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peace
Peace Issues
Many peace issues revolve around land: who owns it; how can it be shared; who has to leave it. Can a country of our own, separate from others, make us safe?
Religious divisions are often central components of such tensions.
Yet, in each religion, there are strong messages of peace, inter-connectedness, loving others as yourselves, a sense of transcendence from narrow borders and confines to open hearts and minds.
Why are these messages not transmitted more powerfully? Can we blame increasing secularity? Or a global media that doesn't find good news profitable? Or ourselves for tuning in day after day to bad news without making more effort to ensure religious and interreligious activities for peace are better known, recognised and supported?
Perhaps we're too loaded down by the peace issues in our own immediate lives: troubles at work, inharmony at home; personal traumas to overcome?
Can the great peace issues of the Middle East or the Balkans or parts of Africa really be solved without a lot more people around the world at peace with themselves? Or will increasing interfaith action for peace help both the victims of struggles and the activists who try to heal the wounds of war?
What about the new imperialisms attempting to dominate the world economically, militarily, idealogically? Are religions also implicated in these? If so, how can we transform these into formulas for peace in our world?
Are we finding the resources in our religious and spiritual traditions to enable us to be peacemakers? Do we really know what peace is? Some people say that peace activists are amongst the most angry people they know!
What are the real peace issues that we as individuals and members of faith communities and interfaith organisations need to address?
Identify 3 tensions or conflicts that affect
you and / or your community. What can you do to bring peace to them?
How will you do it? |
Contents / Introduction / Prayers / Peace or Conflict / Peaceful Relations / Peace Issues / Conflict / Reconciliation / Peace Initiatives / Messengers of Peace / Summary / Inspiration / Real Peace / Resources
| © International
interfaith organisations network 2003 |