Peace

Peace if not about ideology at least the way we tend to define it in modern day America, liberal and conservative, the most over-used words in the English language. Peace is actually a concept that comes from either a spiritual perspective or, perhaps best stated, a worldly perspective.

Recently, Sean Hannity said, ““I’ve often said that liberals define peace as ‘the absence of conflict.’ I define peace, very simply, as the ability to defend yourself and destroy evil enemies.”

Without an argument of politics or of American policy, by biggest issue with Hannity on this is that he is defining this inaccurately. Peace as the ‘absence of conflict’ is not a ‘liberal’ perspective of peace; it is actually a Biblical perspective of peace. I cannot imagine that he is stating that a liberal perspective is Biblical and godly where as his is not. He is just mis-stating from whence this idea originates. He demonstrates, at least from my vantage point, the inanity of needing to use the labels ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ as much as we do. And, Hannity’s definition of peace is actually not unique to Hannity or ‘conservatives,’ but to a world view of Rome.

The Biblical concept of peace comes from the Hebrew word Shalom, which is often described as a peace of God which passes all understanding and an absence of conflict of the highest level. In describing shalom, Isaiah says it with great eloquence:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. -Isaiah 11:6-7

As stated, shalom is an absence of conflict at its highest level.

Conversely, there is a worldly kind of peace which is often defined from the Roman Empire, generally referred to as Pax Romana. Hannity’s perspective of peace actually comes from this.

Its root comes from the height of the Roman Empire and is occasionally referred to as Pax Augusta, after Caesar Augustus. It is probably well defined as a super power kind of peace in the fact that people were strongly motivated to not go to war with any of the Roman provinces because they were going to then deal with the army and might of Rome. Rome being, a large and strong super power had the ability to crush any enemies. They also had great will in order to do so and did lots of crushing.

The reality of life is that we do need to defend ourselves and destroy evil enemies. The Second World War was a classic example of that. It was a necessary war with an enemy of immense evil who had to be crushed. We live in a world filled with evil people who do evil things and sometimes strength is the only way to hold people back. We live in a world where Pax Romana is still important and vital.

My issue with Sean Hannity is not his idea of peace through strength. It is the pretense of liberal versus conservative and looking to alienate people just because he seems to want to or it gets him ratings. I’m not sure, otherwise, why he says this.

Meanwhile, we live in a world where we have and need Pax Romana and pray for a world prophesied by Isaiah, a world living with a sense of Shalom.