Peace Messenger

Commissioned for Peacemaking

"Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that

Building a Culture of Peace in Jamaica

The International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) scheduled for May 17-25, 2011 in Kingston, Jamaica, is being billed as be a "harvest festival" celebrating the achievements of the Decade to Overcome Violence which began in 2001. At the same time it encourages individuals and churches to renew their commitment to nonviolence, peace and justice. (The peace mural pictured above is on the campus of Kingston University, the conference site).

According to Rev. Dr Paul Gardner, the president of the Jamaica Council of Churches, one of the event's hosts, the event "will be a

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

''In Hitler's Germany, a Lutheran pastor chooses resistance and pays with his life. . . Eric Metaxas tells Bonhoeffer's story with passion and theological sophistication, often challenging revisionist accounts that make Bonhoeffer out to be a 'humanist' or ethicist for whom religious doctrine was easily disposable. . . Metaxas reminds us that there are forms of religion -- respectable, domesticated, timid -- that may end up doing the devil's work for him. --Wall Street Journal

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy
by Eric Metaxas
Thomas Nelson / 2010

Peace Among the Peoples

Thanks to Jeff Boyd of Adventist Activism, the recent Peace Among the Peoples conference in Indiana was not without a Seventh-day Adventist presence.  Jeff participates on the Christian Peace Witness planning committee, and helps keep APF connected.  See his conference report at Jeff's Peace and Justice Journal.

Speakers included noted theologian Stanley Hauerwas (above), and

Occupation of Iraq Rebranded and Privatized

The widely-noted withdrawal of the last U.S. combat brigade from Iraq is indeed a major development, but it marks a new phase of the U.S. occupation, not its end, wrote Semuas Milne earlier this month in the Guardian:

...The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".

But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do....