Nonviolence
To be visionaries of peace we need to be contemplatives of nonviolence, people who imagine the God of peace, who let God disarm our hearts, who allow the God of peace to show us the way to peace. As visionaries and contemplatives of peace, we can then become a prophetic people who not only denounce imperial violence as ungodly, immoral, and evil, but announce God's way of nonviolence, justice and peace.
Ebooks on Nonviolence
Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution
Since it first appeared in English in 1972, André Trocmé’s Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution has influenced a whole stream of New Testament thinkers and peace activists. Dozens of books about Christian ethics make reference to it, and proponents of nonviolence turn to it repeatedly for guidance. Trocmé is famous for his role in saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis, as pastor of the French village of Le Chambon.
War: A Call to Inner Life
We live in a time of war. From Baghdad to New York, the fabric of society is being torn apart by hatred and greed, and everyone's nervous about something - if not the weather or the economy, then another terrorist attack. That's why we're offering you this free ebook.
Salt and Light: Living the Sermon on the Mount
"Today people try to live simultaneously on the basis of law and of grace. A life of nonviolence is called absurd even though Jesus lived such a life. People oppose an uncompromising stand, calling it legalism and fanaticism. They say an unqualified yes to materialism, are infatuated with sin, and take pains to show that one can never get rid of it." Seventeen talks based on the Sermon on the Mount.
Seeking Peace
What is peace, in a nutshell? A thought from one of my grandfather’s books has been helpful to me. He writes about a threefold peace: the inner peace of the soul with God; the fulfillment of nonviolence through peaceful relationships with others; and the establishment of a just and peaceful social order. Forword by Madeleine L'Engle, preface by Thich Nhat Hanh. View a short video of the author's visit with Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village.
Concerning The Sword: A Hutterian Apologia of 1577
Concerning the Sword is the fourth article of the Article Book, a major doctrinal tract of the Hutterites of the sixteenth century. Its author is not named but was probably the Hutterian bishop Peter Walpot (1521-1578). This article, originally published in the Mennonite Quarterly Review, gives Biblical references for Christian nonviolence.
Articles on Nonviolence
A Better Way
I often think about our servicemen and women who are fighting overseas. Many come home wounded in body, and many more in spirit. All because they believe in a better way. But what is this better way? How are we to give our lives?
Original Mother's Day Proclamation
Get ready for Mother's Day by remembering Julia Ward Howe, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," who was not interested in another sentimental holiday. Today’s commercialized celebration of candy, flowers, and lavish meals bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. She had something quite different in mind... En Español
Obama in Oslo
Yes, as our President said, evil does exist in the world. But he was wrong in saying that a nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. It is this thinking that gives nations the right to wage “just wars.” Any kind of war is wrong...
After the Parades and Picnics
I believe all war is wrong—and most people do. Who isn’t for peace? As the old saying goes, “All war is civil war, because all men are brothers.” But I also know that many of those who die in warfare sacrifice themselves to save others. Would we have the same courage?
Blessing the Bombs
I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights struggle in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action, choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with pacifism—active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.” En Español
A New Weapon in the War on Terror
This is the message of peace and non-violence, which respects all nations and all people from Damascus to Tehran, and from Kyoto to Darfur. If we want peace, let’s remember that Jesus is the Prince of Peace who told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. This is the most powerful weapon to combat all terror.
Breaking The Cycle website
Breaking The Cycle is the award-winning school assembly program that promotes reconciliation and forgiveness.
"The program was very powerful and appealing. I have never seen our auditorium that silent before. It shows us that we have to make the most of our lives because we never know what might happen. It is hard to understand how it is possible to forgive someone after such a grievous offense. We have trouble forgiving little things. Your message about nonviolence was very inspiring. …" - Christina, student, Kingston, NY
Dare to Imagine
The God of peace is hard at work trying to disarm the world. But God needs our help. God needs every one of us to be part of God's global transformation for peace and justice. God needs our grassroots movements of nonviolent resistance to disarm the world.
Gandi—a Revolutionary
The two pivots around which his life revolved were faith in truth, and non-violence. For him both were identical...Nonviolence was not merely a political weapon but a philosophy of life. His whole life was dedicated to passive resistance and non-violence, physically, mentally and spiritually. Violence to him was a lie, a denial of truth.
Letter to President Obama
Hearing first hand accounts from the victims of the Rwandan genocide makes us say that never again can we let such mass murder happen.
Persecution in the Land of the Free
Of all the accounts of resistance during the First World War, there are few more harrowing than the story of the four Hutterites who were imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth in 1918. As pacifists, they refused to fight in any war, to hold public office, or to take oaths. Two of the men died in American prisons for their nonviolent stand against war.
War, Peace, and Nonviolence
Now what courage are you going to have to say “No” to this power which wants to sweep everybody, including you, along like dead trout in the spring rains? Are you going to be a dead trout that will be just swept along with everybody else? Or are you going to have courage and say “No” and make a difference?