Bhutto's Murder Calls Us to Stand Up for Peace

Benizer Bhutto’s murder is being viewed by some in this country as proof we must stand even more violently against extremists who would do such things. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we line up with Mao Tse-Tung in his belief that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” we become the comrade of murderers and not their enemy.

Since this political murder has occurred on the Asian subcontinent it’s appropriate to recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The contrast in the words of Mao and Gandhi present a choice. Which path will we follow as Americans? As Christians? Sure, a few in the American church have spoken from the pulpit against death and destruction as foreign policy. But where is the committed call for active resistance? Who but followers of the Prince of Peace have the organization, the voice and the standing in the court of public opinion to make such a call?

Ms. Bhutto now takes her place in a long line of murdered prophets who put serving God’s wish for the world above their own personal safety. The list stretches back into history and includes Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. As with the others, she knew she would die for her beliefs and didn’t shrink away. We wonder why so many view the church today as an impotent shell; we need look no further than the streets of Baghdad and Pakistan.

Of course, it will be politically safer for American preachers to rail against Ms. Bhutto’s murder. No well-heeled parishioner is likely to huff off over that one. But if death is acceptable for us as a tool of regime change, then it’s acceptable for them. You are what you do, baby. Any other claim is pure sophistry.

Many called on Jesus to lead a military rebellion against the brutal Roman occupation. If ever violence could be justified as a path, this was the time. But Jesus made a conscious decision for another path. He knew that to take up the sword would fundamentally alter him and his mission. He had come to embody God’s peaceful wish for the world and knew he couldn’t have it both ways. So he sacrificed himself to serve God and to “be the change” he wanted to see in the world.

Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi political activist and a former prisoner of Saddam Hussein. In her book City of Widows she describes how the American invasion and the prior sanctions have decimated her country. According to Ms. Zangana, the best numbers from sources within Iraq -- sources ignored by the western press -- count over one million war-related fatalities in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, most of them men. In Baghdad alone, she says, there are 300,000 war widows. But events in Pakistan prove that those who believe in enforcing their truth with bullets and bombs don’t really care about the gender of their victims.