How can a man who, faced with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sides with the aggressor and demands that the victim give up its land and security, remain the hero of Christ’s church?

The nations that support the victim of armed aggression against an independent country do so because they know a simple truth: peace is not built on renouncing justice, but on respect for law and sovereignty.

Those who call on victims to capitulate, who justify oppression in the name of so-called “realism,” and who turn a blind eye to crimes committed in order to get “business” back on track as quickly as possible, are not serving peace: they are serving the oppressor.

Would you ask the victim of rape to renounce justice for the sake of “pragmatism”? Would you refuse to take her complaint so as not to ‘irritate’ her attacker, with a view to future “deals”? Would you join the ranks of her accusers… she should have just… ?

How can a peace plan require the victim to recognize the aggressor’s language as the official language and grant privileged status to his church, which has been his enemy’s propaganda tool since the conflict began?
A peace plan that would only last until the aggressor, having regained his strength, went back on the attack, here or elsewhere, as he has always done for the past three decades.

Martin Luther King Jr, The American Baptist minister who led the fight against racial discrimination in the United States in the 1960s, inspiring his supporters with the power of his rhetoric.

He advocated nonviolent protest and was assassinated on April 4, 1968. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. This prize was eagerly awaited by those who advocate peace without justice.

Pastor King said, “True peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.” And he was right!

The Church of Christ cannot bless greed, lies, and dishonesty. On the contrary, it must stand courageously alongside those who resist oppression. It cannot endorse a text that sacrifices the sovereignty of a people and legitimizes the aggressor by imposing on the victim an eight-day deadline to renounce its security.

When the Church, instead of defending the oppressed, becomes an accomplice of the powerful, it betrays its mission. History is full of examples where religious institutions have, sadly, blessed injustice in the name of an illusory peace.

From Spain during the Inquisition to the Aboriginal children of Australia torn from their families to force their conversion, from South Africa to Nazi Germany, part of the Church justified racial segregation through misguided biblical interpretations, thus becoming the ideological pillar of oppressive regimes in the name of a supposed “divine order.”

But history also shows heroic counterexamples: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian who joined the resistance against Hitler and paid with his life for his refusal to compromise. Or the Catholic Church in Poland, which supported the Solidarnosc trade union movement in the face of the totalitarian communist regime, reminding us that human dignity takes precedence over submission.

Finally, Martin Luther King Jr., whom I mentioned earlier, proved that faith can be a force for liberation.

These examples remind us of a timeless truth: peace cannot be a disguised capitulation. It cannot be reduced to a fool’s bargain, where freedom is traded for an illusion of tranquility, where truth and justice are sacrificed on the altar of ephemeral and political interests.

Such peace is only a deceptive armistice, as in Vichy France, a parenthesis before new violence, a betrayal of the very values that the Church of Christ is called to embody.

One of the missions of the body of Christ is to be the voice of the voiceless, the bulwark against arbitrariness, the light in the night of oppression. It cannot be content with prayers whispered in the shadows of sanctuaries when peoples are being crushed.

As the prophet Micah proclaimed: “He has shown you, O man, what your God requires of you… Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

This statement is not a suggestion, but a command.

To turn a blind eye to injustice is to become an accomplice. To bless peace without justice is to betray the Gospel. As the theologian Karl Barth wrote: “To preach the Gospel is also to denounce what is contrary to it.”

May we, as disciples of Christ, have the courage to say no to cowardice, no to compromise, no to that peace which is only an illusion. True peace, the kind that honors God, cannot be decreed from the halls of power. It is built, day by day, through uncompromising respect for human dignity, through the relentless pursuit of justice, and through unwavering commitment to those who fight for their freedom.

Mikaël Réale.