“Over the past 450 years of martyrdom,
immigration and missionary proclamation, the God of shalom has been preparing us
Anabaptists for a late twentieth-century rendezvous with history. The next
twenty years will be the most dangerous—and perhaps the most vicious and
violent—in human history. If we are ready to embrace the cross, God’s
reconciling people will profoundly impact the course of world history . . . This
could be our finest hour. Never has the world needed our message more. Never
has it been more open. Now is the time to risk everything for our belief that
Jesus is the way to peace. If we still believe it, now is the time to live what
we have spoken.
“We must take up our cross and follow Jesus to
Golgotha. We must be prepared to die by the thousands. Those who believed in
peace through the sword have not hesitated to die. Proudly, courageously, they
gave their lives. Again and again, they sacrificed bright futures to the tragic
illusion that one more righteous crusade would bring peace in their time, and
they laid down their lives by the millions.
“Unless we . . . are
ready to start to die by the thousands in dramatic vigorous new exploits for
peace and justice, we should sadly confess that we never really meant what we
said, and we dare never whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and
brothers in those desperate lands filled with injustice. Unless we are ready to
die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess
that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword . . .
”
Read the full text here.
Listen to the speech here.
In the mid-1980s, members of the
historic peace churches were seeking new ways to express their faith.
“Low-intensity” wars had broken out in many places including Central America,
and the U. S. government usually sided with the elite groups and oppressive
systems in these conflicts. Also emerging in that period was a consciousness
that by using the creative energy of organized nonviolence, ordinary people
could stand in front of the weapons and encourage less violent ways for change
to happen.
Thus, Sider’s call contributed to vigorous conversations in
churches across North America. In 1986, these discussions culminated in a late
fall gathering at the suburban Chicago retreat center owned by the Society of
the Divine Word in Techny. God granted a spirit of unity to the gathering of
100 persons and a call went out for the formation of Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT.) Representative denominations appointed a steering committee to hammer out
basic directions and invited Gene Stoltzfus to begin work as the first staff
person in 1988.
By 1992, CPT had put together a series of delegations
to Haiti, Iraq, and the West Bank, but members of the organization still felt
the need for trained full-time corps of people to work in crisis regions. The
Steering Committee thus set a goal to develop a Christian Peacemaker Corps of
twelve full-time persons—who would receive stipends comparable to those provided
by other voluntary service organizations -- with a much larger number of
reservists who would donate their time and resources. By the end of 1998, when the
organization finally reached the goal of a twelve-person Christian Peacemaker
Corps, it had set-up and staffed violence-reduction projects in Haiti;
Washington, DC; Richmond, VA; Hebron, West Bank; Bosnia; and Chiapas,
Mexico
Word spread about CPT’s creative work in the field of
nonviolence. Groups in urban areas of North America, Native peoples, and
numerous third or fourth world churches contacted CPT to explore the possibility
of setting up their own regional CPT groups of workers trained in violence
reduction. During a 2000 full timers’ retreat at CPTer Cliff Kindy’s Joyfield
Farm, CPT full timers and key constituents agreed that CPT should work toward
the development of local groups of trained reservists. To accomplish this
objective, CPT would adapt the three and a half week training component of CPT
for local settings to connect with traditional styles of nonviolent change
present in every culture. As of 2007, CPT has regional groups in Cleveland; the
Boulder, CO, area; Washington, DC; the Winnipeg, MB area; Northern Indiana, and
southern Ontario. Regional groups are developing in the United Kingdom and
Minnesota.
The participants at the Joyfield Farm retreat hoped that the
regional groups would help CPT deploy larger teams to crisis regions. However,
the CPT experience has demonstrated that small teams of four to six people
trained in the skills of documentation, observation, nonviolent intervention,
and various ministries of presence can make a striking difference in explosive
situations.
Initially sponsored by the two largest North American
Mennonite denominations and the Church of the Brethren, as of 2007 CPT has
gained the additional sponsorship of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North
America, the Congregation of St. Basil (Basilians), Every Church a Peace Church,
Friends United Meeting, On Earth Peace, and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.
Most of CPT’s support comes from church members, congregations, and Friends
meetings. As others join this movement to find ways for justice to happen
without killing, they will bring their own special gifts to build the work.
A larger, more ecumenical CPT will inspire Christians from all over
the world to lay aside the weapons of destruction usually controlled by the
mighty. With Jesus’ help and inspiration, these CPTers will show that the power
for transforming conflicts is a miracle available to all of humankind.