Reason alone can’t lead us to peace. The pathway runs through justice | Opinion
“Peace on earth, good will among people.” How often we hear that phrase in this season. And yet how often is the blessing of peace mocked by war and polarization. How do we get to peace? Broadly speaking, we can choose between two pathways.
One pathway leads to the establishment of a peace and tranquility that is based on the universal facts of order. Bishop Michel Olson of Fort Worth’s Catholic Diocese explains in a recent opinion piece, “Critical theory driving antisemitism at colleges. We must stand for moral truths,” that the facts of order are figured out through careful reasoning from an overarching principle, and this process is aided by faith. By obeying the facts of order, you come into peace.
The second pathway starts with an effort to establish justice as the foundation on which peace is built. This effort often begins with a “compelling narrative” instead of universal facts. You do not reason your way, with the help of faith, into the facts of peace. Instead, a “compelling narrative” of justice grasps your will to motivate actions to bring about justice which ushers in peace. No justice, no peace.
These two broad approaches to establishing peace contributed to the split of the Christian Church into Protestant and Roman Catholic branches in 16th century Europe. Catholic thinking champions reason’s powers to produce universal facts of order. When these facts are verified by faith, they become the foundation of tranquility.
Protestants place emphasis on the primacy of being grasped by the Bible’s compelling narrative of God’s sense of justice, at the core of which is making sure that all have the resources needed to flourish. We are free to interpret this narrative as best we can to produce a vision of justice that guides our actions into peace.
It is easy to see why someone might prefer the path of reasoning one’s way into order over interpreting a vision of justice from a compelling narrative. Just look at the horrible ways extremists and terrorists of any tribe have used their compelling narrative to justify their barbaric actions.
We are shocked at the atrocities of Hamas, motivated by a compelling narrative of Jewish hatred. We are shocked, as well, by the systematic destruction of Gaza, guided by a compelling narrative of extreme Israeli nationalism. It is understandable that one would opt to use impartial reason — aided, of course, by faith — to nail down universal facts on which order can be obeyed.
However, I believe that choosing to begin with a compelling narrative is truer to the nature of who Jews, Christians and Muslims are. We are People of the Book. We all appeal to ancient texts as compelling narratives out of which emerges faith and morals. These texts are the Hebrew or Christian Bible and the Koran. Our separate compelling narratives, along with their accumulated interpretations, have developed alongside each other over centuries into the complex documents we call Scripture, which must be thoughtfully interpreted for our modern use.
Despite how we have badly interpreted ancient texts for diabolical purposes, we confess that we have no other choice than to live and die on the basis of interpretation of an ancient text.
What becomes critically important, therefore, is the framework we use to interpret our Scriptures. History is filled with examples of interpretations that justify all manner of oppressive behavior. While order may reign, there is no peace through a scripture that has been twisted to authorize oppression.
Recently a version of critical theory has become the framework of extremist groups to justify a wide range of hate-actions against Jews, Muslims, Blacks, women and LGBTQ+ people. This version assumes that all human relations are a collection of permanent and unresolvable struggles between oppressors and oppressed groups. Any expression of empathy and reasonableness is looked at with suspicion because it may be used as a tool of the powerful to preserve their power. Empathy and reasonableness can also subversively influence the oppressed to put up with their intolerable state.
There is enough in the Bible or Koran for people to use this version of critical theory to justify hatred and barbarism toward Jews, Muslims and Christians. I join with brothers and sisters who are People of the Book in repudiating this version and the hatred between groups it has created.
However, this does not negate that we are ruled by Scripture. The inescapable reality is that Christians, Jews and Muslims can and must choose a different framework to carefully read our compelling narratives. This framework is centered on our being called into a covenant that God makes with us to bless us and make us a blessing to all
Our common covenant celebrates our living in one of the most diverse societies in history, where we have more knowledge than ever about how interconnected we are in our fears, our ugliness, our hopes and dreams, our helplessness. Reading the ancient text through this common covenantal framework unleashes the power of our different compelling narratives to create a shared vision of justice which will motivate the hard work of making life flourish for all.
In fact, peace will only come to the Middle East when the diversity of people under God’s covenant forge from their compelling narratives a common story of land and people and hope. Out of this story will emerge a vision of justice and equity that has the power to excite the wills of diverse populations to do the hard and costly work to bring about wholeness and peace.
Warner Bailey is theologian-in-residence at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church and director of Presbyterian studies at Brite Divinity School, TCU.
