| 
 Good
morning!
On the Saturday
before Easter, the Hope for Peace & Justice Board of Directors
had its first meeting. We approved a budget that includes
the launch of our first major program, Local Peacemaker training,
which we hope to begin this summer.
As I have spent
the past few months praying and dreaming about this new adventure,
one thing has become increasingly clear to me. I am convinced
that grassroots, faith-based peacemaking will become the hallmark
of H4PJ. Our goal is to train members of local congregations
to be conflict resolution mediators. These trained mediators
would be available to the community for a variety of issues.
They could, for example, help when renters have a conflict
with apartment management, or when two neighbors have a dispute,
or even when couples seem unable to resolve a conflict.
Ultimately, our
vision is that churches, synagogues, mosques and temples all
over the country will send people to Dallas so that Hope for
Peace & Justice can train their resident peacemaker. We
will create a network of grassroots, faith-based peacemakers
in communities all over the country.
 Training
will be held in the Interfaith
Peace Chapel, designed by Philip Johnson and
built on the campus of the Cathedral of Hope. The chapel will
serve as a symbol of our conviction that faith ought to be
the source of peace not conflict. Too much violence has already
been perpetuated in the name of God or gods.
We have learned
long ago that antidotes are made from the toxin. That is,
we are aware that Christianity has been extremely hurtful
to many of us, but, rather than abandon our faith, we have
worked to make it the antidote to the poisoning of our soul.
So, too, the violence fomented in the name of faith is toxic
to the human family. Many are tempted to simply abandon the
idea of faith altogether. Their anthem is John Lennon’s
famous song Imagine:
Imagine
there's no countries,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
Religion
has too often been a source of conflict and violence, but
we are determined to make a healing balm of that which has
too often been used as poison for the human soul. We hope
to begin a grassroots, faith-based movement. If you are interested
in being a local peacemaker, I’d love to hear from you.
|
 Welcome
to the web presence of Hope for Peace & Justice!
Many of us have grown weary of our faith being used to
advance the political agenda or the radical right, nationalists,
and social conservatives. MORE... |
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The
mission of the Dallas Peace Center
is based on a vision of reconciliation: to promote education,
dialogue and action for peace and justice. "Peace
is only possible when it is the fruit of justice."
- Adolfo Perez Esquivel - 1980 Recipient, Nobel Peace
Prize MORE...
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The
Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ)
is an independent, interfaith, not-for-profit organization
that creates resources, provides learning experiences,
and advocates publicly for alternatives to violence and
injustice at the individual, family, community, institutional
and global levels. MORE... |
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The
original Conflict Research Consortium
website is one of the oldest and largest on the Web.
It still provides access to a broad range of resources
found nowhere else, including hundreds of working papers.
MORE... |
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The
ACR Board has adopted a resolution designating October
20, 2005 as Conflict Resolution Day
in order to increase public awareness about conflict
resolution and its many benefits. As part of this recognition
effort, ACR is reaching out to various conflict resolution
groups to build interest in holding celebrations in
conjunction with this day of recognition. MORE... |
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The
Conflict Resolution Network will be a
rigorous advocate for the cause of Reconciliation, and
we will use our own extensive networks, our media contacts
and our website to disseminate factual, creative and persuasive
information, aspiring, in this way to influence attitudes,
practice and legislation. MORE... |
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Interfaith
Voices for Justice and Peace is a communications
network for faith-based activist groups. Their network
provides a variety of ways that representatives from these
groups can interact with one another in the search for
a common peace and justice agenda. MORE... |
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Users
of the three Resources for Peace leaflets,
"Your Way to Peace," "Peace Begins With
Us," and "Selective Service Registration: What
You Need to Know," can now order them at special
rates by choosing one of our two peace packets and ordering
ten or more copies of the packet. MORE...
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Since
the beginning of President Bush’s
pre-emptive war in Iraq, various bumper stickers have
proliferated. Many of these pithy statements say more
about the sloganeer than about truth and wisdom. More
importantly, they reveal the mythic substructure of thought
about U.S. relationships with the rest of the world and
especially the war in Iraq. MORE...
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|  Betty
Thompson
Board of Directors
“I
eagerly said yes when asked to join the Board of Hope
for Peace & Justice, because I realized that, through
this organization, there is a real possibility to do
something and make a difference in our world.”
MORE...
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