Wouldn’t all weapons be a “direct affront to God’s dream of shalom?” Why only nuclear weapons?
“Nuclear weapons are a direct affront to God’s dream of shalom for the world,” Bell said Tuesday. “Life is beautiful, and nuclear weapons are ugly.”
Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church and an up-and-coming voice among young evangelicals, has joined other evangelicals to issue an impassioned call for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The new Two Futures Project is a coalition of prominent Christians who assert that multilateral disarmament is a biblical imperative.
Christians should be in the no-nukes vanguard, Bell and others said, as they face the choice of “a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them.”
Eventually, at the end of time, weapons will be turned into plowshares:
ESV Isaiah 2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
But that time is not now. God never promised that we would live in peace with each other, we can’t because we each have our own agenda and can’t look beyond own self-interest to put the needs of the world above our own. We can’t even get along with own family members, why would we think we could get along with those in other nations who don’t share our agenda?
The peace that God promised us was the peace of God, not of this world:
ESV John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
BTW, what the heck does he mean by “God’s dream?” Where in the Bible does it say anything about “God’s dream of shalom?” God decrees, he doesn’t dream. He has decreed a time of peace when the Prince of Peace returns to rule his kingdom in righteousness.