Research with survivors of many types of calamities — including natural disasters, wars, domestic violence, severe illness, major accidents, and job-related losses — indicates variables that compassionate people can influence. Though an individual’s attitude, beliefs, and values are key factors in recovery, so too is the climate or culture in which the individual lives. Social […]

In spite of a global trend to better recognize the right to conscientious objection – which is marked with an International Day on 15 May – those who exercise that right are often discriminated against, persecuted, repeatedly punished or sent to prison in many countries, first results of a study being conducted by the World […]

The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We […]

By Walter Wink, May 2009 You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone would sue […]

Vigilante enforcement of theocratic codes can crop up when a minority group doesn’t conform…A friend, a Pakistani journalist, recently came out of the troubled Swat valley in northwest Pakistan and told a chilling tale. He said, “It is now halal [religiously sanctioned] to kill journalists.” The tribal Muslim clerics in Swat, he said, have declared […]

The more often you go to church, the more you approve of torture. This is a troubling finding of a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? After all, who would Jesus torture? Since Jesus wouldn’t even let Peter use a sword and defend him from […]

“When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own soul.” So writes Harper’s contributing editor, Jeff Sharlet, in a deeply-reported, equally troubling essay (not yet available […]

Three tales about bishops find their setting in what may be called our “age of peacebuilding” in the church and the world. The work of Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Uganda, Bishop Juan Gerardi of Guatemala and Bishop Carlos Belo of East Timor has been part of a global wave of efforts to deal with […]

It’s important that we remember courage in all its forms: the courage of those who stay at home in times of war and conflict, the courage of those who speak out against violence and war, who refuse to be silenced, the courage of the bereaved, the courage of the traumatised, the courage of those who […]

Delegates from across the globe came together in Geneva, Switzerland for the 2009 Durban Review Conference, also known as Durban II. The goal of the conference is to see how far countries have come in implementing goals set by the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001…Over the years, we’ve learned the […]

If the deeply devout seem less self-doubting than others, perhaps it’s because religion helps them shrug off mistakes. So say researchers who found religious people exhibit lower activity than non-believers in a brain region linked to anxiety when erring on a simple test… The students with strong religious beliefs, as measured by their agreement with […]

Soldiers of Peace, narrated by Hollywood actor and United Nations Messenger for Peace Michael Douglas, gives us an uplifting look at the current geopolitical state of the world: contrary to popular belief, there are actually less armed conflicts in the world today and less people dying of violent deaths than ever before. Through numerous and […]