"If the most essential element of Christian faith is sin and not our capacity for love, if the first thing that should come to our minds in church and in our religious life is our impotence, our weakness, our guilt, our repeated failures, then the die is already cast. Then we cultivate our own fears and coddle our own need for security. We deny that human beings are capable of making peace; we abandon the unarmed Christ and run away just as the disciples did when Jesus was taken captive and when it became clear that protection and weapons were useless now. We are tempted to look for other masters who offer more protection and security.
"The old vicious circle takes this form: we are weak and we feel weak. We are afraid and we teach others to be afraid. We seek safety — that is, we wall ourselves in and hide behind the armor plate of power, hide in the control towers of devastation, feel weak again, and therefore feel compelled to press the button.
"Christ broke out of the vicious circle in which we still live, this vicious circle of weakness, fear, need for protection, need for security, need for violence. It is not true, he told us, that you are weak. You can do whatever you want if you have faith. You are strong; you are beautiful. You do not need to build any walls to hide behind. You can live without armaments. Because you are strong, you can put the neurotic need for security behind you. You do not need to defend you life like a lunatic. For the love of the poor, Jesus says, you can give your life away and spread it around. The mechanism that runs its course from weakness to a need for security to violence is unsound. God is in you. You do not need to protect yourself. It is possible to live without violence and without weapons.”
