 September/October 2001 (XXXIX 4) |
The epistle from the Historic Peace Churches Consultation included affirmations, confession, and suggestions for the Decade to Overcome Violence. Some extracts follow and the full text can be seen at www.peacetheology.org/papers/letter.html.
reetings in the name of the Prince of Peace.
Affirmations
Together we affirm the following: … The good news of the gospel is more than a renunciation of violence in the struggle for justice and reconciliation. It is a call and a gift to seek to develop a culture of peace that creatively addresses and overcomes the many causes of violence in the contemporary world. … A careful study of the Scriptures discloses this unity of nonviolent love, the struggle for justice, reconciliation, and the creative search for a culture of peace. In the Sermon on the Mount, love for the adversary includes reproof and creative confrontation of evil, but does not include competing with the violent methods of evil. In the New Testament account, the early church did not avoid confrontation for the sake of the Truth. We are called to find creative nonviolent ways to address situations of conflict in the search for justice. These include solidarity with the victim, binding the wounds of the oppressed, addressing the needs of the poor, seeking genuine understanding and empathy with all partners of the conflict, efforts for reconciliation when possible, learning to forgive, and genuine love of enemy.
Our witness proceeds from worship, prayer, study and discernment within the discipline of the community of faith. At the same time our witness reaches out to the civil societies and ecological environments within which we all live. Peace in its depth includes spiritual, communal and political dimensions as well as a care for the earth.
Confession
At the beginning of the 21st century, does the title “Historic Peace Churches” fit the Church of the Brethren, Mennonites and Friends? In many places, we have become indistinguishable from the society around us. Some of us would challenge the extent to which we identify with and conform to our respective states. Is our peace witness simply historic, or does it stand as a challenge to the modern forms of national religion? Our churches’ peace witness arose within contexts of suffering and persecution. Today, many of our churches, especially in the North, exist in a position of privilege in our societies, and no longer speak from the vantage point from which our ethic arose. This fact, far from calling into question the radical nature of the gospel, could instead stand as a call to repentance. Many of us have been too inattentive to our brothers and sisters who live in situations of real suffering, whether in the Southern Hemisphere or in the North, and even within our churches and homes. We do not seek suffering for its own sake; yet too many of us practice a comfortable and conformist ethic of peace, which is incompatible with God’s mission to overcome the evils of this world. We deplore the apparent inability of this very consultation to more fully reflect the realities in which many of our churches in the Southern Hemisphere find themselves.
Commitment to the Decade to Overcome Violence
The search for peace is not the possession of the peace churches, but is a deep common yearning of all Christians, people of other faiths and all of humanity. We recognize that, in committing to ecumenical dialog and action for peace, we are called to lay aside any prideful tendencies within ourselves to lay special claim to this concern. Instead, we are called to listen humbly to the earnest commitments of others to peace. We must understand and willingly embrace the fact that through ecumenical encounter, we too may be changed. Indeed, a vulnerability and openness to the “other” is constitutive of the peace witness we profess.
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM