Abstract
In his book A Pilgrim People: Becoming a Catholic Peace Church, Gerald W. Schlabach approaches a current issue in the life of the churches, the issue of peace. This book provides a timely contribution to the ongoing debate on the churches’ possible role and responsibility in building peace and resisting violent conflict. Even though the book approaches this issue with a special view to the Roman Catholic Church and its dialogue with the Mennonite Church, it inspires profound reflection on matters of war and peace in a wider circle of Christian communities. It addresses the question of how to become a peace church and provides responses to this question by means of drawing insights from these two church traditions.
With his Mennonite background and present affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church, the author introduces the reader to Roman Catholic social ethics and its contributions to peace theology. Simultaneously, he explores ways for bringing Roman Catholic social ethics into dialogue with Christian pacifism and the commitment to active nonviolence, as it is promoted by the Mennonite Church, as well as the other historic peace churches.
The author argues that being church and building peace are not very different things. Therefore, the book is written from an ecclesiological perspective, while at the same time bringing the concern for peace into the centre of the discussion. More precisely, the book calls for consideration of what it means to become a ‘peace church’. In the light of this question, the author inquires into the development of Roman Catholic social ethics from the time of the Second Vatican Council up to the present day. Documents from the Second Vatican Council, papal encyclicals, and World Day of Peace messages are frequently referred to throughout the investigation. The Second Vatican Council is described as a watershed in Catholic peace ethics, not least with regard to its strong condemnation of war. It is described as a beginning of Catholic peace theology.
In the book, the author points to how the Roman Catholic Church has become a peace church in modern times. He also explores how the Roman Catholic Church best continues on this path. In line with the description of the church as a ‘pilgrim church’ in the Second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium, the path to peace is described as a ‘pilgrimage’. Analysing the nature of the pilgrimage, the author engages historic voices in the church, especially Augustine. He also highlights and elaborates a couple of images with roots in both Christian and Jewish history. The image of ‘diaspora’ is central to the account of the pilgrimage, and it guides the exploration of the process of the Roman Catholic Church in becoming a peace church.
The discussion of the church as a diaspora community continues throughout the book, and it brings a clear message to the reader: that the church, in its essence, is a multicultural, international and border-crossing community. It implies that Christians, in being members of a diaspora community, can never be entirely at home in any country since they are at home in every country. Moreover, the book makes clear that the image of diaspora challenges the temptation to favour one particular nation or tribe. In consequence, resisting this temptation becomes essential to the church, not least if striving for becoming a peace church.
Emphasizing the centrality of this resistance, the author discusses the church in terms of a ‘transnational nation’. As citizens of such a nation, Christians are described as ‘resident aliens’ with a responsibility of being good guests in their hosting contexts. In line with this course of reasoning, Christians find themselves in the challenging situation of remaining true to their own identity while simultaneously respecting their host culture. To be resident aliens, the author underscores, involves belonging to a multicultural people. With regard to the worldwide extension of the church today, the book points out that no single region can claim to be the centre of Global Christianity.
The book moreover suggests that the church, if it is a pilgrim people, can never settle comfortably behind cultural or national walls. With heaven as its true homeland, it must always journey through geographical space and territory. To identify with one nation or territory would mean to bring the pilgrimage to an end. Accordingly, it is maintained that wherever the church incorporates trends of nationalism, it has forgotten about its identity as a pilgrim people.
In the book, Christians are urged to remind themselves of the church's nature as an ‘Abrahamic community’, which should not try to hold God's blessing to itself, but persistently seek out ways for being a servant people and a blessing to all nations. Thus, it is emphasized that the church, as an Abrahamic community, is called to be a people for others.
The ecclesiological perspectives accounted for above are mainly outlined in the first two parts of the book, which consist of six chapters. These are preceded by an introductory chapter with explanations of guiding concepts. Nevertheless, since the book aims at exploring what it means for the Roman Catholic Church to become a peace church, the notion and practice of peace are highlighted in the third and last part of the book. This part consists of three chapters.
In this concluding part of the book, the tension between the two Christian traditions of just war and pacifism comes clearly to the fore. Here, the pacifist position of the Mennonite Church stands out in contrast to the just war tradition, which historically has provided significant guidance for the Roman Catholic Church with regard to war. Bringing this difference into the light, the book makes visible the ecumenical complications that may be engendered by different positions on matters of war. Nevertheless, the author assumes that war does not have to be a church dividing issue. In the last part of the book, the reader is introduced to a model of thought which makes the two Christian traditions of just war and pacifism integrated parts of a strategy for peacemaking.
Inspired by Pope Francis’s 2017 World Day of Peace message, Schlabach suggests that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount can serve as a ‘manual’ for a strategy of peacemaking. He points to three elements in Jesus’ teaching: firstly, Jesus named the traditional understanding of righteousness. Secondly, he diagnosed the vicious cycles that this understanding could not break. Thirdly, he offered a practicable transforming initiative to escape the vicious cycle. Here, it is assumed that Jesus’ transforming initiatives were guided by nonviolence and thus paved the way from vicious to virtuous cycles. The just war tradition, on the other hand, is supposed to align with the traditional understanding of righteousness, which is part of but cannot by itself present sustainable solutions. While it responds to violence by violence, the just war tradition is considered incapable of breaking vicious cycles of violence.
This discussion is now particularly timely. The need for protection and security is an issue high on the agenda in contemporary times. The book touches upon this issue but does not bring it into the centre of the discussion. Instead, the book deals with fundamental questions about the very nature of the church in situations of peace and war. It calls for reflection on what kind of community Christians wish to shape in times of violent conflicts. It challenges trends of nationalism in the churches, and it calls for further elaboration and cooperation in the field of Christian peace ethics.
In the last chapter, the issue of Christian cooperation is elucidated. Here, the author indicates the peaceful potential inherent in the ongoing theological cooperation around the ecumenical vision of Christian unity. He also points out the possible bearing of this collaboration in the creation and sustenance of friendly and peaceful relations between the churches. Although the last chapter approaches the field of ecumenics, the book does not draw considerable insight from the contemporary work of the international ecumenical movement on the central theme of the book: the way of the church as a pilgrim people and the process of becoming a peace church. While the reader is introduced to Roman Catholic and Mennonite sources on this theme, less weight is given to sources stemming from international ecumenism, such as the material produced during the World Council of Churches’ Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace (2013–2022). The book presents its forerunner, the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence (2001–2010), however with a focus on the Roman Catholic-Mennonite contribution to this decade on the basis of the common statement Called Together to be Peacemakers.
Even though the book does not draw significantly on the current theological and ethical discourse on peace in the international ecumenical movement, it still contributes to this discourse by pointing to the possible fruits of inter-Christian learning. The encounter between the Roman Catholic and Mennonite church traditions forms a highly interesting case with regard to the development of Christian peace ethics and peace theology. Unfolding the vision of the Roman Catholic Church as a peace church, the book displays the resourcefulness of both church traditions with regard to peacemaking. Moreover, it points to how the willingness to learn from another church tradition can infuse energy into processes of renewal as concerns established positions on peace. Not least, the book contributes with significant insights on how the commitment to peace can bring a deeper understanding of what it means to be church in today's world.