Gene Stoltzfus: “block the guns”

Founding director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, Gene Stoltzfus, took the next journey in life on Wednesday, and gets to hear those glorious words, “Well done.”

I can’t say any words of quality here. I will simply point you to some articles and posts in memoriam. I did want to give you the last two paragraphs from Mr. Stoltzfus’ blog, Peace Probe. Fitting, I think. Consider the legacy and the legacy you will leave when your call comes.

The story does not have to end here. We are not condemned to surviving in a world where the law is decimated by successive generations of paramilitaries. But the answer will probably not come from the Pentagon nor from the White House which may not be able to escape the grasp of a citizenry whose houses of worship celebrate the institutions of violent intervention. Congressional efforts to rein in support for paramilitaries or mercenaries have been timid. We will know if unarmed spiritually based peacemakers can do this when we become even more resolved to create a corp that can be in the Fallujahs that are waiting to happen.

Every one of us is impacted by a dominant culture that insists that military or police force will make things right. Every day that culture tells us that dirty tricks usually done in secret are required for our survival. After all, it’s argued, someone has to do this dirty work. It’s called a noble work and the Blackwater mercenaries are required for the work. It will take an expanding world wide but grass roots culture reaching beyond national borders to fashion a body of Christian peacemakers to be an effective power to block the guns and be part of transforming each impending tragedy of war. Little by little there will be change.

I pray many more men and women will rise up and “block the guns.”