On making peace when we can’t get everything we want

A political scientist explains why cutting a deal with immoral actors is sometimes the best choice

Often in life, we have to get along with or make a deal with someone we don’t like.

Currently, the most prominent example of that uncomfortable reality is the growing realization that the war in Ukraine will never end unless (a) Ukraine and its allies give Vladimir Putin something that makes peace more attractive than war for Russia or (b) Ukraine’s allies muster overwhelming military force against Russia, causing enormous destruction and perhaps a military conflict.

But similar dilemmas arise in our own lives. Whether it’s promising not to criticize the government so that our churches are left alone or collaborating with a local pastor whose style we dislike, sometimes we have to bite our tongues, swallow our frustrations, and do something distasteful because there is no better option.

To help us think through such situations in a principled manner, I called on Tim Milosch, who teaches political science at Biola University and whose essay on applying just-war theory in Ukraine I cited in a previous post. (The university’s name derives from its origin as the Bible Institute of Los Angeles.)

As a young Christian in the early 2000s, Milosch experienced discomfort with the widespread perception of God as a “cosmic butler” always there to meet our needs. “There is not much room in that theology,” he said, “for wrestling with the problem of evil and the practical reality of sin or what it means at the institutional and social level.”

Milosch says his perspective was shaped by foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead and Catholic philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain, as well as by his recognition—reinforced by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States—of the daily impact of the fallenness of human nature.

Main points of the following Q&A:

• Christians are responsible to seek or restore peace.

• Fighting may sometimes be necessary to restore a just peace, but peace should still be the goal.

• We can negotiate in good conscience with evil forces, particularly where continuing to fight will only add to injustice.

• Where living at peace with others is not possible, then we should seek God’s wisdom regarding alternative strategies.

Q&A with Tim Milosch

As a Christian, how do you approach ethically the idea of seeking peace with someone like Putin who has committed crimes against humanity?

Evil is a real thing. What we’re seeing in Ukraine is one outworking of that evil. As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers. Jesus didn’t say to only be peaceful with people who are nice to you.

Of course, Jesus was focusing on the interpersonal level. Some of the issues in peacemaking between warring nations are different. But we still have a responsibility to seek to restore peace.

The pacifist thread, which is influential in evangelical Christianity, believes that the best way to make peace is by not contributing to conflict. In contrast, the thinking of Christian realism, often associated with Reinhold Niebuhr, says that in some cases you have to take forceful action to restore peace. Historically, there has been pretty broad agreement on the need to resist when moral evil is deployed through violent means.

The world has had a lot of wicked rulers, and historically, even Christian governments have not adopted a posture of war toward every wicked ruler they encountered. That would be inconsistent with our call to be peacemakers. Rarely do wars end in the complete destruction of a wicked regime, as was the case with Nazi Germany. They end in negotiated treaties.

So seeking peace with Putin is not a historical anomaly. Whether it will be a good and just peace is a separate question. But you can pursue peace with Putin in good conscience.

I hear two main objections to a negotiated ceasefire. One is the injustice of letting Putin retain any territory he has invaded; the other is that appeasing Putin will just encourage him to pursue further aggression, like British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s attempt to appease Hitler in 1938. Can you address those objections?

First, even though Ukraine unquestionably has a just cause, further injustice can come from prolonging war. A just cause is a necessary condition to fight a just war, but not a sufficient condition. Ukraine has a high probability of continuing to exist as a nation but a much lower probability of winning back the territory it has lost in the last 11 years since Putin invaded Crimea in 2014. In that case, the question is which war aim we should support—national survival or recovery of lost territory—and probability of success becomes an important factor.

As for the second objection, what happened in 1938 after Hitler seized the Sudetenland, a German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia, is actually more like 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas region from Ukraine and there was no forceful response, which encouraged Putin to undertake a broader invasion in 2022.

A better parallel to the current situation in Ukraine is Korea in 1950. The United States proposed a ceasefire, but neither North Korea nor South Korea initially wanted to come to the negotiating table, because both were pursuing maximalist war aims—seeking to reunify Korea under their control. You can’t negotiate the end of a destructive war when the combatants don’t think they need to give in.

What are the lessons for Christians who deal with similar challenges in their countries or their daily lives?

All the problems we confront, from government corruption to persecution of religious minorities to civil wars, are the result of a fallen world in which people seek to leverage institutions of power for wicked ends. That’s a reason for Christians to be engaged, where they can, in positions of power.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say, since I live in a democracy and I have freedom of speech and assembly. Many other people don’t.

For those in more difficult circumstances, I would note that Paul in Romans 12:18 said we should live at peace with all people “if it is possible.” He left open the possibility that it may not be possible, in which case we have to exercise biblically informed wisdom on how to proceed. We may choose to work within government institutions for reform, participate in protest, or (the most controversial option) join a war effort. Faithful Christians may differ on strategy. But regardless of how they seek to engage, there should be a commitment to fostering peace where it exists and restoring it where it doesn’t exist. And even then, we should recall that fostering peace is not an end in itself. The goal is to represent Christ and his kingdom well.