Making Peace with Faith

Reviews / Votes

With the growing recognition of the role of religious leaders in building peace, this book is a much needed testimony of the enormous challenges facing religious peacemakers around the world. The personal and professional stories bring hope and inspiration in how to sustain interreligious peace initiatives in places where politicians failed. Policy makers can benefit from the lessons learned on how to best engage with faith based communities and leaders. -- Adama Dieng, UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide This collection is a treasure house of knowledge and practical experience on the battle-fronts of inter-sectarian peacemaking. The authors provide detailed accounts of their faith-inspired efforts to ease and transform conflicts. Women are leaders. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus provide precious insights into the dynamics of inter-and intra-religious conflict resolution. A gift to the field. -- Joseph V. Montville, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University Making Peace with Faith dives deep into the complex roles religious actors play in working for peace. Would that it were true that ALL are taking religious roles more seriously: religion is still often ignored or demonized. This book explores the topic honestly, highlighting both the potential and the religious contradictions that faith-inspired peacebuilders experience. This work, it demonstrates, is not for the faint of heart but our hopes for peace have far better prospects if faith is part of the solution. -- Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs Making Peace with Faith is an incredible resource for practitioners and researchers to better understand major challenges faced by inter-faith peacemakers. Not only do the authors vividly reflect upon their own foundational challenges in faith-based peace-making, but they provide insights into complex contexts to overcome these issues. We learn how faith in practice versus faith understood often does not complement critical approaches to faith-based peace-building. This book is a must read for all of those who want to gain insight and wisdom from the world of faith-based peace-building and conflict resolution. -- Qamar-ul Huda, Former Senior Advisor, U.S. Dept of State Office of Religion & Global Affairs This collection of 12 evenly structured and strikingly original essays represents a significant contribution to the growing academic field that examines the role religion plays in peacebuilding. For those specializing in this new academic area, these essays represent a notable addition to a subfield that specializes in individual testimonies that provide creative and consistent religious contributions to peacebuilding. As for readers who are new to this discipline, and who may be interested in deepening their understanding of the relationships between religious belief and public policy, this text provides a useful and accessible introduction. * International Journal on World Peace *