(RNS) — We need to talk about war.

The United States is back at war, this time in Iran, and as the war plays out, we will be having important and necessary conversations about the ongoing conflict. These conversations will happen in churches and schools, around dinner tables and at places of employment, and every one of them will be important. But the current and ongoing war in Iran is not being fought by otherwise irenic nations in a world generally marked by peace. The bombing of Iran — and the inevitable Iranian retaliations against targets in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East — is taking place in the context of a global landscape marked by wars in places like Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen. This means we have to look beyond Iran or any other individual conflict and talk about war itself. We need to ask if military violence is ever justifiable, if militarism is ever reasonable and if warfare ever brings healing and peace.

With clear-eyed honesty we need to reckon with the devastating sorrow, depravation and senseless destruction that military violence inflicts on people who, despite political circumstance, share with us a common humanity, folks who are — according to the teachings of Jesus and the universal values of common decency — our neighbors and our spiritual kin to be loved, not enemies to be killed.

Such conversations can be difficult, especially in the United States, where a deep admiration for the capacity to inflict violence infuses the culture. Militarism — a glorification of military might and a belief that military violence will save us — saturates life in the United States. American culture venerates those who serve in military uniforms. Military imagery is seen as an essential part of nearly every patriotic event. American voters reward obscene spending on the capacity to destroy human lives by electing politicians who are quick to foot the bill for sophisticated high-tech weapons systems, but who balk at allocating funds that might feed the poor, find homes for our unhoused neighbors or make healthcare available to everyone who needs it. In many of our churches, we sing hymns laced with crusading imagery and the theology of war. Few of our preachers use their pulpits to call for an end to war, often because they are afraid to do so.

This has to change. Any society so obsessed with military violence must reckon with that obsession. Given the limited benefits derived from military violence and the extreme destruction and grief military violence inflicts on the world, we need to examine the possibility that militaries aren’t necessary at all. We need to admit the fact that war seldom brings peace. We need to reconsider the idea that some wars are good. We need to acknowledge that military forces commit far more atrocities than they prevent. We need to count the full cost of war. We need to figure out how to untangle our souls from the clutches of militarism. 

The grief, bloodshed, hatred, destruction and cruelty that are woven into the fabric of war are entirely incompatible with the spirit and teaching of Jesus, who invites us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), and who names peacemakers among the blessed children of God (Matthew 5:9) and who, in the fullness of time, invites us to beat swords into plowshares and to study war no more (Micah 4:3, Isaiah 2:2-5). In the Gospels, Jesus — echoing the words of Leviticus — asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31) and to treat strangers as if they were Christ himself (Matthew 25:31-46). We cannot practice such virtue with guns. No one can love a neighbor with a bomb. No one can make peace with military violence. 

And war is just as illogical as it is immoral. If military violence were a useful way to end conflicts, prevent atrocities and make peace between enemies, its destructions and devastations might be excused as a painful way to achieve something better. But war doesn’t work that way. To believe the violence of war can make peace is illogical because it ignores the astonishing human capacity to hold a grudge and to seek revenge. It ignores the plain witness of history, which shows us that wars seldom — if ever — lead to peace. Rather, wars end in one of two ways: They either result in unimaginable and unbearable destruction, or they lead to more wars. Neither result can, in good faith, be called peace. 

Though the sin of military violence still abides, we don’t have to be defined by it. By faith I believe transformation is possible. As humans, we can change for the better. In the Christian tradition, we believe humans were created in the image of God, and that divine spark can still burn within us; by grace, that spark can shine with tenacious brilliance.

We don’t have to consider as enemies people we’ve never met (in fact we don’t have to consider as enemies those we have met). We don’t have to hate. We don’t have to kill or maim or leave children orphaned or parents bereft, and we don’t have to overlook such bloodshed in the name of patriotism or support for the troops. We can spend energy once devoted to destruction on the work of helping people and communities flourish. We can be better. We can be righteous. This is the grace of Christian pacifism.

But in order to make this happen, we have to talk about war. 

Adapted from “Grace Over Guns: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World” by Ben Daniel (Herald Press, June 2026). All rights reserved. Used with permission.