Foreword
Seeking Cultures of Peace
A Peace Church Conversation

The Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) calls upon churches to engage in theological reflection to overcome the spirit, logic, and practice of violence. Theological conversation is one of the specific activities the DOV invites the churches to engage in.

This is precisely what the Historic Peace Churches were doing when they met at Bienenberg, Switzerland, in June 2001, just six months into the Decade. The World Council of Churches warmly welcomes such initiatives, and I am happy that the contents of this particular conversation are documented in the present collection of essays. Dr. Konrad Raiser’s introductory remarks actually summarize the unfolding process around the questions of war, peace, and nonviolence in the ecumenical movement. This alone is a contribution worthy to be shared widely.

For as long as they have existed, the Historic Peace Churches have presented a challenge to the mainline churches to consider the biblical call to active peacemaking as taking primacy over national, institutional, or religious drives for power or even survival. Some of the motivations and implications of this challenge are documented in this book, and they are as pertinent today as in earlier centuries.

"Churches Seeking Reconciliation and Peace" is the Decade to Overcome Violence theme. The World Council of Churches has from the start emphasized the pertinence of the Historic Peace Churches in the conciliar process within the ecumenical movement. The title of this book, Seeking Cultures of Peace, gently points to the UN-Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, to which the DOV is running in complementary parallel.

That process of seeking is a process which we are to engage in together, both as different traditions within the ecumenical movement, and as communities in different cultures and regions around the world. It is in this spirit that I welcome this book as a gift of the HPC to all of us, and that I look forward to the continuation of the conversation, which is planned to take place in Africa, so as to engage more vividly those who come to the table out of the midst of situations of war, protracted violence, and sustained oppression. As we walk the road together, God’s Spirit walks among us and inspires us.

—Dr. Samuel Kobia
General Secretary, World Council of Churches
Geneva, Switzerland

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