counter culture advocates

by austin pfeiffer

Last night at the Franklin House we had our usual Sunday Dinner and Discussion. The topic was James 3:18, the namesake verse for Peacemaker Revolution. We were discussing how the verse relates to conflicts of our city. We decided first, that Shalom, the idea of holistic peace in a universal sense, was not what was being referred to by making "peace." We saw it as a general aura of reconciliation, but without differences. As we went on we decided peace making is NOT two things.

First, you are not an arbiter, Christians that is, because we are not the judge nor the objective source of reason. Second, we are not an advocate for humans. The counter culture of Christians as makers of peace in society, enters here. Christians advocate God, the creator of the world, and as doers of peace, Christians seek to restore the world to its intended unity. If that is the case, peacemaking has everything to do with advocating God and peace, and does not end by advocating the oppressed or seeking justice.

We talked about some heated decisions by local business people and politicians regarding tax money and investments in the city and our group fell on both sides of every argument. We talked about our next door neighbor, a man suffering from throat cancer and out of work, who was evicted from his apartment. The counter culture here is to engage not just the unjustly evicted, the victim of capitalistic ambition, or the overlooked by government care, but engage the oppressor, the landlord, the investor, the mayor.

Our idea of Christian community centers on the microeconomic, the micropolitical, the neighborhood approach to change. We hope to change our corner of the world, take care of our orphans, widows, slaves, on our street and hope that others will do the same in their nest. If we engage our neighbors, all of them, not as arbiters, not as judges, not as representatives of the disenfranchised, but act as advocates for reconciliation in the cases of economic, social, government injustice, then we can call ourselves...makers, doers, of peace.