Spirituality and Peacemaking

The historical and contemporary connections between spirituality and peacemaking are strong. Indeed it is hard to imagine a spiritual tradition that does not [Page 1330]encourage the cultivation of peace, either within the hearts of individuals or in the body politic. Although there is an increasing tendency to distinguish religion from spirituality, designating the former as connected to religious institutions (e.g., Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism) and the latter as referring to any number of nonreligious allied movements to promote inner peace and world harmony, it is virtually impossible to find a religion or a spirituality that does not have peace as one of its explicitly stated core values. The degree to which each emphasizes it, and the means to achieve it, is, however, more difficult to discern. Even more difficult to discern is whether the route to peace is violence or nonviolence and pacifism. Although removed from the history and tradition of religious traditions, adherents of a variety of nonreligious spiritualities also vary in how they approach peace.

Peacemaking refers to a variety of attempts to enforce peace and to restore order, especially in conflict and postconflict zones. One has only to think of anti–Vietnam War activists who opposed the proliferation of weapons and who then destroyed these weapons in order to make peace happen, or at least to stop violence. The Roman Catholic brothers and priests Dan and Phillip Berrigan in the United States, for instance, were peace activists who engaged in destruction of property to “make peace” or to force the end of war and nuclear armament. Peacekeeping, in contrast, is the effort to be a presence of order in the midst of conflict or postconflict and to not take any extraordinary means to enforce peace. This usually refers to military groups such as the Canadian military. As important as these categorizations of making and keeping are, they not strictly adhered to by peace activists, although they help in understanding the various positions on peace.