International Day of Peace 2005

In an often brutal world, one in which wars abound and chaos is everywhere, peace may be hard to find. But Seventh-day Adventists have a duty to promote peace, says Doug Morgan who, along with Ronald Osborn, began the Adventist Peace Fellowship (APF) in 2002, a society that exists to raise awareness of peacemaking.

The organization's purpose is to "raise awareness and educate Adventists about the centrality of peacemaking," says Morgan, chair of the History and Political Studies department at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, (US-State Maryland). APF also helps connect Adventists with advocacy campaigns and groups that are taking action for peace.

"Sometimes people associate peace [with] passivism," Morgan says. "You think of passivity, withdrawals, staying away from conflict, whereas peacemaking is more of an active concept that includes non-violence, non-combatancy."

Why the need for such an organization? Osborn, an independent contractor with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) says that early Adventists were strong on the issue of non-combatancy and would not have been willing to serve in combatant positions in the military. "I think now that's not the case at all," he says.

While the church discourages combatant service, it allows for freedom of conscience. A statement voted during the Spring Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on April 18, 2002 in Silver Spring, Maryland, renewed the church's commitment to peace:

"We call upon Christian churches and leaders to exercise a ministry of reconciliation and act as ambassadors of goodwill, openness, and forgiveness. (See 2 Cor. 5:17-19.) This will always be a difficult, sensitive task. While trying to avoid the many political pitfalls along the way, we must nevertheless proclaim liberty in the land -- liberty from persecution, discrimination, abject poverty, and other forms of injustice. It is a Christian responsibility to endeavor to provide protection for those who are in danger of being violated, exploited, and terrorized."

With more than 6,000 Adventist schools, colleges and universities worldwide, Osborn would like to see the church institute peacemaking in its education curriculum, "teaching children about the church's historical commitment and linking its heritage with Christ's teachings."

Peace education is essential to ending war, Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson, with Adventist Women for Peace, echoed in an Adventist News Network in April 26, 2005. "It should be taught on every level of the education system as a serious and central topic of study and practice. ... If we do not put time and money into that, we are just going to end up killing each other and feeling that that's alright."

In a recently released book by APF called "The Peacemaking Remnant," a collection of essays and historical documents, Morgan writes in the preface: "Making shalom (peace) -- well-being and wholeness for the human community that includes but goes beyond non-violence -- runs like a mighty stream through all of the particular truths that the Seventh-day Adventist movement has been called to proclaim."

Osborn speaks about the International Day of Peace (IDP), September. 21, first established in 1981 by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly and strengthened in 2001 to be a day of non-violence and cease-fire. The UN initiative is aimed at commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace, particularly among schools and youth. "The Adventist Church has a vibrant tradition of witnessing for peace and principles of non-violence. Our challenge today is to reclaim that history, not just as a pious ideal one day out of the year, but as lying right at the heart of what it means to be followers of Jesus in a violent world."

There might be a danger, he says, in looking at the International Day of Peace and "compartmentalizing commitment to peace and wearing a button or something on the day. What does that mean for how people think and act year-round?"

According to Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General, the International Day of Peace "is meant to be a day of global cease-fire, when all countries and all people stop all hostilities for the entire day. And it is a day on which people around the world observe a minute of silence at 12 noon local time. […]And let us pledge to do our utmost to carry out the important decisions on peace taken by last week’s 2005 World Summit."

More information about the Adventist Peace Fellowship (APF) can be found at www.adventistpeace.org [Editors: Wendi Rogers and Christian B. Schaeffler for ANN/APD]