Guiding principles

Solidarity.  Every human being is imperfect, sinful, and inherently capable of evil, yet each human being has immeasurable and inherent worth and dignity and should be shown respect.

Naming evil in the world for what it is.  One of the problems of our age is that there are too many who believe that there are no absolutes and therefore nothing can be labeled “evil.”   The members of the Institute believe that there are acts and omissions that must be declared as evil just as there are inalienable and universal human rights that should not be violated.

Transcendent identity.  No person should have to abandon his or her heritage, whether familial, cultural, religious or ethnic and be assimilated into a group in order to obtain full acceptance and respect.

Sustainable peace is founded on justice.  Many, if not most, of the conflicts in the world are rooted in systematic oppression of the weak, exploitation and/or abandonment of the poor, and absence or perversion of the rule of law.  It is not enough to hone mediation and conflict resolution skills.  We must address the causes of destructive conflict and remedy them.

Breaking Intractable Cycles of Violence Through Forgiveness.  There are places in the world where people of different tribes, religions, ethnicities and/or nationalities have been locked in cycles of violent conflict for generations.  In most cases determining to the satisfaction of all who threw the first punch or committed the first transgression is impossible.  Even if it were possible to ascertain the initiating act, all sides long ago lost their ability to claim innocence because all sides have committed atrocities against the other.  Ultimately, the only way to break the cycle is for one group to take the lead by first acknowledging its own contribution to the conflict then forgoing the injustice of revenge and fighting the injustice of oppression with the creative ‘injustice’ of forgiveness. Every act of forgiveness enthrones justice; it draws attention to its violation by offering to forego its claims.  Those forgiven and willing to forgive can pursue justice without falling into the temptation to pervert it into injustice.[1]

Religious liberty.   Borrowing from the Williamsburg Charter, “religious liberty, freedom of conscience, is a precious, fundamental and inalienable right. A society is only as just and free as it is respectful of this right for its smallest minorities and least popular communities…  Religious liberty is founded on the inviolable dignity of the person… Central to the notion of the common good, and of greater importance each day because of the increase of pluralism, is the recognition that religious liberty is a universal right. Rights are best guarded and responsibilities best exercised when each person and group guards for all others those rights they wish guarded for themselves.”[2]

Connectivity.  All reality is interconnected and interdependent.  As the physicist David Bohm observed, we would be well served to see all of existence as an undivided whole.  Bohm proposed that “the widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.), which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and ‘broken up’ into yet smaller constituent parts.”[3]  A necessary corollary is that developing our understanding of systems thinking should be given a high priority.

Systems thinking.  To understand the complex causes of destructive conflict we must enlarge our viewfinders to encompass the circular nature of its causes. One of the major challenges is to develop more robust systems theories that account for more of [4] the sequential influences and feedback mechanisms in cycles of conflict.  Destructive cycles of conflict almost always originate in needs either not being met or the fear that they will not be met coupled with an absence of constructive conflict resolution skills and the conviction that increasingly violent means are necessary to fulfill needs.

Integrated solutions.   Building sustainable peace requires addressing all the feedback mechanisms that push people toward destructive responses to conflict.  For example, peace will not be achieved by providing funding mechanisms for micro-development loans that promote economic growth and the meeting of essential physical needs if the rule of law is not being upheld and personal security assured.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration. Integrated solutions require collaboration among many disciplines.  Like the blind men discovering the elephant, we need each other to have a more complete picture of the reality we seek to change, the solutions for the systemic causes of destructive conflict, and the common good toward which we strive.

“Chaordic” vs. “Command and Control.”  Building sustainable peace is too large and complex an undertaking for an institution of researchers, thought leaders and practitioners operating under traditional command and control management structures.  The task calls for a “chaordic" [5] learning community that is unified at the core by a common purpose and a commitment to model essential principles and practices that enable the building of sustainable peace.   We must function according to an old axiom:  “In essentials unity, in action freedom, and in all things trust.”  The Institute will ultimately be a learning community made of a network of thought leaders, practitioners and member organizations powered from the periphery through the indispensable contributions of each member.  Such a community offers consistent opportunities for collaboration across disciplines, freedom for creativity to flourish, and resources to accomplish the mission.

Personal Transformation.  Real learning changes behavior. Those of us who would seek to build sustainable peace must be willing to engage in the hardest work of all, that of our own transformation.  Forty-five years ago, Thomas Merton wrote:

“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all.  And instead of hating the people you think are war makers, hate the appetites and the disorders in your own soul, which are the causes of war.  If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another."[6]