Editor’s Note: Previously published on Randy Woodley’s Substack on October 28, 2025.
The prophet’s job, then and now, is to speak the truth loud and clear about what we’re actually witnessing. THIS IS NOT PEACE!
“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” – Jeremiah 6:14
The prophet Jeremiah understood false prophets and their dangerous proclamations. Twenty-six centuries later, his words echo with chilling relevance as we watch a man who claims to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize systematically unleash what he himself calls “retribution” and “hate” against his perceived enemies.
Donald Trump has declared war—not on foreign adversaries threatening American lives, but on fellow Americans who dared to hold him accountable. The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so terrifying. Here stands a man who speaks openly of “hating” Adam Schiff, who orders military vessels to blow “small boats out of the water without cause,” who threatens RICO charges against protesters, and who labels non-violent organizations like Code Pink as “terrorist organizations.” Yet he genuinely believes he deserves recognition for peace.
This is what happens when we divorce the concept of peace from justice. True peace—what the Hebrew scriptures call shalom—isn’t merely the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of justice, the wholeness that comes when all relations are in right order. What Trump offers is something else entirely: the peace of the graveyard, the silence that comes when dissent has been crushed and opposition eliminated.
The Ancient Script
Indigenous peoples worldwide know this script intimately. For centuries, colonizers have arrived speaking of peace while wielding swords. They’ve called their violence “pacification campaigns” and their theft “bringing order.” The pattern is as old as empire itself: declare your victims the aggressors, label your violence as peacekeeping, and convince yourself you’re the hero of the story.
Trump’s rhetoric follows this ancient script with remarkable precision. Black Lives Matter activists, who courageously exposed the gap between America’s ideals and its reality, are painted as terrorists. Anti-fascists—people literally opposed to fascism (ANTIFA)—are demonized as threats to democracy. Anti-war mothers and other members of Code Pink, whose members chain themselves to gates and sing songs, are classified alongside actual terrorist organizations.
Perhaps most chilling is the casual ordering of military forces to blow small boats “out of the water without cause”—vessels carrying seven to ten people who are labeled, without evidence, as Venezuelan drug runners bringing fentanyl. Never mind that most fentanyl entering the United States comes from China and Mexico, not Venezuela. Never mind that we have no idea who these people actually are—families fleeing violence, fishermen trying to make a living, or yes, possibly smugglers. The point isn’t accuracy; it’s the demonstration of absolute power over life and death, the message that anyone can be labeled an enemy and eliminated without trial, investigation, or even basic human curiosity about who they might be.
The prophet knew this game. In Jeremiah’s time, false prophets assured the people that all was well while injustice festered and the nation crumbled from within. They offered comfortable lies instead of uncomfortable truths. They promised peace without addressing the systemic wounds that made genuine peace impossible.
The Dogs of War Unleashed
When Shakespeare wrote “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,” he understood something Trump appears to miss entirely: you cannot simultaneously release the dogs of war and claim to be a peacemaker. You cannot threaten your political opponents with prosecution, detention, and violence while seriously expecting recognition for promoting peace.
The detention of legal immigrants reveals the particular cruelty of this approach. These are people who followed every rule, jumped through every bureaucratic hoop, and believed in the promise of America as a refuge. Now they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a man’s personal vendettas, their legal status suddenly meaningless in the face of his rage.
This is revenge fantasy played out on the national stage. And like all revenge fantasies, it demands an ever-expanding circle of enemies to sustain itself. Today it’s Adam Schiff and immigrant families. Tomorrow it might be journalists who ask uncomfortable questions, or judges who rule against presidential overreach, or ordinary citizens whose only crime was exercising their constitutional rights.
The Theological Dimension
From a theological perspective, what we’re witnessing is a profound perversion of the concept of peace. In the Christian tradition, peace is intimately connected to justice—you cannot have one without the other. The prophets consistently linked peace to righteousness, understanding that sustainable harmony requires addressing root causes of conflict, not simply silencing those who name the problems.
Trump’s version of “peace” requires no righteousness, demands no justice, and offers no healing. It’s the peace of the strong man keeping his house in order through force and intimidation. It’s Pharaoh’s peace, Herod’s peace, Caesar’s peace—the temporary quiet that comes from successful oppression.
But history teaches us that such “peace” is always temporary. Violence begets violence. Injustice breeds resentment. Truth, as the saying goes, crushed to earth will rise again. The question isn’t whether Trump’s dogs of war will eventually turn on their master—history suggests they inevitably do. The question is how much damage they’ll inflict before that reckoning comes.
The Prophetic Response
Those of us who follow in the prophetic tradition have a clear mandate in moments like these: we must name the lie. We must refuse to call violence peace, injustice order, or oppression security. We must insist that words mean things, that peace has a definition, and that genuine peace requires the hard work of justice, and whenever possible, love. That sounds like a soft word to use in such hard times, but we must learn to love those different than ourselves.
By refusing to accept false peace, we keep alive the possibility of real peace. By naming the violence inherent in the current moment, we preserve space for true reconciliation. By standing with those being demonized and detained, we demonstrate what actual peacemaking looks like.
The ancient Hebrew prophets understood peace is not a prize to be claimed by the powerful, but a gift that emerges from communities committed to justice, mercy, and humility. It cannot be imposed from above through superior firepower or political maneuvering. It must be cultivated from below through patient work of truth-telling, relationship-building, and systemic change.
Choosing the Harder Peace
Trump’s “peace” is easy—it requires only the submission of his enemies and the silence of his critics. True peace is infinitely harder. It requires acknowledging uncomfortable truths, confronting systemic injustices, and doing the slow work of healing historical wounds. It means listening to Black Lives Matter activists instead of labeling them terrorists. It means protecting legal immigrants instead of detaining them. It means treating political opponents as fellow human beings rather than enemies to be destroyed.
The choice before us is clear: we can accept the false peace of the strong man, purchased with the silence of the oppressed and the blood of the innocent. Or we can join the long line of prophets, activists, and ordinary citizens who have insisted that real peace is possible—but only on the far side of justice.
Jeremiah’s words ring across the centuries: “They say ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” The prophet’s job, then and now, is to speak the truth loud and clear about what we’re actually witnessing. THIS IS NOT PEACE! These aren’t the actions of a peacemaker. And those of us who believe in genuine peace—costly peace, justice-shaped peace, prophetic peace—must say so, openly and without apology.
The dogs of war have been unleashed. Calling them doves doesn’t change their nature.
