Peacemaking

In June 2006, UUA's General Assembly voted to study and act on the issue of Peacemaking for four years, as part of the the Congregational Study Action Issue process. The description of the issue that was voted on is at http://www.uua.org/csai. In 2009 the results of the study will lead to a proposal for a Statement of Conscience on the issue.

A wealth of resources on the issue are available at http://www.uua.org/peacemaking

Peacemaking-network is the UUA email forum for this SAI.

In the Spring of 2007, the Washington Office For Advocacy hired Alex Winnett to be the Program Associate for Peacemaking. His two year long position will be to help congregations, individuals and affiliates navigate the CSAI on Peacemaking.

Use this page to keep track of what congregations are active, what successes and failures can be reported, etc.

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Input for SAI Resource Guide

Organizations

• Center on Conscience & War - The Center is committed to supporting all those who question participation in war, whether they are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, documented or undocumented immigrants--or citizens in other countries.
• Center for Nonviolent Communication - the work of Marshall Rosenberg and others, also known as "Compassionate Communication". Helps at all levels of peacemaking, from personal, to relationship, to congregational, to community, to politics, to the world....
• Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors - CCCO supports and promotes individual and collective resistance to war and preparations for war.
• Fellowship of Reconciliation - FOR seeks to replace violence, war, racism, and economic injustice with nonviolence, peace, and justice. We are an interfaith organization committed to active nonviolence as a transforming way of life and as a means of radical change. We educate, train, build coalitions, and engage in nonviolent and compassionate actions locally, nationally, and globally. UU John Haynes Holmes was one of the founders.
• Friends of Adin Ballou - Friends of Adin Ballou honors the life and legacy of Universalist and Unitarian Rev. Adin Ballou (1803-1890). The goals of Friends of Adin Ballou are to research and study the words and deeds of Adin Ballou and the Hopedale Community, and to find ways to keep their legacy alive in the modern world.*
• Global Action to Prevent War
• The UN
• United States Institute of Peace
• War Resisters League - The War Resisters League affirms that all war is a crime against humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of all causes of war. UU John Haynes Holmes was one of the founders.

Web Sites

• UUA Peacemaking CSAI Web Page

• Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography Antiwar and Peace Activists

Reports

• Henry Nelson Weiman
• Alliance of Civilizations Report of the High-level Group

Articles

• Prophetic Nonviolence Paul Rasor, UUWORLD, Spring 2008,
• Unitarian Universalist Responses to War and Peace: A Brief History Jane Rosecrans
• Unitarian Universalism and the Movement for World Peace Paul Sawyer

Statements/Press Releases

• General Resolutions General resolutions concerning peacemaking made by the UU Association of Congregations
• Witnessing for Peace: A Pastoral Letter Rev. William G. Sinkford

Books & Pamphlets

Unitarian Universalist

• Theological Basis of Social Action James Luther Adams, Chapter 7 of On Being Human Religiously, Beacon Press, 1976.
• Christian Non-Resistance Adin Ballou, 1846
• Discourses on War William Ellery Channing
• My Gandhi John Haynes Holmes, Harper, 1953.
• Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us Rebecca Parker and Rita Brock, Beacon Press, 2002.
• Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) Henry David Thoreau
• After Empire: The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace Sharon D. Welch, Fortress Press, 2004.

Other Religious Traditions

• American Nonviolence Ira Chernus,
• Being Peace Thich Nhat Hanh, Edited by Arnold Kotler. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press. 1987.
• Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967
• The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative Thomas King, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
• Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Policitcs Reinhold Niebuhr, Westminster John Knox. 1932.
• Peacemaking: The Believers’ Calling The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The 192nd General Assembly (1980).
• Resistance and Contemplation James Douglas, Doubleday, 1972
• Liberating Faith: Religious Voices for Justice, Peace, and Ecological Wisdom, by Roger Gottlieb, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.
• The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding: A Vision and Framework for Peace with Justice Lisa Schirch, Pennsylvania: Good Books. 2004
• For the Peace of the World: A Christian Curriculum on International Relations The National Council of Churches
• Peace is the Way Deepak Chopra, Harmony Publishers, 2005.
• When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome Richard E. Rubenstein
• Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination Walter Wink, Augsburg Fortress, 1992.
• Any Book by Walter Wink Walter Wink

Gandhi

• Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World Louis Fischer, The New American Library, 1954.
• Gandhi the Man Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, 1978.
• Gandhi’s Pilgrimage of Faith Uma Majmudar, State University of NY, NY, 2005.
• Gandhi: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth Mohandas K. Gandhi, Beacon Press 1957.
• The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi Homer Jack, Beacon Press, 1951
• The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings Homer Jack, Beacon Press, 1956.
• The Way to God Mohandas K. Gandhi, Berkeley Hills Books, Albany, CA, 1999.

Speakers and Workshops

• The Art and Ethics of Strategic Peacebuilding Sharon Welch, Meadville Lombard course Offering
• Sharon Welch's talk at Nashville

Congregational Action

Congregational Study Groups

• Small Group Ministry materials and ideas

Sermons and Service Ideas

• "Is Peace Our Way?" Reverend Paige Getty
• Pacifist Doves and Humanitarian Hawks: Should UUs Become Activist Pacifists? Prof. Howard Tolley.
• On Peace Rev. Carolyn Patierno, minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation of New London

Political Issues

• UU UN Office

Organizational Issues

• UU Compassionate Communication website

Peace Pages On Congregational Web Sites

• The Peace Umbrella UU Church of Palo Alto, CA
• Identification of Church as a Peace Site The UU Community Church of Santa Monica, CA
• Columbine Peace Labyrinth Columbine UU Church, Littleton, CO
• Task Force on a Just Peace UU Church of Bloomington, IN
• A Place For Peace UU Congregation of Somerset Hills, NJ
• Peacemaking Pledge Campaign St. John’s UU, Cincinnati, OH

Movies and Videos

These media have been suggested by sundry Unitarian Universalist peace activists. Before a public showing, please be aware of copyright requirements. The links below may be helpful. Copyright Compliance

FAQ

Church Video Licensing I have no recomendations either way on this outfit. They just offer a potential legal solution.

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• "A Force More Powerful, Part I," a PBS documentary, including 3 segments
  • Civil Rights actions in the 1960s in Nashville, Tennessee
  • Ghandhi's actions in India, including the Salt March
  • Actions against apartheid in South Africa

• "A Force More Powerful, Part II," a PBS documentary, including 3 segments
  • Danish resistance to the Nazis during World War II
  • The Solidarity movement in Poland
  • Toppling the dictator Pinochet in Chile

• "Blood Diamond" (fiction; contemporary) An ex-mercenary turned smuggler and a Mende fisherman, amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside.

• "Diary of Anne Frank" (historic re-enactment). A diary discovered in the attic of an Amsterdam factory reveals the plight of a jewish refugee family that lived there in hiding for two years during the Nazi occupation.

• "Gandhi" Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 film is an engrossing, reverential look at the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who introduced the doctrine of nonviolent resistance to the colonized people of India and who ultimately gained the nation its independence.

• "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" A two-year investigation brings answers to all of these questions, basing itself on documents never seen before on television and backed by interviews of such prominent personalities as Desert Storm Commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former UN Iraq Program Director Denis Halliday, former UNSCOM team-leader Scott Ritter and many others. A large selection of archival footage, moving images recently brought back from Iraq, an original soundtrack scored by acclaimed composer Fritz Heede and the narration by two-time British Academy Award-winner, actor John Hurt, all contribute to making "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" a fast-paced, informative documentary while resolutely accessible to a general audience.

• "Hotel Rwanda" (historic re-enactment). The moving true story of one man's brave stance against savagery during the 1994 Rwandan conflict. As his country descends into madness, five-star-hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina sets out to save his family. But when he sees that theworld will not intervene in the massacre of minority Tutsis, he finds the courage to open his hotel to more than 1,200 refugees. Now, with a rabid militia at the gates, he must use his well-honed grace, flattery and cunning to protect his guests from certain death.

• "Iraq for Sale," by Robert Greenwald. The story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.

• "The Piano Player" (historic re-enactment) The magic of music, the power of love, the evils of money, and the horror of genocide are the weighty themes tackled in Gloomy Sunday, a moving German-Hungarian film from director/co-writer Rolf Schubel.

• "No End in Sight" A staggering portrait of arrogance and incompetence, the documentary No End in Sight avoids the question of why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, choosing instead to focus on the war's aftermath--and meticulously examine the chain of decisions that led Iraq into a grotesque state of lawlessness and civil war.

• "Peru: Between the Hammer and the Anvil" by Jarard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy The film looks at the civil war that opposed the Shining Path to the Colombia armed forces in Peru from 1980 until 1995. The focus is on how simple people were caught in the cross-fire of a conflict fueled by social and racial inequalities.

• "Schindler's List" (historic re-enactment) The film presents the indelible true story of the enigmatic Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, womanizer, and war profiteer who saved the lives of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust.

• THE SHIFT This movie raises awareness to the story of our roles in an evolutionary shift in our collective consciousness. As it chronicles the faces, the stories and leaders assisting in this social transformation, the film reveals its emergence & meaning.

• "Syriana" (fiction; contemporary) Big oil means big money. Very big money. And that fact unleashes corruption that tretches from Houston to Washington to the Mideast and ensnares industrialists, princes, spies, politicos, oilfield laborers and terrorists in a deadly, deceptive web of move and countermove.

• "War Made Easy," from a book by the same name by Norman Soloman, WAR MADE EASY reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose 50 years of government spin and media collusion that has dragged our country into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq.

• "Why We Fight," by Eugene Jarecki, Why We Fight surveys a half-century of military conflicts, asking how – and answering why – a nation of, by and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a government system whose survival depends on an Orwellian state of constant war.