Abstract
This article contributes towards designing a Spirituality of Peace within Spirituality as a discipline. It first analyses the increasing attention to violence and peace generally and within religious contexts specifically. It then critically evaluates some approaches that view violence and peace as moral issues and shows how these approaches inherently move towards a spiritual approach to peace. The article finally discusses work by Hauerwas and Levinas in order to prepare the way for an alternative, more complementary approach to violence and peace from the perspective of Spirituality as a discipline.
Highlights
A GLOBAL FOCUS ON VIOLENCE AND PEACE2The twentieth century seems to have brought a turning point in views on vio lence3 and peace
Richard Niebuhr’s non-violent, pacifist position means Christians must require a peaceableness for their helplessness before vio lence. It is on this point that Hauerwas explicitly introduces spirituality when he refers to its traditional form
A Spirituality of Peace can benefit in more than one way from the insights of Hauerwas and Levinas. Some of these can only be spelled out briefly and in a preliminary fashion here. Both these authors illuminate a foundational aspect of spirituality
Summary
The twentieth century seems to have brought a turning point in views on vio lence and peace. The best known example is to be found in the just war theory that played such an important role in church and theology from the beginnings of Christianity and that sanctioned the use of violence by the state.. In practice it did not prevent religious leaders from supporting vio lence and war that turned out to be immoral and unjustifiable In recent times, this debate was intensified when, ironically, within anti-establishment contexts, contextual theologies like Liberation Theology and Black Theology reflected on the use of violence against powerful and exploitative colonial powers and in some cases defended the use of violence.. Gives rise to human culture and forms part of the very essence of religion and religious practices In addition to these developments on the level of theory formation, another significant aspect of contemporary reflection on violence must be mentioned briefly. Cf. Waaijman (2002:308-9) about the relationship of spirituality with theology
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