RELIGION AS AN AGENT OF PEACE
In building a culture of peace, religion plays a crucial role. Many teachings and rituals in religion express love, compassion, forgiveness, discipline, gentleness, etc. The role of religion to make a culture peace begins locally. Religious teachings of peace have to be strengthened in local community. It is because local community is part of their particular global faces of each of religious practices that can influence other community. It means that if every community in this world is in peace, the communities in global must be in peace.
The true adherent of religion is one who always creates, sustains, promotes, and maintains a culture of peace at a time when a culture of violence and war threatens to overwhelm many societies. The true adherent has to be an agent to change the violent and condition to peace condition.
In every society, there have been people who are aware of their society. They try to change their society that are full with violence to society that are full with peace an love, and they success in it. For example, Gandhi has succeeded changing the violence in India by a nonviolent act—“violence is fought by nonviolence”. Another example is Sillak Savaraksa helped by his many colleagues in the Network of Engaged Buddhist. They organized people in Cambodia during 1994 national elections to do peace march. In Islam, there are Ibrahim Rugova and Wangeri Maathai. The first is the building Muslim leader who has brought the Albanan population of Kosova into peaceful, nonviolent witness to the integrity of their society in the role of attempts at ethnic cleansing by a neighboring ethnic group, and the second is the Kenyan biologist and university Professor who helped rural women form the Greenbelt movement—an effort to transform deteriorating communities and the decaying ecosystem they inhabited into revitalized social bodies through the communal planting trees. Besides those, still there are many prominent figures that contribute to create the culture of peace.
As a religious adherent, there are many things that we can do to make a culture of peace. First of all is rebuilding a culture of peace. Religions have contributions to make peace in this world, because they love truth, are free, and have great spiritual strength. For example in Islam, according to the Kholoq-e-Azeem’s statement, there is abundance of natural wealth and human resources which ensure a bright future for the world of Islam, but the spiritual cultural and humanitarian values which form the very basic of Islamic teachings are sadly lacking everywhere.
Another activity that religions can do is training in conflict resolution. This training can help parents meet the needs of their children more fully and prepare children to behave nonviolently in environment where there may be considerable violence. Such training can also help local worshipers settle differences among themselves in mosque, temple, or church. And also there are many activities that religions can do to make and to create a culture of peace in the world.[]
