Series editor’s note: In 2025, “Deeper understandings” is focusing on the ELCA social statements. We hope to reintroduce them to readers as a means of provoking fruitful, enriching conversation between Christians with different understandings and convictions, and as a springboard for active discipleship in the world. Each article will introduce a particular statement and its Lutheran theological underpinnings, then suggest ways in which it can spark faithful conversation and action in the service of your baptismal vocation.
My hope is that you will find this series relevant to your current context and that it will help you express your Lutheran faith in your daily interaction with family, friends, neighbors and co-workers—for the sake of the flourishing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world and the life abundant of the neighbor and stranger.
—Kristin Johnston Largen, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, on behalf of the ELCA’s seminaries
I did it again. I doom-scrolled on my phone for an hour … or was it two? Clicking from one news site to another, I lost myself in an endless maze of information, opinions and forecasts. I rationalize my behavior by saying it’s my duty as a citizen to stay informed. Yet the reality is that whatever I learn of significance or importance is drowned out by dark and relentless waves of sad, bad news. Sound familiar?
Years ago, one of my sisters gave me a refrigerator magnet with these words: “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” While I appreciate the sentiment (and the gift), my doom-scrolling makes a lie out of that claim. For I am not calm—either in heart or mind—knowing so much about all that is wrong and bad in the world. How can I be?
In the Bible, peace involves far more than the absence of conflict, and it concerns itself with far more than the hearts and minds of individuals.
Ironically, that is actually a good thing. Not being “at peace” amid the world’s suffering and sorrow aligns with biblical teachings. In the Bible, peace involves far more than the absence of conflict, and it concerns itself with far more than the hearts and minds of individuals. Biblical peace, as expressed in the Hebrew word shalom, insists on the well-being of all. The full flourishing of all peoples on earth, as well as the earth itself—that is the Bible’s, and so God’s, notion of peace. Hence, I cannot have shalom myself absent the shalom of others.
Such a far-reaching and all-inclusive peace makes for a great dream. But it comes with huge practical challenges. The earth today holds 48 times more people than at the time of Jesus (8.2 billion vs. 170 million). That exponentially greater population brings with it expansive and ever-expanding differences among individuals, communities and cultures. Those differences may lead to disagreements, which may turn into conflicts, which then may devolve into violence.
Grace and paradox
How do Christians take a stand as peacemakers without being overwhelmed (and simply giving in to hopelessness)? Here the Lutheran emphases on grace and paradox prove especially helpful.
Grace—the divine gifting of life and salvation—means our words and deeds don’t need to come from a place of human effort and scarcity. Rather, they flow freely from a confidence in God’s power, and they pour abundantly into the great river of God’s will and might for peace in all the world. We aren’t called to do it all (whatever “it” is).
Then there is paradox—the combining of contradictory features or qualities. It stands behind the fundamentals of our beliefs (Jesus as both human and divine; humans as simultaneously sinners and justified). It means we aim for the highest goals of earthly peace while keeping in mind that such peace will always fall short of God’s peace. And that’s OK.
A Lutheran understanding of paradox allows us to live in an earthly peace that is partial, contingent, fragile and fleeting and, at the same time, to live within the vision of the future consummation of a divine peace that is full, complete, lasting and strong. That is paradox. That is grace.
The church’s deeper calling is to advocate for shalom—the full flourishing of all.
The ELCA social statement “For Peace in God’s World” came out in 1995. Thirty years on, it continues to speak a deep truth about the conditions of the world and our mission as Lutheran Christians. Grounded in grace, recognizing paradox, it toggles between the now and the not-yet, earthly peace and divinely willed peace.
The statement acknowledges that taking up arms is sometimes necessary in the fallen world in which we live, but only when all else fails. Indeed, war represents a failure of politics and a reason to mourn. And while the principles of the just war theory offer a middle way—moral guidelines for deciding on, conducting and concluding wars—it remains a last resort.
The church’s deeper calling is to advocate for shalom—the full flourishing of all. That requires, at minimum, the meeting of people’s basic needs for food, water, shelter and security. And still more: recognizing that all people deserve a life of dignity and that we are called to work for all that makes this possible. Such is the way of justice, and only with justice can there be true peace.
Whether by word or deed, among individuals, local communities or global entities, advocacy for justice paves the way for shalom. It helps “keep alive news of God’s resolve for peace,” as the statement reads. And that is the gift the church gives to the world—and a most valuable mission.
Doom-scrolling may have its place, but much better for me is adding my energies, through what I say and do, to the making of peace as willed and worked by God. Will you join me?
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