Fellowship of Reconciliation

Last updated

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR or FOR) is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries. They are linked by affiliation to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR).

Contents

In the United Kingdom, the acronym "FoR" is normally typeset with a lower-case "o"; elsewhere, it is usually typeset in all capital letters, as "FOR", such as in "IFOR".

The FoR in the United Kingdom

The first body to use the name "Fellowship of Reconciliation" was formed as a result of a pact made in August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War by two Christians, Henry Hodgkin (an English Quaker) and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (a German Lutheran), who were participating in a Christian pacifist conference in Konstanz in southern Germany. On the platform of the railway station at Cologne, they pledged to each other that, "We are one in Christ and can never be at war."

There were a number of people involved in the creation of the organisation, among them Lilian Stevenson, Pierre Cérésole, and its first secretary, Richard Roberts. [1] Stevenson later wrote up the first history of the organisation. [2]

To take that pledge forward, Hodgkin organised in 1915 a conference in Cambridge at which over a hundred Christians of all denominations agreed to found the FoR. They set out the principles that had led them to do so in a statement which became known as "The Basis". [3] It states:

Because the membership of the FoR included many members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), who reject any form of written creed, it has always been stressed that the Basis is a statement of general agreement rather than a fixed form of words. Nonetheless the Basis has been an important point of reference for many Christian pacifists.

The FoR had a prominent role in acting as a support network for Christian pacifists during the war and supporting them in the difficult choice to become conscientious objectors - and in taking its consequences, which in many cases included imprisonment. In the interwar years it grew to be an influential body in United Kingdom Christianity, with federated associations in all the main denominations (the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, the Methodist Peace Fellowship, the Baptist Peace Fellowship, etc.) as well as a strong membership among the Society of Friends (Quakers). At one time the Methodist Peace Fellowship claimed a quarter of all Methodist ministers among its members.

During the 1930s, the FoR's members included George Lansbury. [4]

The FoR was active in the anti-war movement of the 1930s, and provided considerable practical support for active pacifism during and after the Spanish Civil War. It could be argued that it lost influence when the Second World War came, was won, and was widely perceived as morally justified, especially as the horrors of Nazism became known in the post-war period. Equally, it could be argued that the questionable morality of the Cold War threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction again vindicated the FoR philosophy. The FoR retained considerable strength in post-second world war British Christianity, and many of its members were active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950s and 1960s. Prominent members included Donald Soper, a high-profile President of the Methodist Conference of the period and later a member of the House of Lords. With the continuing decline of Christianity in Britain, the FoR has lost influence, although active Christians in the UK are now probably further to the left politically, on average, than they were in the 1930s or 1950s.

A history of British FoR from 1914 to 1989, entitled Valiant For Peace, was published in 1991. [5]

FoR remains active: Norman Kember, the British peace activist kidnapped in Iraq in December 2005 was a member of the Baptist Peace Fellowship and a Trustee of the FoR in England. There are Roman Catholic members of FoR, and although most Catholic pacifists affiliate instead to the specifically Catholic peace organisation, Pax Christi, FoR and Pax Christi work closely together. Although many members have universalist sympathies and are happy to co-operate with pacifists of other faiths or none, the FoR has remained a distinctively Christian organisation. However, with a number of Hindu, Buddhist and other supporters, members, and staff, there is a degree of flux here as well.

Currently, there are separate FoR organisations for England and Scotland, and for Wales. The Welsh branch is called Cymdeithas y Cymod.

The FOR in the United States

United States Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA) was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight pacifists, including A. J. Muste, Jane Addams and Bishop Paul Jones. Norman Thomas, at first skeptical of its program, joined in 1916 and would become the group's president. It was formed in opposition to the entry of the United States into World War I. The American Civil Liberties Union developed out of FOR's conscientious objectors program and the Emergency Committee for Civil Liberties.

The FOR USA claims to be the "largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States." [6] Its programs and projects involve domestic as well as international issues, and generally emphasize nonviolent alternatives to conflict and the rights of conscience. Unlike the U.K. movements, it is an interfaith body, though its historic roots are in Christianity.

The FoR in Canada

Among the first chapters in Canada were those established in Toronto by Richard Roberts in the late 1920s and in Montreal by J. Lavell Smith in the mid-1930s. [1]

Fellowship Europe

The Fellowship also has a European branch. In the post-World War Two period, the secretary of the European FOR was Pastor André Trocmé, known for saving Jews at Collège Cévenol during the Nazi occupation of France. [7]

Religious Peace Fellowships

Since 1935, FOR has helped form, launch, and strengthen peace fellowships of many faith traditions to form a network of faith-based nonviolent action. Membership of these peace fellowships has changed and grown over the past decades; what follows are fellowships that are currently affiliated with FOR:

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Josephson, Harold (1985). Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Connecticut: Greenwood. pp. 810–811. ISBN   0-313-22565-6.
  2. ↑ Towards a Christian International: The Story of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation,. IFOR, London. 1929.
  3. ↑ "The Basis on the FoR (England) website". For.org.uk. Archived from the original on 20 July 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Schneer, Jonathan (1990). George Lansbury. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 178. ISBN   0-7190-2170-7. LCCN   90039739. OCLC   246898140.
  5. ↑ Valiant For Peace by Jill Wallis, published in 1991 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 286 pages in hardback, ISBN   0 900368 40 3.
  6. ↑ "Fellowship of Reconciliation - For a World of Peace, Justice and Nonviolence". Forusa.org.
  7. ↑ Thomas W. Currie, Searching for Truth: Confessing Christ in an Uncertain World. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001 ISBN   0664501397 (p.99 ).

Further reading

Related Research Articles

Pacifism Philosophy opposing war or violence

Pacifism is opposition to war, militarism or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ahimsa, which is a core philosophy in Indian Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While modern connotations are recent, having been explicated since the 19th century, ancient references abound.

The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States.

Peace churches

Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism or Biblical nonresistance. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches:

Nonresistance is "the practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised". At its core is discouragement of, even opposition to, physical resistance to an enemy. It is considered as a form of principled nonviolence or pacifism which rejects all physical violence, whether exercised on individual, group, state or international levels. Practitioners of nonresistance may refuse to retaliate against an opponent or offer any form of self-defense. Nonresistance is often associated with particular religious groups.

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1914 in response to the horrors of war in Europe. Today IFOR counts 71 branches, groups and affiliates in 48 countries on all continents. IFOR members promote nonviolence, human rights and reconciliation through public education efforts, training programs and campaigns. The IFOR International Secretariat in Utrecht, Netherlands facilitates communication among IFOR members, links branches to capacity building resources, provides training in gender-sensitive nonviolence through the Women Peacemakers Program, and helps coordinate international campaigns, delegations and urgent actions. IFOR has ECOSOC status at the United Nations.

Walter Wink

Walter Wink was an American biblical scholar, theologian, and activist who was an important figure in Progressive Christianity. Wink spent much of his career teaching at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. He was well known for his advocacy of and work related to nonviolent resistance and his seminal works on "The Powers", Naming the Powers (1984), Unmasking the Powers (1986), Engaging the Powers (1992), When the Powers Fall (1998), and The Powers that Be (1999). He is also known for coining the phrase "the myth of redemptive violence".

Peace Testimony

Peace testimony, or testimony against war, is a shorthand description of the action generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) for peace and against participation in war. Like other Quaker testimonies, it is not a "belief", but a description of committed actions, in this case to promote peace, and refrain from and actively oppose participation in war. Quakers' original refusal to bear arms has been broadened to embrace protests and demonstrations in opposition to government policies of war and confrontations with others who bear arms, whatever the reason, in the support of peace and active nonviolence. Because of this core testimony, the Religious Society of Friends is considered one of the traditional peace churches.

Pax Christi International organization

Pax Christi International is an international Catholic peace movement. The Pax Christi International website declares its mission is "to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity."

John Dear

John Dear is an American Catholic priest, Christian pacifist, vegetarianism advocate, author and lecturer, and a former member of the Society of Jesus. He has been arrested over 75 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice and nuclear weapons as part of his "consistent ethic of nonviolence".

Christian pacifism Christian refusal of violence

Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position according to which pacifism and non-violence have both a scriptural and rational basis for Christians, and affirms that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith. Christian pacifists state that Jesus himself was a pacifist who taught and practiced pacifism and that his followers must do likewise. Notable Christian pacifists include Martin Luther King Jr., Leo Tolstoy, Adin Ballou and Ammon Hennacy. Ballou and Hennacy believed that adherence to Christianity required not just pacifism but, because governments inevitably threatened or used force to resolve conflicts, anarchism. However, most Christian pacifists, including the peace churches, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and individuals such as John Howard Yoder, make no claim to be anarchists.

Hildegard Goss-Mayr is an Austrian nonviolent activist and Christian theologian.

John Nevin Sayre was an American Episcopal priest, peace activist, and author. He was an active member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and helped found the Episcopal Pacifist Fellowship. The US State Department official Francis Bowes Sayre Sr. was his brother.

The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship (APF) is a body of people within the Anglican Communion who reject war as a means of solving international disputes, and believe that peace and justice should be sought through non-violent means.

Charles Coates Walker

Charles Coates "Charlie" Walker was an American Quaker activist and trainer for nonviolent direct action in both the civil rights and peace movements. He worked throughout his life to bring segregation, racial injustice, nuclear and biological weapons, and war to public awareness. He used Gandhian methods of nonviolence, writing training materials and organizing marches, vigils, protest demonstrations, conferences and campaigns in different parts of the world.

United States Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight pacifists, including A. J. Muste, Jane Addams and Bishop Paul Jones, and claims to be the "largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States." Norman Thomas, at first skeptical of its program, joined in 1916 and would become the group's president. Its programs and projects involve domestic as well as international issues, and generally emphasize nonviolent alternatives to conflict and the rights of conscience. Unlike the U.K. movements, it is an interfaith body, though its historic roots are in Christianity.

Henry Hodgkin

Henry Hodgkin (1877-1933) was a medical doctor and a British Quaker missionary who, in the course of his 55-year life, co-founded the West China Union University in Chengdu, co-founded and led the first Christian pacifist movement, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, and founded the Pendle Hill Quaker meeting and training center, in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

Lilian Sinclair Stevenson was a Christian peace activist, historiographer and one of the founders of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Bilthoven Meetings

The Bilthoven Meetings were a series of networking and capacity building meetings of pacifist activists after World War I in the town of Bilthoven in the Netherlands. The activists gathered under the name of Movement Towards a Christian International, which was later renamed to International Fellowship of Reconciliation. The meetings took place at the house of Kees Boeke, a Quaker missionary and pacifist.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.