Mere Christianity Research Paper

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Pages: 8

From its origin, in 1st century A.D., Christianity has held peace at the core of its key values. Peace, defined within Christianity as “to be complete or whole,” is incorporated throughout the New Testament, the normative sacred text for all Christians, and is thus the foundation of all Christian principal teachings. These principal teachings, including the Divine peace of God, peace in relationships, pacifism and the ‘Just War’ theory, provide Christian adherents with their understanding of peace, which guides them to contribute to the achievement of both inner and world peace. Although Christianity has faced ongoing difficulties in the path to peace, adherents acknowledge that ‘peace is not merely a distant goal…but a means by which we arrive …show more content…
His ability to “love thy neighbour” (Mark 12:31) unconditionally in order to promote peace is continually mentioned within the Gospels. This concept of Agape, the unconditional Christian love for all humanity, is often described to be “beyond all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), and teaches adherents, by the example of Jesus Christ, to embody Pax Christi, ‘the peace of Christ’. As Christians model their lives to reflect the peace of Christ, they come to realise that ‘peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal’, the goal being overall equality and well-being, lack of conflict, and union with God based upon faithful obedience. The union adherents share with God is expressed within the Beatitudes; which teaches, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9), reflecting the fundamental Christian belief in peace as the will of God, and peacemakers being those who act on his behalf in working towards its achievement. This inner peace, inextricably connected through union with God, must be established first, in order for Christians to improve the state of the world by promoting outer peace. Therefore, through the example of Jesus Christ, adherents learn to establish their own sense of inner peace and are guided to develop positive relationships with others in order to promote world