Sacred Texts

Abstract

At the heart of every religion there is an aspiration for peace, both personal and public. The goal of peace is a belief that can, if on this issue alone, unite the most diverse thinkers, from those of little faith to those with profound religious beliefs. However, the paths to peace are many and divergent among those who number the religious, from Buddhists and Muslims to Christians. Even among Christians alone, a range of doctrines is available, from the other-worldly Mennonites, who choose to play no part in government, to Quakers, who traditionally have actively campaigned in an organised way for such issues as abolition of slavery and the elimination of war, and to the just war theory of the established Anglo-Catholic church in England. The linking factor is a matter of shared belief in the purity, inviolability or sanctity of individual human life, which is something even atheists can share. Reverence for human life is common to all religions and to humanism, and recurrent themes related to pacifism recur in most schools of thought — an ethic of reciprocity often known as ‘the golden rule’, compassion, human kindness (variously called love and charity) and the patient tolerance of persecution, often linked with forgiveness of enemies. For each theological stance, there are one or more written statements that provide reasoning, inspiration and authority for the position.