The World Council of Churches has a particular reason to welcome this book. Three years ago, at a meeting of its Central Committee in Johannesburg, the WCC launched a “Programme to Overcome Violence.” Lest this formulation seem too presumptuous—as if the churches or the WCC knew how to overcome violence and could teach everybody else—the objective of the program was stated positively, as contributing to the building of a “culture of peace.” The present publication operates in this same dialectic: overcoming violence and Christian peacemaking.

The historic peace churches and the Fellowship of Reconciliation have been committed to peacemaking long before this was affirmed as an ecumenical imperative. When the mainline churches were still concerned with asking the question whether and under what circumstances war could be considered an “act of justice,” the historic peace churches had long since begun to work on the basic elements of the theory and practice of a “just peace.”

With the apparent convergence of agendas, a new phase in the relationship and cooperation between the WCC and the peace churches has begun. This book builds on the long experience with local and global strategies for peacemaking and can therefore serve as an important resource for all who want to help build a culture of peace. It also evaluates critically the political, theological, and spiritual lessons learned by those who have been engaged in the task of peacemaking already for decades. It is my hope, therefore, that this valuable publication will find a wide and attentive audience.
Konrad Raiser,
General Secretary,
World Council of Churches

	To Pandora U.S. Main Page
	To Transforming Violence Contents