life on planet earth on Pacifism

I am not perfect, and I will struggle with the “old Jim,” who was and is influenced by American culture, narratives and values. But the key is that identity comes before behavior. We almost always do ...

George Fox (1624-1691) was the founder of the Quakers, a Christian movement, in seventeenth-century century England. Two of the great Quaker contributions are their teaching on pacifism (refusal to u...

So how can we form deep Christian convictions without dividing the church? Let’s take a deeper look at convictions themselves. Convictions are like light: they come in many colors and form across a sp...

We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, ou...

Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.

Peace like charity, begins at home.

Almighty God, we settle for false peace. We see no need to rock the boat, so we allow injustice to rule and reign. God, give us the conviction to take on the work of peacemaking. Give us the courage, ...

Christians, instead of arming themselves with swords, extend their hands in prayer.

Peace is fierce—it has to be, because violence and discord won’t go down without a fight.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Most women feel as though they give, give, give all day long. We give to ministries, the neighbors, our jobs, and the local PTA. We fill the roles of taxi driver, chef, teacher, and lover. We run to t...

Ernest Hemingway grasped some of the difficulty that characterizes relationships between fathers and sons in his short story, The Capital of the World . The story revolves around a father and his t...

In the Middle East both the main protagonists embrace religions where forgiveness has never been seen as a duty, let alone as a virtue, but rather as a kind of moral weakness—and by “moral weakness” I...

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed; kindle, we ask, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counse...

Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other...

I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a beni...

Many of those who have committed their lives to ending injustice, simply dismiss Jesus’ teachings about nonviolence out of hand as impractical idealism. And with good reason. “Turn the other cheek” su...

To remain neutral in a situation where the laws of the land virtually criticized God for having created men of color was the sort of thing I could not, as a Christian, tolerate.

Do not fear the conflict, and do not flee from it; where there is no struggle, there is no virtue.

In a culture, the most important things usually go without being said. We Westerners don’t talk all the time about being individualists or about the importance of efficiency or why we prefer youth ove...

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

Christian contentment does not mean that we passively accept afflicting circumstances, making no effort to improve our situation. Neither does it mean laying down for injustice in this world.

Christians have no business thinking that the good life consists mainly in not doing bad things. We have no business thinking that to do evil in this world you have to be a Bengal tiger, when, in fact...

God of all might and love, who has given us confidence to come to you with our petitions and intercessions, we bring to you the needs of the world. In this time of global ten­sion, when your children ...

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of ...

Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence.

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

Go in the peace of Christ that is beyond our understanding, and plant this peace by word and deed in this world of turmoil and uncertainty, depending on that all-sufficient grace. Amen.

The meek man will attain a place of soul rest. As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. The old struggle to defend himself is over. He has found the peace which meekness brin...