Related Research Articles
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance 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 Fellowship of Reconciliation 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).
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:
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.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, to understand those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies, is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, based on achieving conflict resolution and dispute resolution at the international and domestic levels based on positive sum, rather than negative sum, solutions.
Renewal is the collective term for Charismatic, Pentecostal, and Neo-charismatic churches. According to the World Christian Database, there are nearly 80 million renewalists in the United States, including pentecostals, charismatics and neo-charismatics.
John Dear is an American Catholic priest and peace activist. He has been arrested 85 times in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against war, injustice, nuclear weapons.
Glen Harold Stassen was an American ethicist and Baptist theologian. He was known for his work on theological ethics, political philosophy, and social justice and for developing the Just Peacemaking Theory regarding the comparative ethics of war and peace. Glen Stassen helped define the social justice wing of the Christian evangelical movement in America. Stassen died in Pasadena, California at the age of 78. He was the son of former Minnesota governor Harold Stassen. His work pushed the advancement of nuclear disarmament in America. The last project he was committed to before his death was the destruction of chemical weapons, according to his blog.
Hildegard Goss-Mayr is an Austrian nonviolent activist and Christian theologian.
Bernard LafayetteJr. is an American civil rights activist and organizer, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma Voting Rights Movement; was a member of the Nashville Student Movement; and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee.
The Jewish Peace Fellowship is a nonprofit, nondenominational organization set up to provide a Jewish voice in the peace movement. The organization was founded in 1941 in order to support Jewish conscientious objectors who sought exemption from combatant military service. The JPF is currently headquartered in Nyack, New York.
The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements is a reference work on charismatic Christianity which includes the three streams of Pentecostalism, the Charismatic Movement, and the Neocharismatic movement. It is edited primarily by Stanley M. Burgess. Published in 2002, it is the "revised and expanded edition" of the 1988 Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Both editions are published by Zondervan.
Michael N. Nagler is an American academic, nonviolence educator, mentor, meditator, and peace activist.
The Swiss Pentecostal Mission is the largest Pentecostal Christian denomination in Switzerland. Officially known in English as the Pentecostal Assemblies of Switzerland, it is the Swiss branch of the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. In 2013, the denomination had 10,000 adherents in 66 churches across Switzerland, and operated a conference center in Emmetten.
Trevor Lloyd Grizzle is a Jamaican academic and professor of New Testament Studies at Oral Roberts University.
Jean Goss was a French nonviolent activist.
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. Both the FOR in the United States and similarly named organizations in other countries are affiliated with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Charismatic Christianity is a form of Christianity that emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts as an everyday part of a believer's life. It has a global presence in the Christian community. Practitioners are often called charismatic Christians or renewalists. Although there is considerable overlap, charismatic Christianity is often categorized into three separate groups: Pentecostalism, the Charismatic movement, and the neo-charismatic movement.
Andrew Joseph Christiansen was an American Jesuit priest and author. He was Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service, a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and the former editor-in-chief of the Jesuit magazine America. His areas of research included nuclear disarmament, nonviolence and just peacemaking, Catholic social teaching, and ecumenical public advocacy.
References
- Paul Alexander, Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God. Foreword by Glen Stassen. C. Henry Smith Series, vol. 9. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing/Herald Press, 2009.
- Martin Mittelstadt, "Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship", Stanley Burgess and Michael Palmer, eds. Encyclopedia of Religion and Social Justice. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008.
- Matthew T. Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post, The Heart of Religion. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012.
