Menno on Peace

I want to share just a couple of quotations from Menno Simons on the subject of "peace." Menno had a lot to say about a lot of subjects and what I share here is only a brief glimpse of his total view on this subject.

Just a warning if you've never read Menno Simons -- he doesn't always use the best terminology to say what he wants to say, at least from a more "refined" perspective. At times he was rather blunt, to say the least. You can judge what I've included here for yourself.

I'm quoting Menno because he, of course, was supposedly the founder of the church to which I belong, the Mennonite Church. Menno's followers were called Mennoites at first, but to make it easier to pronounce, it was changed to Mennonites. Or so I have been told. So, I will leave you with Menno and with the following quotations this post will conclude.

• "The regenerated do not go to war, nor engage in strife. They are children of peace who have 'beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning forks, and know no war' (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3). ... Our weapons are not weapons with which cities and countries may be destroyed, walls and gates broken down, and human blood shed in torrents like water. But they are weapons with which the spiritual kingdom of the devil is destroyed. ... Christ is our fortress; patience our weapon of defense; the Word of God our sword. ... Iron and metal spears and swords we leave to those who, alas, regard human blood and swine’s blood of well-nigh equal value."

• "We who were formerly no people at all, and who knew of no peace, are now called to be ... a church ... of peace. True Christians do not know vengeance. They are the children of peace. Their hearts overflow with peace. Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace."

"True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people."

So be it -- I remain

Pilgrim on the way