Consistent Life,

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[NOTE: See our weekly Peace & Life Connections for most of our news.] August 3, 2010 Consistent Life Endorsers Play Leading Role at Peace Among the Peoples Peace and justice activists and educators from across the ecumenical spectrum of Christianity convened in Elkhart, Indiana at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary for the Peace Among the Peoples conference July 28th-31st, 2010. Peace Among the Peoples was a preparatory gathering leading up to the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation which will be held in Kingston, Jamaica in May of next year under the auspices of the World Council of Churches. The IEPC is the culmination of the WCC's “Decade to Overcome Violence, ” and will assess the impact of the international ecumenical Christian peacemaking efforts and identify the next steps for the WCC's member churches to follow up on in order to maximize the antiviolence campaign's effectiveness. The major focus of Peace Among the Peoples was on achieving some common ground on questions surrounding the morality of war. Historically, a division has existed between those Christians and churches which identify themselves as pacifist or Historic Peace Churches, and those which hold to the just war theory. For pacifists, violence and war are always to be rejected as incompatible with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, while for those in the just war tradition, there are certain instances where warfare may regretfully be a moral option to be used only as a last resort and when a number of strict criteria have been met. Traditionally, the pacifist trajectory and the just war trajectory have talked past one another because of their differing conclusions on whether war is ever morally acceptable. But both pacifism and the just war tradition are based on the conviction that war is a grave moral evil. One important goal of the Peace Among the Peoples gathering was to get pacifists and those in the just war tradition to begin working together and talking to one another instead of past or against one another to advance the common goal of reducing and eliminating war and violence. How can just war advocates and pacifists, acknowledging both their points of agreement and points of contention, work together to overcome the spirit and logic of violence? The conference itself was rich and meaningful for all involved. Because it was an ecumenical gathering of Christians, worship was a vital component and was interwoven between plenary and working sessions throughout the four days of the conference. When the conference convened on Wednesday the 28th with an opening worship service, author, Catholic peace advocate, and Consistent Life endorser Mary Jo Leddy offered a quiet but powerful sermon on how peace and life activists can struggle against the dominationist spirit of empire. We should be like termites, she told the conference, slowly chewing away at the foundations of the violent structures that undergird the empire in order to usher in a new world of cooperation instead of competition, in which people come before profits and the needs of personal relationships come before the needs of corporations.

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