Christianity, Violence, and Peace

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In Pope Francis' most recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti he writes that there is "a need for peacemakers" who "are prepared to work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter" (#225). This course explores the Christian call to be peacemakers from the Sermon on the Mount to nonviolent activism in the 20th and 21st centuries. A central aim of this course is to consider what unique contributions the Christian tradition makes to our understanding of peace and nonviolence. In our own context, where peacebuilding has become an academic and professional enterprise, we will consider what it means to understand nonviolence as a way of life grounded in faith, spirituality, and growth in virtue. The first section of the course will give a very brief overview of how peace, violence, and nonviolence are discussed in current peace studies literature. The second part of the course will cover a biblical understanding of peace in the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament. We will also consider how Fratelli Tutti engages with scripture, specifically the story of the good Samaritan. The third section of the course will give a brief historical overview of approaches to peace and violence from the early Church to the Reformation. Topics that will be covered in this section include: martyrdom, the rise of just war theory, the concept of a "holy war," and the anabaptist commitment to nonviolence during the radical Reformation. The fourth part of the course will cover the development of Church teaching on just war and peace in the 20th and 21st centuries. Attention will be paid to contemporary issues such as nuclear weapons, the death penalty, and whether it is possible to have a just war today. The fifth section focuses on contemporary peacebuilding exemplars. Exemplars and communities that will be considered include: Franz Jaggerstatter, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, MLK and the Civil Rights Movement, Jean Zaru and the nonviolent activism of Palestinian Christians, Maggy Barankitse's work for peace in Burundi, and Christian Peacemaker Teams. In the final section of the course we will consider how peace intersects with other justice issues. In this regard, this course will focus on how Christian ecological ethics intersects with nonviolence and peacemaking. At the conclusion of this course students will be invited to answer the following question for themselves: In light of what we have studied together as a class, in our own context, what does it mean to follow Pope Francis' call to "work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter"? (#225).