World record in military spending
The global community, which unfortunately is not yet a community, is currently spending more money on armaments and the military than ever before. In 2024, the figure was 2.7 trillion dollars, and it is rising. The increase from 2023 to 2024 was another ten percent compared to the previous year. This has just been confirmed by the renowned Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Much of this increase is due to the war in Ukraine. Russia alone has doubled its military spending since 2015, but Germany is also spending around a third more on armaments today than it was just a few years ago. Can peace be achieved with more and more weapons? Helmut Kohl once suggested: Achieve peace with fewer and fewer weapons!
The world’s largest military power by far, the United States, has increased its military budget for 2024 to 997 billion dollars, which is more than a third of all global military spending and almost three times as much as Russia and China combined.
In this situation, the Protestant Church Congress is taking place in Hannover, where Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who became known worldwide for her anti-Trump speech, will also preach. She wants, she told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, to recall her courageous and angry criticism of Trump, in which she accused the US president of not adhering to the Christian virtues of mercy, compassion and peace.
In normal times, this simple and self-evident admonition from a bishop would not have caused a stir. But in these times, when the Presbyterian Christian Trump and his Catholic vice president J.D. Vance, and in Germany the Catholic theologian and CDU politician Julia Klöckner are promoting ‘apolitical churches,’ the sermon by the US bishop and her appearance at the Protestant Church Congress were world news and an extraordinary political event, very much in the spirit of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus’ message is based on the virtues of mercy, compassion and peace. The merciful, the compassionate and the peacemakers were blessed by the wonderful young man from Nazareth, who called on his followers to do the same. Bishop Budde simply reminds us of the original Christian and Jewish ethos of ‘Thou shalt not lie’ and ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ These are also the fundamental principles of all religions and wisdom teachings, as Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us. Francis responded to Trump verbatim: ‘Those who build walls instead of bridges are not Christians.’
Those who want peace must prepare for peace
The US bishop and Pope Francis unanimously demand or demanded: more diplomacy and fewer weapons from all sides. If this message is not always political, then what is politics?
Jesus would ask his followers today: 2.7 trillion dollars for armaments and far less to ensure that no child ever goes hungry again and that climate change is solved? How will you justify this imbalance before God? The man from Nazareth would point out that with a tenth of the military budget, hunger could be overcome and the climate saved. Political excuses will be of little help to us here. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus always argues holistically.
This means that, especially in politically difficult times with record military spending, Christians must advocate diplomacy instead of weapons for war. The classic excuse has been the same for 2,000 years: ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ For 2,000 years, this excuse has only ever led to war and mass murder – right up to the present day. We must counter this old policy today with the following principle: if you want peace, you must prepare for peace.
Today, the old policy of revenge could even lead to nuclear war. This would then be the last war in human history, because after that there would be no more people left to wage war. Who do we trust more: the warmongers or those who are committed to peace and disarmament?
