Thought for the Day

Good morning. On my shelf sits a battered US Navy Bible— my American grandfather carried it as he crossed and re-crossed the icy waters of the north Atlantic in the convoys of World War two. When peace came, he was convinced that only nations standing together could prevent humanity tearing itself apart again. In 1947, a lifelong Republican, he ran for Congress on a bold platform: world government. He lost—but the hope for peace guaranteed by shared responsibility continued. Peace making through collective security, if not world government, found one expression in the first meeting of the United Nations, 80 years ago this week in 1946. It met in the heart of war-ravaged London, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster. As Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevan said at the time, ‘What better place than a house of prayer to search for peace?’ So the church offered its Great Hall to the most powerful dignitaries in the post war world, as it had offered the shelter of its cellars to some of the least powerful during the bombing of the war years. This coming Saturday the Secretary General of the UN Antonio Gutteres will join others including British Royalty and Cardinal Vincent Nichols in that same Great Hall for a service of thanksgiving, to re-commit to the values that drove the UN’s first formation. If it was the reality of war that brought nations to the table to form the UN 80 years ago, they’ve perhaps been kept there by the hard-headed calculation that however imperfect, its work in development, education, healthcare, and military engagement, was less costly than the alternative. When Jesus said ‘Blessed are the peace makers,’ his words reflected the equally hard-headed observation that peace of any kind whether in households or between nations has to be made – it does not happen by accident. To say ‘Christ died for all’ is to say that justice and safety are for all – certainly not for any one nation, and certainly not only for the strong. Because power to act may not align with insight about what will help, all Christian security is by definition collective security. As we gather this week and give thanks for the work of the United Nations, I will be remembering my grandfather and his Navy-issue Bible; I will remember how frightened he was whenever the prospect of war returned during his long life. War comes quickly: peace takes slow and patient work, empathy, truth telling and deep commitment to one another. And the cost of failure, if we are honest, is still likely to be borne by the ones who hide from bombs in church cellars, not the ones who make the decisions in the Great Halls above.

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