Ending Wars
We called it the “war to end all wars.” Until a bigger one came.
We called it “Armistice Day” to celebrate the end of killing each other. Until more wars changed our focus from peace to fighting.
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the guns in Europe stopped shouting deadly hatred. The not-so-great “Great War” ended. Only more madness would bring the moniker “World War I.”
Over a century later, it appears we still haven’t learned from that conflict which left about 20 million people dead and redrew maps in ways that continue to haunt us. War, it turns out, doesn’t build peace any more than adultery strengthens a marriage.
Unfortunately, Pete Hegseth still believes otherwise. The man who likes to call himself “Secretary of War” (instead of his official title as Secretary of Defense) and who had multiple affairs (and has been accused of sexual assault) thinks the key to peace is war.
“Those who long for peace must prepare for war,” Hegseth declared in September after making generals fly in from around the world to hear him complain about “woke” ideas.
He borrowed that phrase about war and peace from a fourth-century Roman writer who was advising a Roman emperor on how to build and maintain a deadly imperial military.
“To ensure peace, we must prepare for war,” Hegseth added. “We have to be prepared for war, not for defense. We’re training warriors, not defenders.”
Speaking last week to representatives from companies that make weapons that the U.S. government buys, Hegseth preached a similar message, insisting the nation must “operate on a wartime footing” and “adopt a wartime mindset.” And he added that to “prevent and avoid war” in the future, “we must prepare now” for war.
Yet, history is littered with examples of this philosophy failing.
Alfred Nobel thought his invention of dynamite would deter wars altogether. A few conflicts quickly proved him wrong, and that so-called “war to end all wars” particularly demonstrated how he instead made war more deadly. Similar delusions emerged among scientists who created the first nuclear bombs. Like with Luis Alvarez, who later received a prize in physics named for the dynamite creator.
“What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world together and prevent further wars,” he wrote immediately after watching the first atomic blast in Japan. “Alfred Nobel thought that his invention of high explosives would have that effect, by making wars too terrible, but unfortunately it had just the opposite reaction. Our new destructive force is so many thousands of times worse that it may realize Nobel’s dream.”
He knew preparing for war didn’t stop war in the past but still tried the dangerous gamble anyway. And like Nobel, Alvarez helped prove it doesn’t work.
The Voice of God
The end of Europe’s dynamite war a century ago offers a vision that contrasts with Hegseth’s imperial Roman mindset.
“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another,” novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote. “I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.”
In the silence, God spoke.
But did we listen? Did we remember?
Years of gunfire suddenly fading away into silence must have been eerie. A reverse of angelic hosts breaking into a silent night, but perhaps just as startling. And divine.
It’s like when the prophet Elijah stands on the mountain awaiting the presence of God to pass by. A powerful wind tears through, shattering rocks. But God was not in the wind. A rumbling earthquake rolls in, shaking the land. But God was not in the earthquake. A hot fire shoots by, filling the air with smoke. But God was not in the fire.
Then silence. A whisper in the gentle breeze.
As Vonnegut noted, God was not in the powerful blasts of war and its propaganda, the earthshaking tanks and bombs, nor the fire and smoke of guns and cannons. God was in the silence. The peace.
Like the ancient Hebrew people, we didn’t listen to the voice of God. We fell right back into our generational cycles of disobedience and war. Now, Hegseth’s Department of War even co-opts Bible verses to baptize weapons of imperial might.
Some have suggested that God’s small voice to Elijah didn’t come after the violent wind, noisy earthquake, or crackling fire. Rather, it may have been there all along, but Elijah just couldn’t hear it over everything else.
What if the voice of God was there in Europe a century ago, gently whispering and waiting for years for people to finally stop shooting and start listening? What if that voice is here today, gently calling us to the work of peace, but we don’t always hear it over the drumbeats of war and our burning hatred for those “other” people?
On a day like today, we remember those who went before us. We lament the lives lost and taken in violent wars. We cherish the freedoms we have today. We work to heal those wounded by battles — physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
But we must also pray and work for peace. Those who follow the Prince of Peace cannot abdicate this responsibility.
We must remember that love always hopes, always perseveres — even if we struggle to hear its gentle whispering over the chaos and divisions of our world. Our call as Christians is to help people hear the voice of God, to help people live in the blessed silence without the firing of the weapons of death.
Because as that modern prophet Bob Dylan put it, “If God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war.”
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
I was thinking of Elijah’s words shortly after awakening this morning at 5. I was thinking about it in reference to the horrible destruction our government is doing to our democracy, to all of us who live here, and to many others throughout our world. It feels like a mighty earthquake, a tremendously loud wind, and a destructive fire going through our nation.
I began to pray that God would open my eyes, heart, and hands in ways that I could help. I was reminded that as Jesus ministered during his time of life on this earth that his legs were always moving to those who needed him. God spoke to me with his still small voice showing me that it isn’t enough for me to see the atrocities being done, or feel the pain of those who experience it, or to give money to feed the hungry. I was reminded what I have been doing is not enough.
That still small voice was showing me that my legs needed to be moving toward those who were suffering and in need.
I was in Kobe, Japan during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in January of 1995. I had never before heard a louder sound than the roar coming from the depths of the earth. I had never seen more destruction than I saw that day when the sun rose and I looked out my window high above the Bay of Kobe. There were few buildings still standing, train lines had fallen with the trains toppled below, and there were fires starting among the rubble. I remember calling out to God for help as I was thrown several times to the floor trying to go to my children. Four days later, I was packing our van to evacuate Kobe. I was terrified of the possibility of strong aftershocks occurring as we traveled through the tunnels under the mountains on the one highway that was open. But I heard God’s still small voice reminding me of Isaiah’s word that he would protect his young sheep and guide their mothers.
I pray again today that during this earthquake-like devastation that is taking place in our beloved America, that I hear His voice guiding me and my eyes, heart, hands, and legs to those in need of care.
"War, it turns out, doesn’t build peace any more than adultery strengthens a marriage.
Unfortunately, Pete Hegseth still believes otherwise. The man who likes to call himself “Secretary of War” (instead of his official title as Secretary of Defense) and who had multiple affairs (and has been accused of sexual assault) thinks the key to peace is war."
A revealing juxtaposition