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New Year’s Eve provides those fortunate enough to have lived to see this day an opportunity to reflect on the year that has passed. It does not take a faith leader to realize that 2023 was a year marked by two devastating wars, more rancorous division in America, and continued violence and deep insecurity here in Chicago. It also does not take a person of faith to be heartbroken about the lack of peace on Earth.
It does seem that our world is full of peace lovers — but not peacemakers.
Peace lovers are those who cherish peace and wish for its presence in the wider world. Challenged by the difficulties of bringing peace into relationships, cities or the world, peace lovers do whatever they are able to do in order to protect their sanity, assuage their fears and maintain security for themselves and their loved ones. The fortunate among the peace lovers are buttressed by privilege and economic security against a world of violence and war.
Peacemakers are a smaller category of those who love peace. For those who make peace cannot remain silent when they see injustice. In order to make peace, you need to raise your voice.
Christian Scriptures teach, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” The Book of Deuteronomy provides the impetus for these peacemakers in its injunction, “Justice, justice, shall you pursue.” Those who make peace push against every system that causes pain and suffering for God’s children.
It is risky to be a peacemaker, but we religious leaders believe it is a moral obligation.
It is risky to be a peacemaker because it requires taking action in the face of injustice. Power needs to hear the voices of those who will not be silenced. Those who wield power unjustly need to know that there are those who are not afraid. Peace lovers, sometimes cowed into complacency, need to hear something that will bring them out of their safe place and into the ring to help fight against the laws, policies and systems that hurt people and keep people in bondage.
Peacemakers are what the Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews calls us to be when he teaches that the world needs prophets of the resistance, not chaplains to the empire. Peacemakers need to raise their voices to pierce the silence.
Silence creates a path for people to accept a twisted vision of what justice is. In 1954, as the Brown v. Board of Education decision dismantled the lie of “separate but equal,” civil rights leader Howard Thurman said the loudest silence of all came from President Dwight Eisenhower, who refused to speak up on racial equity. In 1963, while jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter decrying the silence of the “moderate” who stays silent and prefers the absence of tension (negative peace) to the presence of justice (a positive peace). Silence and the absence of tension are not the hallmarks of peace. Justice is.
[ Jonathan Eig: We have lost sight of MLK’s radical vision and dulled his image to our detriment ]
In 2023, we celebrated 60 years since the March on Washington; if six decades ago King shared his famous dream, today we must recognize how far we are from it. We have witnessed unprecedented acts on American democracy. We have seen a continued crusade to deprive people of the sacred franchise of the vote. We have seen state governments limit the rights of women, ban books, curtail protections of gender identity and restrict teaching the truth about American history. We are afraid, and often it is those in power who are creating the fear that cows us.
That fear even strikes at the heart of the pulpit, where clergy are afraid to address these issues, afraid either to lose significant institutional income by afflicting the comfortable or losing their positions by shining a spotlight on the injustices that make the comfortable feel afflicted. Being a peacemaker, speaking out against injustice, can carry real consequences.
But the Book of Ecclesiastes says there is a time for every purpose under the heavens: a time to be silent and a time to speak. Whenever there is injustice, it is time to speak up and speak out. In our world so lacking peace, we know this is the time to speak. For those of us who believe in justice, who believe peace is possible, silence is not really an option.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Silence is not really an option while the winds of hate gust at gale force, while the blood of our murdered children cries out from every morning paper, while our siblings sleep in orange tents and our new arrivals on police station floors. Silence is not really an option while a good education often still depends on a ZIP code, while a white man with 91 indictments can run for president, while a brown or Black brother waiting on a marijuana case cannot get a job. Silence is not really an option when there is a waitlist for Illinois’ abortion clinics and gender care centers are overflowing because we now need to serve so many people in need from neighboring states.
Silence is not really an option in a world where peace is so hard to find.
And we should be clear about “speaking out.” Yes, it’s important to raise the voice of justice on social media feeds and in our inner circles. But it’s even more important to speak out by voting, centering the needs of the people, meeting with elected officials and having a clear “ask” that changes the status quo.
“Peace on earth and goodwill to all humanity” is not just a seasonal saying; it comes from the heart of Christian Scripture. Fortunately, there are few in our world who disagree with this sentiment.
And, with good fortune in this coming year, all of us who love peace will be moved to make peace. To end the violence here in Chicago. To bring justice to America. To see peace throughout our world. In 2024, may all of us use the power of our voice, and partner together in the work of our hearts and hands, to become peacemakers.
Chicago faith leaders Rabbi Seth Limmer and the Revs. Otis Moss III, Ciera Bates-Chamberlain and Michael Pfleger joined the Tribune’s opinion section last summer for a series of columns on potential solutions to Chicago’s chronic gun violence problem. The column continues on an occasional basis.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.