The Donkey and the Warhorse

There are people who know what war really does.

Not in theory. Not in headlines. But in their bodies, their homes, their histories.

Last year, with my church community we sponsored a refugee family to settle in Australia through the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot CRISP program. As the war on Iran and Lebanon has begun, the family has shared their concerns that this war just means more meaningless killing and displacement of their people—the Kurds.

Kurdish people are a distinct ethnic, cultural and linguistic group who live across Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. For generations they have faced repression and betrayal from the states around them.

There is a well-known Kurdish saying:

“The Kurds have no friends but the mountains.”

The lands they inhabit—a rugged arc of mountains and borderlands—have often been the only places where Kurdish identity could survive when governments turned against them.

Today the USA is encouraging Kurdish fighters to rise up against the Iranian regime. And there are reports Kurdish troops are amassing at the Iran/Iraq border. But Kurdish history offers a painful warning about how global powers treat them.

In recent years Kurdish forces carried much of the burden in defeating the so-called Islamic State. Yet in 2019, Trump abruptly withdrew troops from Syria, effectively abandoning Syria’s Kurds. Left exposed, a Turkish military offensive began against them within days of the withdrawal.

The Kurdish story is full of moments where global powers have encouraged them to fight—only to withdraw support when the geopolitical winds shift.

The Illusion of Clean Wars

Supporters of the war on Iran often frame it in moral terms: stopping nuclear weapons, confronting authoritarianism, or weakening a dangerous regime. Those goals are not trivial. As I covered in the last blog, Iran’s government has a long record of repression, violence against dissenters, and destabilising actions across the region. 

But the lessons of the Kurds remind us of a painful truth: Wars rarely unfold the way their architects promise. They unleash forces that no one can fully control. And the people who suffer most are rarely those who made the decision to send people to the frontline. 

Already this conflict is spreading instability across the region. More than one million people are displaced in Lebanon. Iran has launched retaliatory missiles and drones at military targets and infrastructure across the Gulf, raising fears of wider regional escalation and global economic disruption. And from day one, with a girls school bombed, killing 165, we know that it is civilians who pay the biggest toll.

The Donkey and the Warhorse

In the first blog in this series, Gershon Nimbalker explored how on Palm Sunday, instead of entering Jerusalem on a warhorse, Jesus chose for his triumphal entry to be on a humble donkey. That image has been sitting with me. 

The warhorse is about control, force, victory.
The donkey is something else entirely.

The warhorse sends others to die for its cause.
The one who rides the donkey lays down His life for others.

We live in a time of upheaval. One in 67 people globally has been forcibly displaced by war or persecution. As conflicts rage, the international order that has held since World War II is beginning to fracture.

And alongside this, the Church in the West is in decline—not just in numbers, but in moral imagination. Into that vacuum, Christian nationalism has surged.

But we should be clear: Christian nationalism arrives on a warhorse.
Jesus arrives on a donkey, as a sign of peace, extending the call for His followers to be peacemakers (Matt 5:9).

And I think, even now, we are still being asked to choose which kingdom we belong to.

This blog is the third in a three-part blog series shared with the Common Grace movement around Palm Sunday 2026, in response to the increasing conflict in the Middle East and growing displacement crisis across the globe. Read Gershon Nimbalker's first blog in this series, 'Peace not Empire. Jesus not Genghis'. Read James Harris' second blog in this series 'Walking the Narrow Path'. 

Next Steps

Please join us in prayer for peace, safety and welcome for refugees and those across the globe seeking asylum. Explore prayer resources here. 

Do you have a story of being welcomed, or welcoming refugees into your community? Share your story with us. In 2026, Refugee Week (17 - 23 June) will be celebrated with the theme of ‘A Million Stories’ to mark the one million permanent humanitarian visas Australia has issued since international calls in 1947 to help resettle people after the horrors of WW2. This remarkable legacy of welcome is one we should be deeply proud of, and one that has woven a rich tapestry of friendship and shared experience into the heart of our communities and culture. Find out more and share your story here. 

If you haven’t already,  sign up with your email to join us on the journey and keep up to date on how you can be taking action with Common Grace as we pursue peace and speak out for justice or our asylum-seeker friends looking for welcome on our shores.