On the list of songs that I hate with a burning passion, John Lennon's Imagine has to be somewhere near the top. It's a song that weaponizes naïveté to an almost unforgivable degree, encouraging people to equate peace with a lack of differences.
Imagine if there were no borders, no God, and no capitalism! There'd be nothing to get in the way of us all getting along and living in peace.
It's a jaw-droppingly stupid song that people love to rally around whenever a Republican goes to war, and even if they're not singing it, this is the mentality behind the anti-war sentiment.
What I hate about this song isn't just that it's a tool to convince stupid people to be against the latest Republican agenda item; I hate it because it's wildly unrealistic, so much so that it spits in the face of the nature of our reality. You're effectively supposed to "imagine" a fairytale land that we, in the world we live in, cannot measure up to, and the people who believe in Lennon's words treat it more like a finger-wag than a pleasant daydream.
Peace is something we should all strive for, but the sad fact is that peace isn't something we get because we hope for it. In fact, peace is something you don't just get handed to you because you pray for it either.
Yet, that seems to be what the Pope asked us to do. To pray for peace, but also disarmament.
Would you imagine what a world without wars would be like? #PrayTogether pic.twitter.com/ecJQ8C7dAV
— Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex) March 5, 2026
To be sure, no Pope should ever be happy about God's children killing one another for any reason, and praying for peace is, without reservation, a good thing to do.
Of course, I pray for peaceful times, but even in the Bible, peace was never guaranteed to the peaceful. It wasn't even guaranteed to Christ, who told his own apostles to sell their cloaks and buy a sword in Luke 22:36. He knew things could go south as His ministry ramped up, and it was necessary to prepare themselves for a fight if it should come to it.
In Nehemiah 4:17-18, as they were building Jerusalem's walls, the workers carried weapons with them to be ready for an attack at any moment.
You might say, "But Brandon, these are instances where defensive measures would be necessary from attacks."
I'll remind you that Joshua led an entire purging of bad elements from Canaan to establish Israel, and that Joshua 11:23 notes "So Joshua took the entire land... and the land had rest from war." Before Joshua and the would-be Israelites got there, the city-states were constantly warring with one another, raiders and bandits plagued the area, and being a mercenary was a high-value business. Joshua came in, destroyed it all, and brought peace to the land.
The key point here is that he DESTROYED before peace could be achieved.
The sad truth is, not everyone wants peace. At least not in the way we here in the West want peace. The Islamic world, for instance, thinks there can be no peace so long as there are other nations that don't adhere to Islamic principles, and they actively refuse to let Israel live in peace. Iran, one of the largest funders of terrorism in the world, is responsible for many attacks on Israel.
Even if they managed to get what they want, and all of the world fell under Islam, and there was no Israel, there would still be no peace. Islam's goal is domination, not democracy, and everyone under it would live in abject fear of being the next to die for a minor infraction. Islam, hilariously called the "religion of peace," cannot actually tolerate peace to any degree, both within and without its borders.
That's why the old Catholic church was forced to have these fun adventures called "Crusades" where they pushed back an invasive force that was, in every way, antithetical to peace, on top of the fact that they were antithetical to Christianity and Western values.
I agree we should pray for peace, but if even Jesus's boys had to arm up to stay safe, then we can assume we're not going to get away with going without swords either. I'm not going to "imagine" peace, because that's what my enemies hope I'll do. Easier to conquer everything that way.
