"Building peace, or making nonviolence, requires passion — in the double sense of having both a zest for life and justice and a willingness to suffer on behalf of this passion. It also requires compassion not only for victims of violence but also for those who wage war and inflict violence, because war-makers often do not know what they are doing. They believe they are doing what is right and necessary in the service of a higher good — like freedom and democracy (if they are fighters for the United States), or like the strengthening of Islam (if they are fighters for Al Qaeda).
"A spiritually weak person does not have the moral strength to be a warrior for peace. Such a good warrior must be vulnerable — open to personal suffering and to compassion, "suffering with" others. If Christians honestly believe that all humans are called to live in, and as, the image of God, we can hear a shared call to live in the image of a good warrior God, a courageous Spirit of vulnerability to suffering and compassion in the ongoing struggles against violence and other forms of evil."
