to.  I am responsible to continue struggling; but beware the utopian myth-makers.