Nonviolence

'Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.' - Isaiah 2:4

Rose Marie Berger 7-01-2006

Amid increased violence in Sri Lanka, Nonviolent Peaceforce members are providing unarmed accompaniment to those delivering aid, as well as applying nonviolent strategies to prote

Ched Myers 6-01-2006
Tom Fox's nonviolent witness.
Molly Marsh 6-01-2006

A New Season

John Malkin 6-01-2006

Everyone wants to be happy and to fulfill their dreams. For many who live in war zones, prisons, and places of poverty, those dreams aren’t likely to come true.

Molly Marsh 3-01-2006

Communities at Risk

“AIDS is born in the house of poverty,” an Indian health worker says on Making Ends Meet: AIDS and Poverty, a new resource from the Mennonite Central Committee. The 18-minute DVD looks at communities in India and South Africa and how AIDS is impacting the economies of each. The DVD includes additional interviews, a 25-minute story on church workers in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and other features. Excellent for Sunday school or study groups. www.mcc.org/aids

Ann E. Helmke 2-01-2005

In the final analysis it is not how many times one prays but how eager one is to imbibe it.

Rich Preheim 1-01-2005

Christian Peacemaker teams puts into practice the idea that peace work should be a regular job, not just a noble hobby.

Rachel Medema 9-01-2004

Volunteers from around the world work for peace in Palestine simply by being there.

Theresa Miller 5-01-2003

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the article by Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall ("With Weapons of the Will," September-October 2002).

Richard Deats 5-01-2003

Jonathan Schell, author of such highly acclaimed books as The Fate of the Earth and The Gift of Time, has now written perhaps his most important work

Hector Mondragon 11-01-2002
Nonviolence may be the untold story in Colombia's war.

The Nonviolent Peaceforce is putting soldiers in the field.

Stacia M. Brown 7-01-2002

Kadd Stephens, 24, longs for "a world free from violence." An anarchist from Washington, D.C., Stephens numbers himself among an increasingly visible group of anti-corporate-globalization activists whose dreams of world peace coexist—critics say illogically—with strategies of violent resistance.

The upswing of anarchist sentiment within the anti-corporate-globalization movement has nonviolent religious activists uneasy. While supporting the aims of the movement—whose concerns range from animal rights to corporate reform and environmentally responsible trade—persons of faith are questioning the assumption of the new anarchists that peaceful ends justify violent means. Some feel the movement has been "hijacked by street tactics," says Robert Collier, who has covered international trade policy for the San Francisco Chronicle.

In criticizing violent activists, however, religious and other nonviolent protesters are coming under fire for their refusal to welcome a "diversity of tactics." Many perceive themselves in a no-win situation. If they embrace the anti-corporate-globalization movement without qualifiers, they compromise their nonviolent commitments; but if they take a stand against violent protests, they risk splintering a transnational coalition for economic, social, and environmental justice.

In response to this dilemma, some nonviolent activists are taking a closer look at the militant new face of activism, hoping to educate themselves and the public about the costs of a pro-violence stance. What motivates some anarchists' rejection of nonviolence in favor of what critics see as little more than random acts of vandalism?

Rose Marie Berger 7-01-2002

Fierce Legion of Friends: A History of Human Rights Campaigns and Campaigners by Linda Rabben

The Fragmentation of the Church and Its Unity in Peacemaking, edited by Jeffrey Gros and John D. Rempel

Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking by Arthur G. Gish

Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance by Beverly Bell

---

There are basically three kinds of power: domination, collaboration, and satyagraha (truth force). Domination is political power that proceeds from the barrel of a gun. Collaboration promotes "united we stand, divided we fall." Truth force, or spiritual power, preaches "the truth will set you free." All three kinds of power make up the shifting riverbed of the history of social movements and campaigns.

Linda Rabben's Fierce Legion of Friends tracks the strategies of modern social campaigns, an interest that started with her work for Amnesty International in Brazil. Reading through case histories, she discovered the rich and often tragic stories of people who crusaded for freedom in every generation.

Who were the lesser-known people who pushed forward the British, American, and Brazilian anti-slavery movements? How did the famous ceramicist Josiah Wedgwood come to develop a line of Jubilee pottery to fund the abolitionist cause? What prompted lawyer Wendell Phillips to link slave rights with workers' rights? Who marched in support of Chicago's Haymarket prisoners? How did Mark Twain end up fighting against forced labor in the Belgian Congo? Rabben takes the reader through an extraordinary living history honoring organizers, letter writers, and petition signers who collaborated to transform societies for the better.

Norm Mundhenk 5-01-2002

I want to thank you for Jim Wallis' article "Hard Questions for Peacemakers."

Rose Marie Berger 3-01-2002

In light of the 9-11 wars, people worldwide are digging more deeply into the study of applied nonviolence.

From his fifth-floor window in Mennonite Central Committee's D.C. office, Daryl Byler can keep an eye on the Supreme Court while he takes calls from a press...

Walter Wink 1-01-2002

There’s a trap that I’d call the Bonhoeffer assumption. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was studying at Union Seminary in New York.