The conclusion of this painting is not subtle, but the content is complex and needs some explaining. Good paintings speak for themselves, but this is not a good painting.

The two peaks on the left represent the two World Wars, vast heaps of carnage, military hardware and waste, which still dominate at a distance the world landscape. They are volcanoes spewing forth a vast lava flow of crosses/ deaths which continue down to the present in the foreground, for, broadly history moves through from background to the present foreground with some exceptions. The volcanoes also reference the Armenian massacre, the “Arbeit Macht Frei” arch lie of the Holocaust, the Korean War and the gun conclusion that threatening gives peace.

The graves are presided over by examine-my-armpit Hitler, the Militarist. I know, by study, that Hitler was enabled by US, French and even some British arms and money to militarize in the middle late 30s. Even worse, the British appeasers opposed the 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference. If we had supported the Hoover Plan for disarmament Hitler would not have come to power. They then, of course, gave him the large Czech Skoda arms complex which completed his armaments for European aggression. If your eyes move across to the arms trader, the Merchant of Death, his arm mirrors Hitler. They are doing the same salute to the process of death and destruction.

This uncovers the basic lie of the 20/21 century. We are all taught that arms protect us against Hitlers. The truth is that Hitler was armed by arms traders. They sell weapons telling everybody buy weapons and you will be safe from militarists. But militarists buy weapons. This is the lie from 1945 until now. The Arms traders and Hitler are on the same side – the militarists. So, in the picture they both slope arms to death. We in the West have taught Japan, China, the USSR, the Arab States and dozens of countries around the world to buy, make and use arms. We have militarised the world under the cover of preventing another Hitler. We have danced to the tune of the Merchants of Death. They are in the centre of the picture with their real motive uncamouflaged, helping the flow of the river of blood, Money drives the arms industry, not defence. Since Krupp they want profits and make missiles, bombers, guns and the stuff of killing and destruction and run the show. Trump, Xi, Putin and Boris appear on the shield, because they are militarist pawns, sold out to weapons, fear and power as control..

As the eye moves to the right, there are two atomic clouds, another achievement of militarism. Warplanes fly about including an F35 with its price tag, and then central foreground is the Goldsboro accident nuclear bomb. In January 1961 a B52 bomber crashed releasing two nuclear bombs less than 200 miles from Washington. This one fell, partly cushioned by its parachute. Three of the four detonation devices were fired and the explosion message went to the core where the fourth safety device held. It was the warning, God’s warning, for those who had ears to hear. Eisenhower was warned and spoke of the dangers of the dominant Military-Industrial Complex in his final Presidential speech. He was heard, but the show went on.

Then comes the key to the picture. Jesus’ words were, “Those who take the sword, perish by the sword” or here “Use the sword? It gets you”. They do not just apply to Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler, Japan, Alexander the Great, but also the West. The irony of the CIA training and arming Al Qaida to bomb the twin towers and the Pentagon seems lost on most Americans, or of arming Saddam and then going to war with him twice. Here in the panting the Pentagon and the Twin Towers go up in smoke, as they did from Al Qaida trained by the CIA. Arms are self-destructive the world over. In case thickies have not worked it, bottom right the full costs of militarism through history are stated – perhaps $1,000,000,000,000,000 including deaths, injuries, destruction, arms, pollution, energy costs, the useless work of fighting, nuclear weapons and more, a vast waste to humankind which we continue to expand, while the cost of peace is zero, or nearly so. We can opt for the money-saving option. There are good things to do woth trillionds of dollars. In the painting PTSD is on the ground, centre foreground, another large ignored burden on humanity for centuries. So, Militarism is the biggest failed experiment in history as it says across the bombsited middle distance. On the frame the conclusion: “The utter futility of militarism” is written, on the understanding that any sane person, free from the myth that weapons keep us safe, and the fear which keeps the military system in place, has to conclude that this is irrefutably true. Militarism is a human curse, the biggest curse on the planet. Why is the painting so repetitive of the failure of militarism? Because the counter-message brainwashes the world.

Just in case the doubter still exists, the picture throws in George W Bush aboard the Aircraft Carrier in 2003 announcing that he had won the Eyraq War with the famous phrase, “Mission Accomplished” emblazoned on the banner and in his speech. Even now the US and UK are finally withdrawing from Iraq twenty years later having lost the war, undermined the UN, spawned a vast system of terrorist responses and destroyed much of the country and made it ungovernable. The cost of the War, estimated at the time to cost $100bn, turns out on Stiglitz’s estimate at $3tn. The cost to Iraq of this illegal war must be many trillions more. Well done, George Doubleya, Tony Blair and Rumsfeld.

But “Mission Accomplished” serves two masters. On the horizon, furthest away, stand three empty crosses. This is centrally a Christian painting. The cross is often sentimentalised, but it is the symbol of Roman Militarism’s power to string anybody up who challenges their military dominance. Jesus gave us all the kit to end militarism. He disarmed the cross. We are to eliminate the fear of those who threaten to kill the body and only fear God. He breaks the fear of militarism. We are to sort quarrels early and by going the second mile. We are to love enemies and that means understanding why they are enemies and crossing all the aggressions of militarism. We routinely love old enemies because they are not, whether in Yorkshire and Lancashire, Jews and Gentiles and through holidaying with them. We can love enemies without the hostility industry of the Militarists. To be forgiven, we must forgive. Jesus shows love to the Roman centurion, and even to Pilate, whom he understands and sympathizes with, though Pilate will weakly agree to string Jesus up. The empty cross is Mission Accomplished, the threat of militarism defeated by the resurrection and the gentle Lamb on the throne of political rule, giving us democracy, the servant ruler and the healing of the nations. Jesus leaves his peace with us and tells us to get on with doing it. “Blessed are the peace makers.” Of course they are, because peace blesses us all. We all want to live in peace, but we back the losing horse militarism. How bloody silly we are in the full sense of the words. The bloody crosses in the picture come right through to the present as they do in the news now. There is the way of Jesus, utterly practical. The futility of militarism is laid bare and we are to make peace, as Jesus tells us.

Let us not give in to this preposterous idea that peace works! Militarism must be defended! How can Christ say that commitment to weapons causes war, even for those who arm? How stupid! Weapons are always used in war, but the idea that investing in and having weapons leads to war is preposterous. Weapons stop war, don’t they Jesus? Weapons are the solution and you say they are the problem. We have had guns for peace, Dreadnoughts for peace, tanks for peace, machine guns for peace, fighters, bombers, cannon, nuclear bombs, nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers and of course, the Peacekeeper missile, and if we just try a little harder with weapons peace will arrive.  So don’t be so cynical, Jesus. But the painting has given up. Weapons cause wars. It is full of the disjointed mess of weapons and war. It is an ugly painting. The point is to see through this disaster and quit. World Disarmament, everybody getting rid of weapons, easier than competitive armament, might result in weapons not being used.

Through study, over twenty years, I have seen that disarmament is easier than militarism. Yes, read that again. But it is obvious. Military costs fall around the world. There is no destruction. Governments do good, not arm to destroy. The economy makes useful things. Wars end. Economic co-operation increases. Tens of millions of refugees go home. Cities are rebuilt. It nearly succeeded in 1932 with a strong Christian input, but was defeated, but what a different, relaxed world it would have been without Hitler, WW2 and the Cold War. Disarmament is relatively simple. It needs as clear set of rules for everybody which can be implemented openly and with world-wide accountability. And there is one more requirement. The militarists must not be put in charge, or be in charge, because they will try to mess it up. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas or put the oven on. The Merchants of Death must be outed from control.

You will be uneasy with this painting. That is because we have all been battered into believing that peace and disarmament is idealistic and arming is realistic. It is exactly the opposite. Peace and disarmament work and everyone loses wars and arms races. We can see that within countries. There is the idealistic hope in the US that if everybody is armed they are all safe but already more than a million have died through guns this century in the US. Other countries with few domestic arms have very few deaths from guns. Weapons do not produce peace because they are designed to kill. Forget the propaganda. Disarmament and peace work and militarism is idealistic and has let us down time after time. this is practical sense and not an ideal.

About ten years ago it became clear to me that the business of disarming the world (provided the military are not in charge as in the 30s and 60s) is not difficult to do.  There is a strong process that can do it. Arms companies cease arms production completely and are subsidized at a falling level to move over to other kinds of production, much of which they could do very well. Then the basic rule is that all militaries are cut 20% a year for five years until it is all gone, supervised and policed by other countries. Open inspection and sophisticated surveillance guarentees no-one can cheat.  Terrorists can sell back arms or face UN armed policing intervention to close them down. Some 60 million people in the armed forces can do a range of good jobs for which many are already trained. International law can take over. It is the way peaceful domestic political life operates around much of the earth; when there are almost no arms, you just need a few police. The peace bonus is enormous. It is good practical world politics. We are just taught that it is not possible by the big military machines, but they are wrong. They cannot let the truth that we can disarm the world out, because it sinks them. It is suppressed every which way – scares, new weapons, rows, constructing enemies, shows of strength, demonising states. But we can disarm the world and it will be relatively easy. The painting affirms that we can disarm the world.

But that is old. Now, We Must Disarm the World. There is the global warming challenge, and world disarmament cuts total world CO2 generation by nearly 10% fast; it helps save the planet. But also the military system and NATO are even now setting up a new, ever more dangerous, Cold War – the US and China, the US and Russia, with the UK, France, Israel and other dancing in the wings – the militaries and arms producers in all of them are setting up their business for the next few decades – arming space, renewing nuclear weapons, cyber-war, aircraft carriers like mobile airfields, drones, anti this and anti that. We will be into a big US-China military stand-off for decades unless we address it now. We Must Disarm the World, or we face world antagonistic collapse in militarised failure as the planet burns.  

And that brings us to the final lap in the painting, the foreground. Should militarism and its chaos be the whole picture? Certainly not, and already something different is growing. Covid has taught us again to care for life. The climate deniers have become lunatics and the big corporations slowing our need to go green are in retreat. We need to green the planet, not fight, and the foreground which will take over. There are three areas of growth – good old fashioned God-given beauty, as in our garden flowers – the rose, then ears of wheat to feed us. “Give us this day our daily bread” for all, and not the few, and finally, the oak shoot. Christ grew up before God like a tender plant, like a root out of dry ground, straight and tall. He was despised and rejected, but he has brought us peace and by his wounds we are healed. Nor will we train for war any more. We need again to grow before God straight, following Christ. We are the shoots that God has planted. The weapons of war will become the tools of agriculture. We, the people of God, can let the peace of Christ rest wherever. Good practical peace that does weapons and aggression away. These shoots will do away with war.

But, who will do it? There is the Mike Butterworth question: “How can little i do anything in the face of the world’s vast superpowers and military systems of armament?” The answer is the little people, us, and numbers. Large numbers of people have power. Fragmented groups do not. When millions own and stand for disarmament, it can happen. It nearly did in 1932.  God has two billion Christians around the world and it is about time they understood that they can work together and should work together to do what God asks. For a century churchpeople have been cowed into being loyal to the military, nationalist state and deserting the Christian doctrine of peace. They shake hands and peck cheeks in church as though that were the sum of the biblical teaching. Bishops bless battleships and we have services for the continuous at sea nuclear deterrent, without questioning whether it has deterred anything anywhere. We are timid. Like a mighty army rooted is the Church of God. Two billion agreed about disarmament and making peace are unstoppable. Five million in China and the US, a million in the UK, Germany, Russia and the rest will follow. The Church merely has to learn to put two billion votes in the public square. With the web it’s not even difficult. People sign up, together with other people of peace. In military language it is called mobilisation, or people power. The Church has never, although nearly in 1932, acted together world-wide. This is the time. Quit introversion and act. When we make peace by faith – petitions, votes, movements, shaping up the United Nations – for nation shall speak peace unto nation in God’s good world – then the world will change. Christians divided by nationalisms, fears, wary lest they be seen as unpatriotic, see the way of God’s peace and the futility of militarism and act, nailing their vote for peace on the world’s stage and challenging the weak militarists. For militarists producing nothing but destruction are really very weak, like children bashing up toys. We see all that Christ has been teaching them and change the world. This painting is an attempt to be a key opening the door to disarmament and peace. We are to be oaks of good living, by faith seek to move the mountains of wars and arms accumulation. It involves understanding this vast waste and vast failure, killing millions, gobbling up trillions and helping the planet to burn. But God can extend peace to us and even in the next ten years if we get busy..