Weapons cause wars and disarmament ends them

are dangerous. But the arms companies sowed distrust and taught politicians to think in terms of weapons. And so the GreatWar came, and surprise, surprise, the arms manufacturers faced the greatest bonanza they had ever known – a tenfold increase in output.

They were, as they came to be known, the “merchants of death”.

In 1918 everyone knew that weapons cause wars. Disarmament was built into the League of Nations. The great statesmen, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Cambell-Bannerman, Churchill, Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey saw it clearly. As Grey, the politician at the centre of the process said: “The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them – it was these that made war inevitable. This, it seems to me, is the truest reading of history.”

Weapons cause wars and disarmament ends them.

It is amazing to me that Christians do not hear Christ, the Son of God, naming the truth. “Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” These 10 words indict us of the 200,000,000 wargenerated deaths over the long last century. Do we not see it laid out before us, this great false idolatry of militarism with its smooth well-dressed priests picking up the contracts of death from weak politicians? In every war down to Syria they call the tune. But the Christ will be heard. The truth will out, and we are the ones called to speak it.

When the risen Christ came and stood among his disciples, he said, “Peace be with you.” They were given peace and the spiritual strength to pass it on by the Lord who had conquered death and the fear of death. They were to be enemy-loving folk, and clearly the Lamb on the Throne had no bazookas. Yet, we read, “The disciples were startled and frightened.” They were given peace and immediately they were frightened by the resurrection, as one would be. But they got over it and became men and women of peace.

The answer to the question is: because of the idolatrous faith in weapons, and the time has come for Christians to be, and speak, the truth of Christ against this false hope and for the peace of the nations.