Despite the liberalized reconfiguration of civil society and political practice in nineteenth-century Europe, the right to make foreign policy, devise alliances, wage war and negotiate peace remained essentially an executive prerogative. Citizen challenges to the exercise of this power grew slowly. Drawn from the educated middle classes, peace activists maintained that Europe was a single […]
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, this thought-provoking essay explores the Buddha’s teaching to find one prescription: not war, not pacifism but nonviolence
With today’s world torn by violence and conflict, Richard B. Miller’s study of the ethics of war could not be more timely. Miller brings together the opposed traditions of pacifism and just-war theory and puts them into a much-needed dialogue on the ethics of war. Beginning with the duty of nonviolence as a point of convergence between the two rival […]
The author of Revelation sees violence as perfectly legitimate as long as it is initiated by the appropriate authority (God). The author of Revelation does not believe that violence in any form is wrong. Rather, he believes that it is wrong for anyone other than God or his appointed agents to enact violence, and in […]
At a time when the Evangelical wing of the church is beginning to show some signs of soul searching over the issues of war and peace, the Pentecostals would do well to study their own heritage. Whether they accept or reject their earlier world view, they need to interpret the motivation for their original beliefs […]
Adolf Hitler, writing in Mein Kampf, was scathing in his condemnation of German propaganda in World War I, declaring that Germany failed to recognize that the mobilization of public opinion was a weapon of the first order. This, despite the fact that propaganda had been regarded by the German leadership, arguably for the first time, […]
This book investigates the historical context, meaning, and expression of early Quaker pacifism in England and its colonies. Weddle focuses primarily on one historical moment–King Philip’s War, which broke out in 1675 between English settlers and Indians in New England. Among the settlers were Quakers, adherents of the movement that had gathered by 1652 out […]
In this book, Paul Midford engages claims that since 9/11 Japanese public opinion has turned sharply away from pacifism and toward supporting normalization of Japan’s military power, in which Japanese troops would fight alongside their American counterparts in various conflicts worldwide. Midford argues that Japanese public opinion has never embraced pacifism. It has, instead, contained […]
After September 11, 2001, ordinary citizens faced a new world ruled by political and religious machinations against the threat of terrorism. While political leaders pursued a policy of militarism, many religious leaders advocated pacificism. Ronald H. Stone advocates a middle road between these two extremes, what he calls prophetic realism. Taking up Reinhold Niebuhr’s notion […]
Incisive essays from progressive thinkers and activists advocating for the Jewish tradition of non-violence and compassion. The tradition of peace and justice, nourished during two millennia of the Diaspora, has found Jews at the forefront of struggles for civil rights, labor rights, anti-militarism, and compassion for the most vulnerable among us: the poor, the hungry, […]
