Ten-year-old Mark came home from school complaining about the village bully who was hassling him every day on the school bus. When his father asked him what he was doing about it, he replied, "Nothing, really." In a rush of heroic paternal instinct, his father saw a great teaching opportunity: "Then here's what you do: you take your lunch box and bash him on the side of his head."

At the dinner table the next evening Mark's father asked how things went on the bus. "The same," Mark shrugged. "Well," said his father, "did you do what I told you?" "No — showed him my baseball cards, though — gave him Cal Ripken, Jr. We're friends now."

How much easier it is to bash someone than to find a creative breakthrough! With all the macho hype our culture throws at us, our reflexes have become dulled to creative diplomacy. The appearance of weakness has to be avoided. The more muscle, the more menacing the front, the stronger the military, the better. Or so we think.

No doubt about it. Throughout the world disputes over borders, economic power, ethnic loyalties, and religious dogma get people killed, combatants and non-combatants alike. Soon every developing country will want its own nuclear capacity. There are people who have given up on the word "peace" in their region, because they haven't experienced it for generations, in some places for centuries. How do we live in a world like that?

How do Christians live in a world committed to mutual threat and periodic hostility? Do we sit back and go with the flow, especially when our own country wants to rattle its sabers? When called to form our own opinions, are we able to draw on the resources of our faith? As followers of the Prince of Peace, how can we be his ambassadors in a violent world?

Long ago in the Christian past, in the fourth century, some brilliant Christian thinkers began to reflect on the human penchant for violence. Should Christians ever resort to it? Should Christians ever become soldiers? Should they be part of a police force? Yes, our teachers said, with some conditions: violent force should be used only as a last resort, and then only to restrain an aggressor; vengeance should never be the motivation, the appropriate response to hostile action had to be proportionate to the incident it was addressing, and harming noncombatant civilians was to be avoided at all costs.

Throughout the centuries Christian theology has built upon, refined, and reapplied these basic principles that are meant to guide Christians in their thinking and in their actions regarding warfare. After all, those of us who live in a democracy bear a special responsibility for the actions of our governments, in that we are able freely to express ourselves concerning the morality of actions carried out on our behalf. If democratic government is by and for the people, then the people have the responsibility to let their leaders know what lengths and what limitations are acceptably observed in their name.

This means that Christians first of all reflect on the actions of governments, using the basic principles developed in their Christian heritage as guidelines. Reflection is an important first step: is military action necessary, is it for a just cause, and have all other attempts at peace, justice, and reconciliation been exhausted? It is also a good policy to seek information from more than one source and to consider the nature of the sources from which we gather the data on which we base our opinions.

When all reflection is said and done, it must still be realized that not all Christians will arrive at the same judgments regarding military action. There are Christians who are totally devoted to a peace witness, which allows for no violent response whatsoever, even to the most severe provocation. With justification they can point to Jesus' own way of self-giving and to St. Paul's own admonitions against returning evil with evil.

Yet, there is wide space within the Christian community for establishing one's own opinion about engaging in militant warfare. The tradition of conscientious objection and conscientious non-objection to the taking up of arms, even in a given conflict, means that the observance of either option can be done without loss of standing in the Christian community. The main thing is that either option be exercised as conscientious, committing us once again to reflection concerning our decisions.

But does such reflection eventually paralyze us in a world that is quick to use violence as a means to solve disputes? Before we assemble enough facts and before we run through our check-list of basic principles, will we be done in by the village bully who clobbers first and thinks about his actions later? Radical Christian discipleship will consider carefully the witness that we ourselves give to others in our personal search for peace, justice, and reconciliation.

That witness can begin at home. First of all, the law of retaliation doesn't work with Jesus. Before him "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was the major deterrent to a potential invader of your space. But not anymore. Instead of taking revenge, try giving, Jesus said (Matthew 5:38-42). What an impression that made on the Christian movement, because by the time Paul heard it, it had become a Christian principle: "evil is overcome only by good" (Romans 12:21). Giving the bully a Ripken card can make him your friend.

Overcoming evil with good is disarming. It removes the need to re-arm. It creates time for careful listening to others, for recognizing their anger and seeking its cause. It creates a partnership in solving problems rather than in creating multiple new ones. It exhibits our desire for peace, justice, and reconciliation, and avoids the endless cycle of trying to prove who's more powerful at the moment.

It is not realistic to think of a world without conflict, because human beings are, by nature, seekers of their own self-interests. But Christians are called to take the high road, to seek something else first, namely the interests of others (Philippians 2:4), and then all these other things - peace, justice, and reconciliation — will be theirs as well.