Peace is possible: the politics of the Sermon on the Mount
We know from history that violence always begets more violence. We have seen this again in recent days. Israel and the US are dropping bombs on Iran, killing thousands of people, and Iran is responding with counterstrikes.
And the spiral of violence continues to spread, with unforeseeable consequences for Europe. A third world war can no longer be ruled out. Not only is Putin killing thousands of people in Ukraine, Trump and Netanyahu are doing the same in Iran, and Iran, with the help of Hezbollah and Hamas, is doing the same throughout the Middle East.
On the first day of the attacks, 168 schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12 were killed in an Iranian school, along with 28 teachers and four parents. An attack on a school is a war crime.
Everywhere, there is only one law: revenge, revenge, revenge.
There is no end in sight. President Trump has just announced: ‘We haven’t even started to hit hard. We can do much more.’ Trump is practically bragging about his mass murder! He is demanding the Nobel Peace Prize while playing the irresponsible warlord. Even Chancellor Merz stated after his visit to Trump: ‘The Americans have no plan for Iran.’ The only plan is: bombs, bombs, bombs, missiles, missiles, missiles.
And the many wars are putting additional strain on the climate and the environment. And they are leading to further flows of refugees. Fossil fuel prices will also continue to rise.
In Afghanistan, too, the US wanted to improve the world with bombs. At that time, the Taliban were in power. But even after the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are back in power. Or in Iraq. The terrible Saddam Hussein ruled there. Today, chaos reigns there. Or in Libya: Muammar al-Gaddafi ruled there, now there is civil war… The US always wanted to change everything with bombs. In contrast, Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount: violence is not the solution. When will we finally learn from history?
The old Roman motto still applies: ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ The only result of this policy is more and more wars and more and more deaths. We currently have more wars than ever before since 1945. There is no end in sight to the madness of war.
In this situation, what does the wonderful young man from Nazareth, whom all Christians have or should have as their role model, tell us in his Sermon on the Mount? Even mass murderers Trump and Putin are Christians. In this nuclear age, we must finally learn the great alternative: if you want peace, you must prepare for PEACE. For example, as Jesus suggested in his Sermon on the Mount. What would intelligent, Jesuanic love of one’s enemies look like in concrete and practical terms today? In other words: how can we make the Sermon on the Mount relevant today?
Even in Germany, however, most politicians still say today: ‘You can’t govern with the Sermon on the Mount.’ Bismarck said that. Helmut Schmidt said: ‘You can’t govern with the Sermon on the Mount.’ And Helmut Kohl said that to me on television: We are currently experiencing once again what that means. There is only one successful exception in our lifetime: Mikhail Gorbachev, the former communist leader.
Together with him, I wrote the book: ‘Never Again War – Come to Your Senses at Last.’ Shortly before his death, I asked Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow: ‘Is there a survival programme for humanity in the nuclear age?’ And Gorbachev said to me, word for word: ‘I know of only one survival programme for humanity: it is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.’ That’s what the former communist leader said!
What exactly does Jesus propose in his Sermon on the Mount?
‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ not the warmongers like Putin or Trump. In Moscow, however, the supreme Christian leader, Patriarch Kirill, says: ‘Putin is a gift from God; he is waging a holy war.’ And in the USA, Trump also says: ‘I am acting on behalf of God. God saved my life when I was attacked.’ Wars in the name of God! And this in the year 2026 AD, after the Sermon on the Mount. A worse blasphemy is hardly conceivable.
What does Jesus mean by his suggestion of ‘loving your enemies’ in the Sermon on the Mount?
Unfortunately, this is often misunderstood. Loving your enemies in the sense of Jesus does not mean ‘put up with everything.’ Jesus was no political fool. Loving your enemies in the sense of Jesus means rather: “Be smarter than your enemy. Try to put yourself in his shoes. Take the first step towards the other person. Don’t just look for the blame for conflicts in others, but also in yourself.‘ That is Jesus’ original message. So love for your neighbour, love for those far away and love for your enemies belong together. That is the great alternative to the mass murders of today in the nuclear age.
In our joint book, Mikhail Gorbachev, I also asked: ’What would a nuclear war be like?” And I will never forget Gorbachev’s answer: Jesus’ wise friend in Moscow said, ‘A nuclear war would be the last war of mankind, because after that there would be no more people left to wage war.’
Gorbachev was convinced that today any conventional war could lead to a nuclear war. He knew what he was talking about, because he had the power to wage a nuclear war.
But Gorbachev showed that there are always alternatives to what is happening today. His wise policy of the Sermon on the Mount led to the greatest disarmament in human history, to peaceful German reunification, to the end of the Cold War and to the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Thanks to Gorbachev, around 80 per cent of all nuclear weapons worldwide at that time were destroyed in a controlled manner in the 1990s. So let no one say that the Sermon on the Mount with its call to love one’s enemies is pure fantasy or political daydreaming. The realist politician Gorbachev demonstrated and proved the opposite in a very concrete and practical way.
War for oil or peace through the sun?
Where is international law today, with its non-violence, to which we Germans also committed ourselves after 1945 and even more so after 1989, after the peaceful reunification of Germany? Is Trump’s war on Iran any better just because Putin is doing the same thing in Ukraine? No, on the contrary, with every new war, the danger of nuclear war grows. We therefore first need a world free of nuclear weapons – as already envisaged in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by 99 UN states – and also a 100% energy transition to renewable energies so that we can overcome today’s main cause of war: ‘wars for oil and gas’. In Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, Greenland and throughout the Middle East, it is always about oil and gas first and foremost.
That is why the Sermon on the Mount is helpful when it comes to alternatives: war for oil or peace through the sun? Jesus said 2,000 years ago in his Sermon on the Mount: ‘The sun of the Father shines on everyone.’ And every second of our existence, this sun sends us 10,000 times more energy than all eight billion people consume today. In reality, there is no energy problem, but rather a misguided energy policy.
Jesus of Nazareth pointed out the great alternatives of our time 2,000 years ago: love your enemies and peace through the sun instead of wars over oil. We ‘only’ have to implement this very realistic peace programme now. Sun and wind are the great energies of peace. The solution to the energy problem is in the sky: energy from the boss himself, energy from way, way up high. We must open ourselves to the energy from above. That is the suggestion of the Sermon on the Mount. There are always alternatives. After 2,000 years, we should finally understand that.
Nature offers us everything we need for a life worth living. And peaceful renewable energies are of a completely different quality to fossil and nuclear energies and have no knock-on problems: no non-disposable nuclear waste, no polluted air and no poisoned water, no dying forests and no acidic soils. The completely different Jesuanic solar energy policy ‘automatically’ ensures an ecological economy and millions of sustainable jobs. Today, we already have over 14 million jobs worldwide in renewable energies. The Old Testament’s ‘subdue the earth’ must be turned into a Jesuanic ‘subdue yourselves to the earth’.
We can organise a solar world revolution. That would be a Jesuanic departure into a new, better era for humanity. The future needs peace.
- Mikhail Gorbachev “Listen to reason – War no more!: An Appeal from Mikhail Gorbachev to the world” (English Edition)
