The Struggle to be a True Peacemaker

I really love EDJCB’s writings and there isn’t anything here I can place my finger on that is wrong, but it still feels like something is missing, or not quite applied right. This is close to amazing, but as it stands, it is missing something, and I am not certain what.

I taught EQ two days ago and quoted extensively from this talk. “What it means to be a peacemaker” has been an ongoing topic of conversation between my wife and I, in this vein.

I suppose what worries me, is that this sounds a little too deliberately provocative. But I am hesitant to say something, because those examples were definitely things the Savior did. And that is definitely my first inclination.

I think the root of Peacemaking, is to bring the Spirit, and to increase love. It is to actually bring people to Christ. Now, what is the proper amount of preaching hell-fire vs comforting the afflicted? Tough question. Too much either way is dangerous. Being silent is also dangerous.

We must have the Spirit of God to know which is needed. And we need to know both are needed in their place. We can’t only be Southern Baptist hellfire preachers.

> Now, what is the proper amount of preaching hell-fire vs comforting the afflicted?

I think this framing is too binary to be of much use. Christ was not a preacher so much as a [i]Son[/i]: I suspect His actions and speech were less driven by principle than they were by relationship and character.

Be good, be kind, be strong, tell the truth, be not ashamed.

“Bring the Spirit” and “increase love” have been almost enragingly loosely defined in my experience; someone might say “oh my gosh the Spirit isn’t here” when something begins to make them vaguely uncomfortable, because they’re under the impression the Spirit is mainly a peaceful vibe. “Just love them” doesn’t *mean* anything, it’s not an actual action, what are we meant to do? Summon up warmth in our hearts and sort of channel that their way? Love isn’t justable, it’s a solemn responsibility to be creatively committed to someone’s welfare, whatever form that might take.

Having the actual Spirit with us relies heavily on our preparation, on us knowing what we *can* do in any given moment. Most of this preparation relies on learned experience, which is very difficult to transmit and explains why our leaders have to be old, and why we have a responsibility to be action-biased, to always be trying things, in case we find something that works, to not be so prideful as to assume we’re endangering anyone with our efforts to help them.

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Yeah, I’ve had that experience before, too. I was ministering to a woman who was struggling with her testimony, and she was asking some hard questions. I started answering, and my ministering companion got uncomfortable that we were having a dialogue about doubt. She proclaimed that ‘the Spirit wasn’t there’ and left. I stayed, and contended for the faith.
That woman later ended up leaving the Church, but it wasn’t because I didn’t testify of Christ. We’re still casual acquaintances, and she reaches out when she needs someone to talk to.
The irony was that I’ve never been on a mission, and my ministering companion had been. I don’t know how she made it through 18 months without being asked hard questions or giving difficult answers.

For me, peacemaking through Jesus Christ sometimes looks, as Elder Andersen once said, like not answering an accusation. Jesus did that. It may also look like rebuking someone for wrong behavior, and calling them to repentance. But it must come from a place of love and charity and concern, or it will be a ‘beam and mote’ situation. Peacemaking may also be reconciliation, but never capitulation of Truth (embodied in Jesus Christ). It is never an endorsement of sin, but it may look like mercy to those who don’t deserve it.
Most of all, I think that peacemaking starts with seeking God’s will when we’re in difficult conversations or circumstances. That’s why President Nelson emphasized having the Spirit as our guide through these exceedingly murky times.

Brethren and Sisters, I am not arguing with any of this. You are right!

I really liked this.

For me, peacemaking through Jesus Christ sometimes looks, as Elder Andersen once said, like not answering an accusation. Jesus did that. It may also look like rebuking someone for wrong behavior, and calling them to repentance. But it must come from a place of love and charity and concern, or it will be a ‘beam and mote’ situation. Peacemaking may also be reconciliation, but never capitulation of Truth (embodied in Jesus Christ). It is never an endorsement of sin, but it may look like mercy to those who don’t deserve it.
Most of all, I think that peacemaking starts with seeking God’s will when we’re in difficult conversations or circumstances. That’s why President Nelson emphasized having the Spirit as our guide through these exceedingly murky times.

I also agree with this. I hate and loathe this as well. Be hot or cold, but lukewarm is nauseating.

“Bring the Spirit” and “increase love” have been almost enragingly loosely defined in my experience; someone might say “oh my gosh the Spirit isn’t here” when something begins to make them vaguely uncomfortable,

No, I don’t want any nonsense or pandering of this sort. I think we need to do the difficult thing of speaking truth AND letting them know we genuinely love and care about them at the same time.

It isn’t good enough to just get up and warn of hellfire. We may need to (more often than we usually do) “Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost”, but under the circumstances, it is increasingly vital that we “showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.” D&C 121:43-44

If they become our enemies, it should not be because we spoke the truth without love.

Now, you expressed concern I was veering too far to the warm and fuzzy side. A valid concern considering how many we have seen end up utterly ineffectual and safe, fit only for the terrestrial kingdom. The Celestial kingdom has the valiant, which mean ‘showing courage’. So, that is certainly NOT what I want.

I just have a feeling, that this is a good time to make friends as much as possible. But you are right, that we dare not use this as an excuse to water down the truth. That is incredibly cruel and selfish and I don’t want that either.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t criticizing you, just riffing off what your post reminded me of.

One of the great issues of our time is people who don’t know what love feels like, who have had their receptors atrophied or fried; to them, any love at all might burn like fire or freeze like ice. There might be combinations of words that align with their egos just so they aren’t hurt by them, in their worlds full of hurt, and those might rarely be the sort of words delivered by love, but we aren’t called to not hurt people, we’re called to love them.

This is not a call to preach hellfire, it’s a warning that all preaching is hellfire to the hellbound. We can’t rely on those we speak to to accurately tell us what’s loving or not, when that’s allowed it drifts to merely what doesn’t hurt, and so we have to fall back on what we know and feel, which will smell like brimstone to those with atrophied love receptors. But that same hot love is what will make true and lasting friendships.

On the other hand there are people whose friendship we need but we can’t give any love to, and so can deliver a sort of contemptuous therapyspeak marketspeak in order for them to return behavior we prefer. Separate topic though.