ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author reflects on nonviolence as a style of politics for peace. He pleads with equal urgency for an end to domestic violence and to the abuse of women and children. When victims of violence are able to resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promotors of nonviolent peacemaking. Whoever accepts the Good News of Jesus is able to acknowledge the violence within and be healed by God's mercy, becoming in turn an instrument of reconciliation. The politics of nonviolence have to begin in the home and then spread to the entire human family. Women in particular are often leaders of nonviolence, as for example, was Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of Liberian women who organized pray-ins and nonviolent protest that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia.