government and politics on Force

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

Reason and Knowledge have always played a secondary, subordinate, auxiliary role in the life of peoples, and this will always be the case. A people is shaped and driven forward by an entirely differen...

If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; n...

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

I choose gentleness... Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only o...

The Athenian general and politician Themistocles eventually alienated a large number of Greek City-States that came under their rule in the late 6th and early 5th centuries B.C. With his fleet of ship...

Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to ...

If power is the ability to get things done, to change circumstances and people, then this takes us to the heart of the Christian understanding of power: it is the power of self-sacrificial love and se...

The Greek god Prometheus descended from the race of the Titans, the gods that ruled the world before the reign of the Olympians, who were headed by the ruthless Zeus. The playwright Aeschylus portrays...

The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those w...

God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power...Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the facing of this hour. Lord—we need You...today, tomorrow and forever. We need you to heal those ...

Consider using the prayer of adoration by itself or as a prelude to the prayer of confession. Prayer of Adoration Lord of yesterday, today, and tomorrow: You alone rule the universe; setting time...

Lord, we believe your Word when you say that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. You have given us all that we need to live faithfully as your chosen people. But just as often as we tu...

A House for All People Every summer my church hosts a week-long summer camp where children experience the beauty and majesty of the Lord. The first year we sent our daughter to it, she loved it and l...

History shows that when the church uses the tools of the world's kingdom, it becomes as ineffectual, or as tyrannical, as any other power structure. And whenever the church has intermingled with t...

Two thousand years ago, triumphal processions were massively popular. It was, in all likelihood, the only chance most people would have to see the leaders and heroes of the day. For the Romans they t...

One night I went to church Confronted by rampant inequality and discrimination built into the laws, Black Christians were a driving force in making the American public confront the racism in our mid...

In his book, The Word and Power Church, Doug Banister writes: The spring of 1940 found Hitler’s panzer divisions mopping up French troops and preparing for a siege of Great Britain. The Dutch had al...

Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trial...

Advertising as we now know it started not on Madison Avenue but in another city: Berlin. With another group of power brokers: the Nazis. They took the ideas of an Austrian psychotherapist named Freud,...

Christianity first reached Japan in 1549, due to the heroic missionary work of the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier and his companions. In the next sixty years, over three hundred thousand Japanese citize...

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act led to what’s known as the Trail of Tears, in which almost fifty thousand indigenous people were removed from the southeastern United States and relocated west of the M...

Pastor: Almighty God, we give thanks for all Your goodness and bless You for the love that sustains us from day to day.  People: We praise You for the gift of Your Son, our Savior, in whom ...

Leader: Thank you for this country, Lord.  People: Thank you for the freedom to worship without fear. Thank you for the freedom to preach and teach your word.  Leader: We pray for our b...

God of all nations and peoples, Lord of all places and lands, who didst form man of the dust of the ground, and make of him a living soul, we praise thee for the infinite variety of thy human creature...

God, the fact that we feel uncomfortable is evidence that we perceive the injustices in our world. We don’t ask you to help us hear the cries of injustice, but rather to give us courage to act against...

Leader: Let us worship the God who satisfies our every need, the Good Shepherd who guides us to abundance and refreshment. Let us praise the God who specializes in the restoration of the soul, who nav...