Editors note: This is part seven of an eight-part series exploring the eight Jesus questions all of us must face, highlighted in Jim Wallis's new book Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (HarperOne), available now. These next eight weeks will help us go deeper than the headlines, to find our way back to Jesus in the midst of this intensive and exhausting news cycle. 

Want to hear this in an audio format instead? We just launched an eight-episode podcast series called Reclaiming Jesus Now that features Allison Trowbridge and William Matthews speaking with Jim Wallis about these questions and their relevance today.

“Blessed are the peace lovers,” for they shall be called righteous — on the right side. They will be known for what they will not do, for being against war, for preferring peace, for not fighting, for staying out of conflicts.

But that is not what Jesus said. The text in Matthew 5:9 says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Making peace is not the same as avoiding conflicts. Making peace means moving into conflicts, trying to resolve them, to uncover their causes, to restore relationships, to heal the wounds, to seek a just peace. Peacemaking is conflict resolution. A positive sign I see is how many young people I meet who are being drawn into the vocation of conflict resolution as both a science and an art — based in a way of life — in a lifestyle of non-violence.

Human conflict is inevitable because we're human, both in relationships and in institutions like nations. How we resolve those conflicts is the issue. When you think about it, most of our conflicts are resolved without resorting to violence. So, the question we should seek to answer as followers of Jesus is how to increase the number of conflicts that are resolved nonviolently. Jesus recognizes how difficult and important this work is, which is why he specifically recognizes those who resolve human conflicts as children of God.

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