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Virtues
War & peace
9 min read

Who’d be a peacemaker these days?

I’m no longer sure we properly grasp what peace is all about.

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London. 

Graffiti of a tank with a peace laurel coming out of its barrel.
Graffiti, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Aliaksei Lepik on Unsplash.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers!’ 

You can’t really argue with that, can you? It is a truth universally acknowledged, that is deeply embedded in our cultural identity. Like the inherent value of family, fairness and a decent cup of tea, being in favour of peace is of the essence of virtue. After all, who’s going to want to sign up and aspire to an ethic of ‘blessed are the conflict creators’? 

But I have begun to wonder whether it’s as clear as all that, and if our intuitive assumptions stand scrutiny.  

Of course, we all want ‘peace on earth’, to live peaceful lives in peaceful communities and, at least sometimes, to have some ‘peace and quiet’. Peace is a good thing. We desire it, we embrace it, and we honour those who make it. 

But I’m no longer sure we properly grasp what it’s all about. I’ve been on a bit of a journey of late. I’ve come to conclude that it is all a bit murky when you dig beneath the surface. 

For a start I have realised that I’m not tuning into the news as much as I used to. OK, to be completely honest I have always been something of a news junkie, and from the Today programme on Radio 4 to various news platforms online I still consume quite a lot. But not as much as I used to.  

The relentless stream of violent conflict from Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere to our increasingly polarized political debates, the othering of those we don’t agree with in identity politics and the vitriol of wider culture wars: it gets too much. It seems I’m not alone. A recent report from the Reuters Institute maps a ten-year trend towards disengagement with the news. 

I yearn for some breakthroughs on the peacemaking front. In their absence it seems that there is only so much I can take. 

Then, my attention was drawn to a piece on the Axios news platform. The headline read, ‘Trump's deep obsession: Winning a Nobel Peace Prize’. That sent me down a rabbit hole. 

Now I did already have a half-memory that in his first term President Trump had been a little resentful of the fact that Barak Obama had received the prize while he hadn’t. But it seems it’s more of a thing than that. 

Axios reported that he has been ‘obsessed’ with winning the prize for years and that his present administration ‘is aggressively pushing him for a Nobel’. They even suggested that it was the subtext to the Oval Office blowup with Ukrainian President Zelensky. 

In fact, President Trump has been nominated for the prize on numerous occasions since 2016, with lawmakers from the US, Scandinavia and Australia putting his name forward.  

Awarded 105 times since 1901, while Dr Martin Luther King jr, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa might seem to epitomise such an award, there have also been controversies.  

The awards given to Mikhail Gorbachev, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat were particularly controversial. But it was the 1973 award to Henry Kissinger that caused the biggest stir leading two of the five members of the selection committee to resign in protest and howls of derision from the press. 

Finally, home alone one evening, I stumbled across Monty Python’s Life of Brian as I surfed the streaming platforms for something to watch. It’s years since I watched it, but it contains one of my favourite scenes of all time. 

Jesus is pictured delivering his ‘sermon on the mount’ from atop a small hillock. The camera pans out to the back of the crowd where they’re finding it hard to hear what he’s saying. The conversation goes something like this: 

What was that?  

I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'  

Ahh, what's so special about the cheesemakers?  

Well, obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. 

It was chuckling to myself to this familiar pun that provoked a deeper dive. What was Jesus actually wanting to say? What did the crowd hear him say?  

A quick look back to the Sermon on the Mount confirmed that ‘the blessings’ that start it off are mainly to those in a seeming position of disadvantage: ‘the poor in spirit … those who mourn … the meek … the merciful … the persecuted’. Why does Jesus include peacemakers who ought to be acclaimed by everyone?  They’re the ones doing good stuff with positive benefits. They should be universally acclaimed, why do they need a special blessing? 

From the angelic ‘peace on earth’ that heralded Jesus’ birth, to his final gift to his friends, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you,’ peace is at the heart of what Jesus is about. Receiving peace, giving peace, making peace, ‘peace be with you,’ ‘go in peace,’ peace is littered throughout the gospel stories.  

Of course, for Jesus this is shalom or, back in the Aramaic of his mother-tongue shlama. While an everyday greeting the idea infused in the word is far deeper and richer: it is about wholeness and well-being and harmony. Rather than just the absence of noise and conflict, this kind of peace has substance and depth.  

Maybe that’s why it has to be ‘made’.  

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus doesn’t say ‘blessed are the peace-lovers’ who merely experience and consume the life of peace. Neither does he major on ‘blessed are the peacekeepers’ who police its boundaries. No, it’s ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, those who’ve got their sleeves rolled up and are actively forging an environment of wholeness, well-being and harmony. 

No problem here then. Who’s not in favour of wholeness, well-being and harmony? Well, no-one, until we stumble across what Jesus goes on to say later in this iconic sermon: 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  

According to Jesus, peacemaking is about wholeness, well-being and harmony and its scope extends to, and embraces, even our enemies. And why, because that’s how God does it: 

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  

This is the benchmark that informs the kind of peacemaking that Jesus is talking about. 

Peacemaking always has to start with the existing situation. It is not about restoring how things used to be.

Now you could make an argument that peacemaking is a generational process. That it is about curating how we live together – as individuals, in neighbourhoods or even internationally – where we embody and model these kinds of principles. This is not achieved overnight.  

We make peace and build communities in which we flourish over time. Afterall, as African Ubuntu philosophy articulates ‘I am because we are’. The well-being of each of us is dependent upon the well-being of all of us. This is a way of life, not an off-the-shelf remedy. But what about peacemaking in the middle of conflict? 

This is where the peacemaking process gets to be a murky one, especially when you dig beneath the surface. Altruism on the part of people, communities and nations in conflict is rarely front and centre to what they bring to the table. 

To even contemplate an authentic peacemaking process, both sides in a conflict have to want it. If this isn’t the case the peacemaker will either fail or be in danger of being manipulated as a puppet in the hands of bad actors. 

To genuinely have reached the point of entering a peacemaking process, the parties concerned have to have reached the realisation that the cost of the continuing their conflict exceeds any realistic benefits they can achieve.  

Peacemaking always has to start with the existing situation. It is not about restoring how things used to be. Neither is it about accomplishing the future that has been dreamed of. It is about a cold, hard grappling with how actually things are. 

This is why it’s unpopular, especially with those who have being pursuing the justice of their cause, accomplishing their objectives and seeking victory rather than peace. The peacemaker is a real time and unwanted reminder that they have failed. 

Then, as the peacemaking shifts into gear the one in the middle, the peacemaker, cannot take sides. Yet, inevitably, both sides will see them as partial insofar as their aspirations are traded off in the process of negotiation. The peacemakers are easily dismissed as appeasers or even as traitors to justice. 

Peacemaking is always about compromise. It is about accepting how things are and trading off concerns to reach the best achievable balance. Commenting on the peace negotiations over Ukraine, Wolfgang Münchau recently wrote, 

“The purpose of the peace talks is to fill in the blanks. The two sides may trade off one piece of land against another. Money will buy stuff. But peace deals are never about who is right, and who is wrong. They are not about historic claims.” 

Pragmatic rather than principled, compromise is easily portrayed as a dirty word. Appearing spineless, weak and morally flawed, peacemakers are subject to both being misunderstood and misrepresented by all sides. 

According to the American political scientist R.J. Rummel, who specialised in the study of war and collective violence with a view to their resolution, it is a mistake to think that ‘making’ peace is like a design, construct and build project. While he sees such a view as seductively attractive, it is misplaced to believe that peace can be centrally planned and constructed.  

Rather, peace ‘emerges’ as an equilibrium establishes itself between what the parties involved honestly believe, actually want and really capable of achieving. This mutual self-knowledge cannot be mapped by an external third party and may only be partially comprehended by themselves.  

The art of the peacemaker is to enable an evolving process of reciprocal adjustments. Along the way they must ensure that rebalanced relationships are supported by an ‘interlocking of mutual interests, capabilities and wills’. Peacemakers are far from being centre-stage messiah figures, it is never about them and their ideas or grand plan. Rather, they’re facilitators who must know when to self-effacingly get out of the way. 

He concludes: 

“Peace is a structure of expectations, a social contract. It will be kept only as the parties, for whatever reason, find it in all their intersecting interests, capabilities, and wills to do so.” 

Hard-won peace can remain exceedingly fragile.  

Who’d be a peacemaker? 

Who would willingly open themselves up to being manipulated by bad actors. Who would subject themselves to the rejection of being unwanted, unpopular, misunderstood, misrepresented and portrayed as appeasers and traitors of justice.  

To boot, they have to be self-effacing and understand that their best efforts may only ever result in precarious outcomes, if there is any fruit at all. 

‘Blessed are the peacemakers!’ 

I guess that’s why. 

In the meantime, 338 candidates have been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Among them is the late Pope Francis, 

"… for his unstoppable contribution to promoting binding and comprehensive peace and fraternization between people, ethnic groups and states." 

The winner will be announced in October. 

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Review
Culture
Film & TV
Politics
War & peace
6 min read

Bonhoeffer: how to rouse a deaf world to moral action

Comparing today to the past is risky, a new biopic helps us do it well.

Theodore is author of the historical fiction series The Wanderer Chronicles.

A man dressed in 1930s clothing, sits with others at a table looking pensive.
Angel Studios.

Historical analogies are a dangerous, and often inaccurate, way of interpreting the times in which we live. “This is just like that” has a habit of making us react and respond to “that” - which we think we understand so well - when really, we should be taking time to appreciate the nuances of the problems which “this” uniquely poses us now. 

That said, I don’t suppose ever, in the last 80 years, have analogies abounded in our media with such ubiquity that we find ourselves in a historical moment facing similar threats to our freedoms and way of life to those arising across Europe in the 1930s.  

Thus, the movie Bonhoeffer, Todd Komarnicki’s fantastic new biopic of the dissident German theologian and Christian martyr, appears to come at an opportune moment in our culture. 

As writer and director of this two-hour-long epic, Komarnicki’s admiration for his subject shines through like a faithful sun breaking through an overcast sky. And whether you are a Christian or not, there is undoubtedly much to admire in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and the way he lived it. 

It's a story worth hearing - which, given its Christian overtones, still has the power to break out of the boundaries of Christian sub-culture to a wider audience, with its message of courage in the face of overbearing evil.  

Born in 1906, Bonhoeffer was still a young man when Hitler and his newly formed Nazi party rose to power. He trained as a Lutheran pastor, was an accomplished theologian, and became a key founding member of the Confessing Church – the remnant of the German church who did their best to withstand Hitler’s ideological take-over. (For which, many paid with their lives.) By the early 1930s, Bonhoeffer had already perceived the dangers which few others in the German church seemed able to see or else willing to call out. And after abandoning a short stint of study in the US, he returned to his native Germany to do what he could to call the church back to herself before it was too late. No easy task. 

x

A close up of a 1930s man wearing wire-rimmed glasses, looking pensive.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (colourised).

One existing photograph of Bonhoeffer shows a young, earnest face in steel-rimmed glasses, an expression of wisdom beyond his years weighing heavy on his brow. But for all the seriousness of his situation, he was, by Komarnicki’s account, an ebullient character. Persuasive, playful and able to find joy even in the darkest of times.  

In Bonhoeffer, he is played brilliantly by Jonas Dassler, a native German actor who brings an intensity and intelligence to the role which must be a fair reflection of the man himself, as well as allowing room for a levity of spirit, especially in his friendships and family ties.  

There’s a scene early in the film, foreshadowing much that was to come. Dietrich the boy plays the Moonlight Sonata at his older brother Walter’s funeral wake. The piece was Walter’s favourite, but none of the mourners pay the slightest attention. Dietrich slams the piano shut and runs off in frustration. “No one listened,” he tearfully complains to his mother. “No one cared.” This theme of rousing a deaf or unfeeling world to moral action runs through the whole movie. 

We can all agree that Bonhoeffer is a man to emulate in our own times. The question is where would his instincts lie in the political and cultural landscape of today. 

Komarnicki has done a solid job unfolding Germany’s inexorable descent into darkness, often marking key moments as Bonhoeffer the man makes his stand against the state with actual quotations from his work. The most famous serves as the movie’s strapline:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak.” 

The script is peppered with such exhortations, which seems directed as much to the audience of today as they do to Bonhoeffer’s own, eighty-or-ninety-odd years ago. Such injunctions seem all the more arresting as Bonhoeffer’s story pursues its arc from pastor to martyr, and the noose awaiting him at Buchenwald concentration camp just days before Germany’s final capitulation.  

It is no doubt hard to frame a movie around the moral courage and conscientious stand of a single man, however admirable that man may be, particularly when so much of the struggle is happening inside his own head. Perhaps that is why much of the less historically accurate material has been included. The thriller subplot – of Bonhoeffer’s involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler – brings some necessary forward propulsion to the story, but seems the least congruent with what we know of the man. Much of this more thrusting narrative is intercut with scenes of Bonhoeffer’s last days before his execution, the wrestling with his faith and his fate, before a final resolution of peace, even joy in his final moments. “Eternity, eternity, eternity,” he murmurs. A word he used to repeat endlessly with his twin sister as they whiled away the time smoking cigarettes. But a word which ultimately gives him the focus and the spiritual strength to hold his courage to the end. Although slower, these provide a more convincing and compelling portrait of a man who deserves to be remembered as a hero, not only of his own age, but of any age where evil is determined to silence truth at any cost. 

As a modern audience, this is where the hazard lies. To return to my original point, it is all too easy to tar one’s political or cultural opponents with the label of “fascist” or “Nazi” – merely because they happen to disagree with you. (And sadly I’ve seen this done by otherwise mild-mannered English theologians over this very film.) Some have said this is akin to shunning another child in the playground because they have “cooties”. It’s over-simplistic and facile. If anything, it reveals the casual propagandising of a suggestible mind. 

Few would watch this film and associate themselves with its antagonist (Hitler) over its heroic protagonist. We can all agree that Bonhoeffer is a man to emulate in our own times. The question is where would his instincts lie in the political and cultural landscape of today. 

Jesus had harsh words to say to the pharisees and scribes who build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. “You say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’” 

How easy it is to assume we would have been on Bonhoeffer’s team.  

And this is my one criticism of the film: its portrayal of the bishops and clergy who did succumb to Hitler’s ideology seems too blunt-edged. They rail from the pulpit in the manner of the Fuhrer himself, marking them as ravening ideologues; they bark out Party platitudes, red in the face. I imagine the reality of how Nazi ideology infiltrated and captured the church – as it did many other institutions – was far more subtle, far more insinuating and insidious. More boiled frog than scalded cat. 

So it surely is in our day. While National Socialism has passed away, the totalitarian instinct which animated it has sadly not. My prayer is that we have the wisdom, courage, and above all discernment, to learn Bonhoeffer’s lesson and pass the tests of our time. 

Komarnicki’s excellent movie may just help us to do that. 

 

Bonhoeffer is out in UK and Irish cinemas from 7th March 2025. For more information and to book tickets visit the film's site.

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