Tuesday 3 April 2007

Surging for peace

Came across an interesting website recently on Spirituality and Practice, one item on which Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat call for a Peace Surge, writing:
"in our view, we are living in the scariest moment since the Cuban missile crisis when the world was carried to the brink of nuclear war in a confrontation between the United States and Russia. The difference is that there is still time for citizens and their representatives to stop this descent into violence and destructiveness. So this week we are asking you to read, practice, and act to create a peace surge. We'll explore the other part of this process, creating inner peace to enable you to keep up your activism, in the weeks ahead."

Another type approach to spirituality and peace comes from the World Council of Churches' 'Decade to Overcome Violence', which announced in the last week details of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation, taking place in May 2011. Leading up to that they envisage "a major worldwide moblization of churches for peace". This will all be fed into a Declaration on Just Peace which will be "an act of public witness and an affirmation of enduring hope ina world torn apart by violence". The press release about this also mentions the need for the declaration to acknowledge the wrongs that Christian churches have committed over the centuries, and - encouragingly - will seek to learn from insights from other faiths.