Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Tree of Life discovered in London
Out of all the things that I saw last week in London, the most fascinating sight was not Big Ben, Parliament, Windsor Castle, or even Buckingham Palace. At the British Museum in the Africa section I saw something that moved me to tears, it was the Tree of Life. Out of the atrocities of the civil war in Mozambique came a Christian led movement to trade guns for tools. This was inspired by none other than a Christian Bishop. Take a look here at a picture of the Tree of Life and the story behind it. Don't just take a passing glance at this link. Think about it for a few minutes and let the message move you. After you have looked at the link read this Scripture. If this does not convince you that a Christian Worldview has the power to bring peace to the world, I don't know what will.
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6 comments:
Aaron,
There are two sentiments that I seem to differ on here.
1. An absence of firearms will cause a presence of peace. People make war, not guns.
2. A christian worldview will make peace. The quote from Isaiah is talking about the end times, which implies to me that peace will only reign when Jesus returns.
Expound on your ideas in these two areas, if you would. I don't think I'm understanding you correctly and I don't want to miss what you're trying to say.
Pete
Pete and Elijah,
I am not saying that Christians can create a utopia before Jesus comes back. That would be the position of the postmillenialist. What I am saying is that the values of Jesus when applied to society have the power to curb violence and promote the general welfare of everyone.
As to Jesus coming back, Jesus said "Occupy until I come" and He also said "Blessed are the peacemakers." As long as we are on this side of eternity, we Christians are supposed to be "salt and light" on the earth.
We have to be willing to identify good fruit when we see it. The fact that people are willing to give up violence for agriculture would definitely qualify as good in my book-and I think the Holy Book agrees.
Aaron,
Thanks for the clarification. I still hold that no one is necessarily giving up violence for agriculture simply because they are trading in a firearm. If they are trading in their attitude of violence as well, then the objective is being accompished. Otherwise we are simply giving them different tools to kill each other with. A very large portion of those killed in the Haitian attrocities were beaten to death with very crude weapons, because some geniuses decided that if we kept them from gettingtoo many guns, an attitude of peace would reign. I think we all saw that it certainly didn't prove to be a solution.
Pete, if you would have watched the video at the museum, it seemed pretty obvious to me that there was a change of heart in the people involved.
pete, i'll first say that i've been guilty of this (not too long ago actually), but i think you took the guns and peace thing out of context.
it wasn't a post about right to bear arms, it was a post about christians helping to promote a spirit of peace in the world, not trying to create world peace by taking away people's guns.
Toby,
I really did understand that. I just wanted to make a point because more and more, we're getting fed the idea that "no guns" and "peace" are synonomous. People want an easy fix for peace and so firearms are the easy scapegoat. The problem is that when good people are left without a way to defend themselves against the bad, the bad reigns. Ask Joseph Stalin and Idi Amin about this concept!
I will say that the idea of giving them farming tools in order to provide for themselves IS much closer to an answer because a better economy IS a very large key in peaceful nations.
I'm all for promoting peace and don't want to sound like I can't see the good in this act. I just want to bring up a possible error in strategy, because it is so often glazed over as an absolute cure.
Pete
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