What values and beliefs are at work in Israel’s military response towards Palestine and Lebanon? Initially we thought revenge. Soldiers have been kidnapped, action taken, then things escalated from there. Israel has always hit back harder when they have been attacked. Why?

They are surrounded by Islamic countries that hate them. They are affluent; in fact they are more like a western country. They are Jewish in religion rather than being Muslim. So perhaps some of their actions are an aggressive form of self defence. Perhaps they value their freedom, their country and they see the kidnappings as a serious threat against their freedom. So what advice would we give Israel and their neighbours? The best we could come up with is a ceasefire so that diplomacy, so that talking might sought things out.

Five World Values

If you had to come up with five values for the world, what would they be:

1) Equality

Everyone should be equal. No one should be more important than another person. Practically speaking this is very difficult to implement because of an inequality of wealth. Having money means to most people that you are more important. There was quite a violent reaction against this. It was expressed that money and the things it buys is worthless, shallow and meaningless. ‘The things money gets you doesn’t make you more important.’ However, we didn’t want to redistribute wealth, we thought that people had to earn their money.

If we hold to equality then we won’t look down on people who are less fortunate. So our value affects our behaviour.

2) No bombing each other (Peace)

Peace is an excellent value. Practically speaking it is difficult to implement. What do we do with those who are violent, those who oppose peace? To get rid of them is to breach our own value of peace. One idea is to ask them to stop. Another was to educate people (this is the government’s favourite solution for most problems).

If we really want to have peace as a value then we must try not to respond like Israel when people hurt our feelings. This is hard to do in real life.

God’s Values

We seemed to be running out of steam so I switched tracks. God’s values are expressed in the Ten Commandments. Like not lying and not stealing. We all agreed that they were good values. So why is it so hard to keep God’s values? I suggested that the reason is we are selfish. We lie to protect ourselves, to further ourselves.

One student thought that to be completely selfless would make a person empty, in the sense that they wouldn’t have a direction or a purpose but would only be their for other people. I agree that everyone needs a purpose but so often our purpose in life is self centred. She suggested that a balance was needed between self and others.

Jesus Christ was completely selfless because he was living for God (doing the Father’s will). In living for God Jesus had a purpose, to save us from our selfishness (sin). So we need to choose between living for ourselves (to please me) or living for God, pleasing God. We can summarise the Ten Commandments which are God’s values for the world this way.

If we love God and we love other people the world will be a better place. The problems that we see in the world and in our lives are a result of us not sharing God’s values. Jesus Christ came into the world to help us overcome our tendency to be selfish.