Christian pacifism has long been misunderstood. It is not passive-ism -- a weak refusal to grasp the nettle of injustice. The term comes from the two Latin words for "make" and "peace". "Congratulations to those who make peace" says Jesus in a context of confronting oppression and demanding social justice, changing our own hearts, and practising non-violence.

But we still need to ask whether his programme was the right answer for the problems of his day and ours---- the unchanging and unmet needs of humanity. Or was it the impractical advice of an unworldly dreamer?

Albert Schweitzer argued that, because Jesus and Paul believed the end of the world was imminent, their moral demands were not attuned to the needs of ongoing history and politics. Adopting this view is not very far from saying that Christianity is irrelevant. But, to put it bluntly, history and politics are in such a mess that we must at least ask whether Jesus might have got it right. Untill we try his way, we shall never know whether it offers the escape from injustice and despair.

We are not all called to non-violent protest. Some people live with an inner freedom--neither dominating nor dominated. They may not make a great stir in the world, but those who know them feel that life has a better taste because of them. (Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King for example) Their influence can be immense. Jesus told his followers to be like this: "You are salt for the world. But if salt loses its flavour, what can it give back?"

It seems impossible for you and me to make a difference. But it is no more desperate than Jesus' mission, at the point when everyone had run away except the women and a single man. Each revolution of the spirit starts with a lonely figure refusing to accept things as they are. But as the vision of how things could be takes shape, it finds other hearts thirsting to receive it. In all the places in the world today where horrors are happening, you will also find small groups -- not always Christians -- trying to turn the vision we have explored here into reality.

When we do violence to others, they become violent in turn--to us in revenge, if they dare, or by acting violently towards others, like the abused child who becomes an abuser. Similar chains of violence can be seen in the histories of nations. So long as people thus forge the next link in the chain, the violence goes on and on, and peace is no more than a period of calm imposed by whoever is (for the time being) the stronger. But each time one of these chains of pain and death is brought to an end, the kingdom of God is enlarged.

Jesus taught that forgiveness was the only way to do this. In his own trial and execution he accepted it all, the anger of the Jewish establishment, the cruel might of the Romans, the treachery of Judas, the desertion of his disciples, the anguish of the women. He refused to forge the next link of hatred and revenge.