weapon of war & peace

In Sunday School when I was a kid we would have “sword drills.”  Because the New Testament refers to the Word of God as a “sword” we were told that the Bible was our weapon.  In a basic drill the teacher would yell out, “Sword drill!” and at the same time we would all hold our Bibles high into the air above our heads in order to show that we were armed.  Then he or she would call out a passage of Scripture, which often was either tied to the lesson or some principle of behavior we were supposed to follow in order to be good children of the Lord. The first person to find the verse and pull the trigger by reading it out loud was the winner.  It was quite a sight:  The sound of tissue-thin paper swirling into a storm as two-dozen 3^rd graders furiously flipped through the pages of their Bibles.  I usually went straight to the table of contents, as I could never remember the order of books after Genesis.

The other day I was in Wal-Mart, like usual, I wandered over to the book section while my wife did some of the shopping. They have a huge religion section there, and I came across the shelf of Bibles and fancy Bible-covers. There were a couple of covers designed for children, and one of them (pictured below) was created to have an army flavor - complete with camouflage, side pockets, and (wait for it) a rifle scope crosshair image… with the Cross of Christ at the center.

I have never been too comfortable with the Gospel of Peace being presented in militaristic ways, like when I was a kid, but this was a new one. I am not even entirely sure what message it sends, but I have an idea.

But this story quickly became a “tale of two Bibles.” Yesterday I was at the Dickson Street Bookshop, a used book store in downtown Fayetteville. Outside on the table of “must go” books was an old, very worn Bible. The inside cover had a name written in it, proving that it had once belonged to someone. There were still a couple of church bulletins and a newspaper clipping of weddings and funerals between some of the pages. And then, somewhere in 1 Samuel, was a small color picture cut out of a magazine. The picture was of a very Bin Laden looking man, though I am not sure it is really of him. Either way, the man looks very Middle Eastern… and most likely Muslim.

My past tells me that often times people have pictures in their Bibles of whom they are praying for.

Of course the question for me is What Bible are we following? We have a Gospel where Christ is pretty clear about forgiving our enemies, praying for and even serving them, and working for peace. So on the one hand, we can dress up our Bible with images of targeting our enemies in the name of God, while on the other hand we can dress up our Bibles with images of our enemies that we can pray for.

Given that much of the church in America supports the idea of bombing the Middle East before we pray for it – and will use Scripture to back it up – I am troubled by which Bible is most often being followed.

And you know, as I look at both of these pictures side by side, I can’t help but laugh (in a sad way) that Islam is the only one blamed for being the “violent” religion.

"God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.”
Matthew 5:9

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."
2 Corinthians 10:3-4