PEACE WITH VICTORY

“Peace without victory.” It is astonishing how brilliant people can postulate such abjectly idiotic ideas. It is more astonishing that they and those who follow them think their ideas will work. Before the U.S. entered WWI, President Woodrow Wilson, a truly brilliant man and a speaker extraordinaire, while trying to play diplomat to the warring European countries, trying not to take sides, trying not to get the U.S. embroiled in the war, promoted a hitherto unknown concept and political philosophy. What the warring European countries should seek and could obtain and have was "peace without victory." “Peace without victory.” How does that work? Basically, opponents stop battling, stop trying to defeat their opponent, stop trying to win the war, and accept that both sides are losers—or, at the least as it was more delicately put, cease the fighting and refuse to insist on a clear winner or to punish a predicted loser. More important than winning the war was simply becoming friends. This approach would bring kumbaya peace to the previously warring nations and be an influencing example to all other nations not to go to war. This approach to ending a war would bring peace without victory. Woodrow Wilson believed that a lasting peace could only come if nations gave up the idea in the war that any nation should triumph over another. He proposed this peace without victory, but, no warring nation accepted his plan nor embraced his political theory. His theory died when German U-boats killed more Americans at sea and the US entered the conflict. He tried to revive his “Peace without Victory” with his League of Nations. Unsuccessfully. However, the concept is alive and well contemporaneously. Every time I read WWI history, as I’m doing now, I am stunned by the similarities between the pre-WWI era and our times today. Daily, reading about Wilson’s peace without victory proposal at night, I was reading in the morning news of folks saying that Israel should be satisfied in its war with Hamas. It had landed enough blows. It had killed enough of the terrorists. When Iran launched hundreds of missiles against Israel the pressure was put on Israel not to retaliate. “Israel, you launched missiles against Iranian officers in Syria; Iran has launched missiles against you.” Both of you should be satisfied. Quit firing. Peace without victory. In its current war with Hamas in Gaza, the cease-fire demanded of Israel by most of the world is but a code word for “Peace without victory.” If only there were such a thing. There is not. Seeking victory DOES bring horrible causalities—and nothing is as horrifying as civilian casualties. I do not minimize that harsh reality for either side nor do I enter into the debate at that point. Here are just two things to consider: 1. Is it not possible there have been far more civilian causalities over the long haul by seeking peace without victory than by seeking swift, decisive victory? Is that not what happened at the beginning of WWII? Understandably, the nations did not want war. They had just been through the War of Wars hardly over twenty years earlier. Whatever that man Hitler was doing, they just wanted peace. Perhaps, they sincerely believed, they could have peace without victory. To seek it, they tried denial. And appeasement. In the end, there were 50-55 million civilian casualties in WWII. Would there not have been far less if the allied nations had crushed, instead of trying to appease, Hitler when he made his first land grab? 2. In the current conflict, there is one side that is on the record that they do not want peace without victory. They do not want a two-state solution. They want to totally and completely crush the other. And this side who wants to totally annihilate their opponent is not Israel. Every time Israel's opponents—in the Middle East or in Dearborn, Michigan--chant, “From the river to the sea,” they are calling for the genocide of Israelis. Deniers of this need only to trace this slogan cry to its origins. Neither do chants of “Death to America; Death to Israel” sound like a desire for Peace without Victory. They only reveal their intent to crush and destroy Israel. Reduce it and its people to oblivion. Their calls for a cease-fire, are not compassionate calls of concern for their own; they are opportunistic efforts to gain time to regroup and rearm. Woodrow Wilson believed that there could only be lasting peace in the world if people would only accept that it came without victory. That is not the reality of this messed-up world. Peace without victory just isn’t going to happen. This is also true of the unseen world, the spiritual world. There is no peace without victory. Make no mistake. From the time that God set foot on planet Earth as the Human Jesus Christ, Satan and his every cohort—seen and unseen—tried to stomp Jesus into complete defeat. Satan thought He had succeeded. As Jesus was hanged beaten, bleeding, and nailed to the cross, Satan began to celebrate victory over the Son of Man. But the all-time, greatest irony of the universe is this: As it turned out, the Cross was not Satan’s stomping Jesus into defeat but the just opposite. Jesus crushed Satan there. And all dark powers. And, because of this decisive victory, peace was won. A peace that would come to millions of people. Peace through Victory! There would have never been this peace had Jesus not vanquished Satan, sin, and death that day! The cross was victory! And because of that victory, there is peace. Today, you can have peace with God. You can have peace of heart and mind. You can have peace with others. You can have peace when facing death. Why? Because there is Peace through victory. And Jesus won that victory on the cross. He didn’t work out a temporary cease-fire. He did not negotiate an ostensible suspension of hostilities. He defeated the enemy. He put His foot on His head. And, because of that victory, there is peace. And, one day at Christ’s enemy-vanquishing return, there will be peace on earth. See, there is only Peace with Victory. --Pastor Clifford Hurst