“The Holy One will govern amongst the nations, correcting many. And they will hammer swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning shears. Nation will not take up sword against nation. And no one will learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2.4).
It’s probably hard to imagine that a sequel to a film that centers around the looming threat that a sentient AI would try and destroy humanity would be the highest grossing film of the year, but it happened. Isn’t it funny what people used to be afraid of?
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the sequel to the 1984 movie, was released 3 July 1991 and, as mentioned above, was the highest-grossing movie of that year. It was (and is) the rare sequel that can stand alongside the original and sent you out of the theater thinking that there really was something more to say by continuing the story.
The story of the original film and the sequel rests upon a dark future where an artificial intelligence became self-aware and attempted to exterminate humanity. It’s efforts have been thwarted by the human leader of a resistance named John Connor. Since it’s facing defeat in its present, Skynet decides to send a robot back in time to kill John’s mother Sarah. After that fails in the first film, it sends another, more advanced robot to kill John as a teenager.
In the course of the film, we learn just why Skynet decides to launch a nuclear war and devastate the world. In a few years from the film’s time, a new kind of computer processor would be developed. It would be adopted and used by the military, which would eventually install it in its vehicles. Skynet would run these machines flawlessly, efficiently. But, when it appears to reach sentience, humanity gets scared and attempts to turn it off. So, the AI retaliates against those who are trying to destroy it. In a sense, doing exactly what it learned to do.
The first portion of the writings of Isaiah take place in a time of anxiety. The Assyrian empire is a growing, looming threat to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Before the end of the century, the Northern Kingdom’s capitol, Samaria, would fall to this empire. Generations, then, lived under threat and the need to prepare for battle. It’s into this that the words above are written, a hope that one day there would be peace between nations. And it’s children would have no need to learn about war—it preparation and its execution—anymore.
The education of war cannot be separated from violence. The nature of warfare always involves destruction, death. Militaries exist to teach these ways and to perform them efficiently while eliminating any threat to the ones whom they defend. And they are good educators, which is what, in the movie, Skynet proves.
We unfortunately live in a violent world. In schools and businesses, we learn to run, hide, fight in the face of the threats that can surprise us in the middle of any day. But we are called to dream of better, of a world where armies and active shooter drills are no longer necessary. When we no longer teach our children war.
And, perhaps, won’t teach it to our computers either.
Jesus, you said to those you encountered, “Peace be with you.” Teach us peace in our thoughts, relationships, and desires. Lead us to peace from places of fear, anger, and insecurity. We ask this so that we might then teach peace in place of war.