Peacemakers Peacemaking

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course studies the personal and social character of the religious commitment to nonviolence in relation to concrete struggles for social justice. We will take up a trajectory of reflection and practice that extends from L. Tolstoy and M.K. Gandhi through Martin Luther King, Jr., and then, with important modifications, onto to Roman Catholic prophetic witness in the works and life of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Daniel Berrigan. Buddhist approaches to nonviolence and political life follow--with and without overlap. Some specific issues we will address include the meaning of peace; the meaning of violence and nonviolence; religious understandings of the relation between love and justice in personal and political life; the significance and efficacy of nonviolence as a moral virtue and a political strategy.