A Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't

Product Information

To conclude, David Cook cites the standard definition of jihad given in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam: “In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the jihad consists of military action with the object of the exp

Chatfield, Charles. For peace and justice: pacifism in America, 1914–1941 (University of Tennessee Press, 1971). Mazal, Peter (21 October 2003). "Selected Topics of Comparison in Christianity and the Baháʼí Faith". Archived from the original on 14 May 2011 . Retrieved 13 September 2006. Christianity is sometimes claimed to be a religion of peace, a statement often greeted with rolled eyes since Christianity's history in this regard is as much a mixed bag as Islam's. Throughout history many have understood Jesus of Nazareth to have been a pacifist, [25] drawing on his Sermon on the Mount. In the sermon Jesus stated that one should "not resist an evildoer" and promoted his turn the other cheek philosophy. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well... Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." [26] [27] [28] The New Testament story is of Jesus, besides preaching these words, surrendering himself freely to an enemy intent on having him killed and proscribing his followers from defending him. The claim is sometimes made that there is a distinction between the ‘greater jihad’ and the ‘lesser jihad’. This claim is based on the following hadith:On December 1, 1948, President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica abolished the Costa Rican military. [82] In 1949, the abolition of the military was introduced in Article 12 of the Costa Rican constitution. The budget previously dedicated to the military is now dedicated to providing healthcare services and education. [83] Antiwar literature of the 20th century [ edit ] German nationalism consumed even the most peaceful of Christians, who may have believed that Hitler was acting in the good faith of Germany or who may have been so suppressed by the Nazi regime that they were content to act as bystanders to the violence occurring around them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-Nazi German pastor who later died in 1945 in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, once wrote in a letter to his grandmother: "The issue really is: Germanism or Christianity." [76]

Some religions teach total non-violence and non-harm, such as branches of Hinduism and Buddhism. This approach is called pacifism . Followers of certain branches of Christianity are pacifists, such as Quakers . The Hindu leader, Mohandas Gandhi (often called Mahatma Gandhi) led a successful non-violent struggle to free India from British rule. Morgan, W. John, "Pacifism or Bourgeois Pacifism? Huxley, Orwell, and Caudwell". In Morgan, W. John and Guilherme, Alexandre (Eds.), Peace and War: Historical, Philosophical, and Anthropological Perspectives,(Palgrave Macmillan,2020) 71–96. ISBN 978-3030486709. Kaegi, Walter E. (1995). Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521484558. In fact, jihad as physical fighting for the spread of Islam is so prominent in the traditional teaching of Islam that it is sometimes referred to as the sixth pillar of Islam. In the earliest hadith collections, sections on jihad immediately follow those on the five pillars. [8] The primary meaning of jihad has always been physical fighting. This applies to the Qur’an, the hadith, Islamic history and classical Islamic hermeneutics. Lansbury was eventually persuaded to resign as Labour leader by the non-pacifist wing of the party and was replaced by Clement Attlee. [59] As the threat from Nazi Germany increased in the 1930s, the Labour Party abandoned its pacifist position and supported rearmament, largely as the result of the efforts of Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton, who by 1937 had also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. [60]

Mindful Peace Blog

In the 13th century, Salim Suwari a philosopher in Islam, came up with a peaceful approach to Islam known as the Suwarian tradition. [117] [118] The English Quaker William Penn, who founded the Province of Pennsylvania, employed an anti-militarist public policy. Unlike residents of many of the colonies, Quakers chose to trade peacefully with the Indians, including for land. The colonial province was, for the 75 years from 1681 to 1756, essentially unarmed and experienced little or no warfare in that period.

This hadith is narrated in Al-Bayhaqi in al-Zuhd al-Kabir, though it is noted that “This is a chain that contains weakness.” [5] It is dated from the first half of the ninth century and is not related in any of the official canonical hadith collections. [6] Most significantly, it is contradicted by the Qur’an itself which says: Some religions teach that conflict and taking up arms can be justified in the right circumstances. Sikhs, for example, have faced persecution throughout their history and have been involved in violent clashes with other faiths. Likewise, Islam is not a pacifist religion, but there are very strict rules about when a war can be justified and how to behave when wars are being fought. Islam is strict about avoiding unnecessary harm and violence both to the enemy and any innocent bystanders. Between the two World Wars [ edit ] The soldiers of the Red Army in Russia, who on religious grounds refused to shoot at the target (evangelicals or Baptists). Between 1918 and 1929 Helen Josephine Baroni (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism. The Rosen Publishing Group. p.3. ISBN 978-0823922406. Panorama of the Classical World by Nigel Spivey and Michael Squire. Getty Publications, 2011, ISBN 1606060562 (p. 200).In 1960, Thich Nhat Hanh came to the U.S. to study comparative religion at Princeton University and was subsequently appointed a lecturer in Buddhism at Columbia University. Nhất Hạnh had written a letter to King in 1965 entitled "Searching for the Enemy of Man" and met with King in 1966 to urge him to publicly denounce the Vietnam War. [3] In a famous 1967 speech at Riverside Church in New York City, [81] King publicly questioned the U.S. involvement in Vietnam for the first time. Violence has always been controversial in anarchism. While many anarchists during the 19th century embraced propaganda of the deed, Leo Tolstoy and other anarcho-pacifists directly opposed violence as a means for change. He argued that anarchism must by nature be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force and since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic. His philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian independence leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis was also instrumental in establishing the pacifist trend within the anarchist movement. [150] In France, anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand founded "Ligue Antimilitariste" in 1902 with Albert Libertad and George Mathias Paraf-Javal. Not all nonviolent resistance (sometimes also called civil resistance) is based on a fundamental rejection of all violence in all circumstances. Many leaders and participants in such movements, while recognizing the importance of using non-violent methods in particular circumstances, have not been absolute pacifists. Sometimes, as with the civil rights movement's march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, they have called for armed protection. The interconnections between civil resistance and factors of force are numerous and complex. [8] Types [ edit ] Absolute pacifism [ edit ] Winder, Virginia. "Conflict and Protest – Pacifist of Parihaka – Te Whiti o Rongomai". Archived from the original on 5 July 2009 . Retrieved 29 July 2007.

In the twentieth century there was a notable trend among prominent Roman Catholics towards pacifism. Individuals such as Dorothy Day and Henri Nouwen stand out among them. The monk and mystic Thomas Merton was noted for his commitment to pacifism during the Vietnam War era. Murdered Salvadoran Bishop Óscar Romero was notable for using non-violent resistance tactics and wrote meditative sermons focusing on the power of prayer and peace. School of the Americas Watch was founded by Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois in 1990 and uses strictly pacifist principles to protest the training of Latin American military officers by United States Army officers at the School of the Americas in the state of Georgia.

Pacifists in Nazi Germany were dealt with harshly, reducing the movement into almost nonexistence; those who continued to advocate for the end of the war and violence were often sent to labor camps; German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky [73] and Olaf Kullmann, a Norwegian pacifist active during the Nazi occupation, [74] were both imprisoned in concentration camps and died as a result of their mistreatment there. Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter was executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht. [75] a b c Cleave, Joanne; Geddes, Gordon D.; Griffiths, Jane (2004). GCSE Religious Studies for AQA Christianity: Christianity: Behaviour, Attitudes & Lifestyles. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publisher. p.75. ISBN 978-0435307141. Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 December 2018 . Retrieved 6 December 2018. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) Bertrand Russell argued that the necessity of defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was a unique circumstance in which war was not the worst of the possible evils; he called his position relative pacifism. Shortly before the outbreak of war, British writers such as E. M. Forster, Leonard Woolf, David Garnett and Storm Jameson all rejected their earlier pacifism and endorsed military action against Nazism. [66] Similarly, Albert Einstein wrote: "I loathe all armies and any kind of violence; yet I'm firmly convinced that at present these hateful weapons offer the only effective protection." [67] The British pacifists Reginald Sorensen and C. J. Cadoux, while bitterly disappointed by the outbreak of war, nevertheless urged their fellow pacifists "not to obstruct the war effort." [68] During the Warring States period, the pacifist Mohist School opposed aggressive war between the feudal states. They took this belief into action by using their famed defensive strategies to defend smaller states from invasion from larger states, hoping to dissuade feudal lords from costly warfare. The Seven Military Classics of ancient China view warfare negatively, and as a last resort. For example, the Three Strategies of Huang Shigong says: "As for the military, it is not an auspicious instrument; it is the way of heaven to despise it", and the Wei Liaozi writes: "As for the military, it is an inauspicious instrument; as for conflict and contention, it runs counter to virtue". [15]