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Messages of Peace

Posted: Monday September 20, 2004 5:50 PM EST

By Juan Michel The World Council of Churches

"God weeps over God’s world, aching because of conflict in Darfur, in Beslan, in Harare, in Colombia, in Jerusalem, in Belfast,” says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his message for the International Day of Prayer for Peace, to be observed on 21 September. And he adds: “God - Emmanuel, God with us, with you - has no one but you to help God make this world hospitable to peace and justice.”

Although, as Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I affirms in his message, “violence and war are considered by many as ways of improvement for the world’s situation,” the truth is that “all of the ideologies and convictions on the necessity and effectiveness of violence are wrong and are to be condemned.”

Recalling the experience of Germany, where a nonviolent Christian movement contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall 15 years ago, the chairman of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany Bishop Wolfgang Huber states that “wherever people trust in the spirit of peace in the name of Jesus Christ, they experience that it is a realistic force to be reckoned with, and that possibilities open up.”

These are among the peace messages delivered by more than a dozen well-known Christian leaders and peace-makers from all over the world who support the initiative called by for the World Council of Churches (WCC) in the frame of its Decade to Overcome Violence. The inspiring two-minute video messages are also an affirmation of the churches’ and faith communities’ work for peace and justice.

This WCC initiative links to the International Day of Peace declared by the United Nations General Assembly, a world-wide effort intended as a day of global cease-fire and nonviolence, and as an opportunity for education and raising public awareness.

The video messages in both webcast and broadcast quality are already available at
http://www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004

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