Every Advent, the second candle flickers for peace. Yet like hope, this word has grown soft in the Christian imagination. “Peace” has come to mean inner calm, social quiet, or the absence of visible conflict. But throughout Scripture, peace is not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice. The Bible’s peace—shalom—names the wholeness of creation restored, the healing of injustice, the reconciliation of enemies, and the overthrow of every false order built on domination and control.

Advent begins this Sunday, and this week's Advent theme is HOPE. Today, hope often sounds like wishful thinking. We use the word to describe personal aspirations, feelings, or a positive outlook. But biblical hope is not optimism. It's born in the midst of despair—in exile, under empire, among people who have every reason to give up.

“Peacebuilding is not an elective that you can choose from your church’s course offerings; it is the essence of our calling as Christians and the motivator for all we do.” That feedback was one of many incredible responses we got from our last 6-week online small group: “Introduction to Christian Peacebuilding,” and we have another group coming up in September. Read what others are saying about it, and join us for the next one!

We are excited to announce the launch of a new project to help Christian peacebuilders across the world explore together how we might faithfully and effectively build bridges of understanding, respect, and friendship with neighbors from other social, ideological, and religious groups. The Christian Peacebuilding Network (CPN) is a private learning and networking platform currently housed on Facebook.

What happens when you bring together a dozen teenagers who don’t know each other, come from two totally different religious backgrounds, and ask them to put their phones away for the day and actually TALK to each other?

We rejoice that conflict resolution and peacemaking have become major fields of study in colleges and universities. We have learned much from secular research and will continue to engage with scholars and practitioners in this field. Nevertheless, we are Jesus-centered in our approach. Here are five truths that define what Jesus-centered peacemaking means to us.

Most pastors believe that peacemaking should play some significant role in the church. But there seems to be a gap between this belief and the actual practice of peacemaking in most churches. So where does a pastor or Christian leader start?

The long-asked question concerning the Christian response to war has historically had two answers: pacifism, meaning that war is never justified; and "Just War" theory, meaning that there are certain circumstances which justify killing during war. That was, until Glen Stassen presented his third option: Just Peacemaking.

Recently, while at a birthday party for a Muslim friend, the host came and shared that he had read some disturbing anti-Muslim writing in response to an interview in which he had been the main Muslim voice. Abdullah was quite pleased with the article, written by a Christian academic who was genuinely interested in Abdullah’s views, but it was the comments to the article that disturbed him.