Christian faith and Global Peace

Can Christianity still be an agent of unity and peace in spite of its long history of internal divisions? It seems very unlikely. But a young priest of the Oriental Orthodox Church answers it affirmatively in his recent book, Christian faith and Global Peace.
In this book, which is his doctoral dissertation, published recently by CSS Books in India, Father Bijesh Philip evaluates the contribution of two towering theologians of the last century toward global peace—Hans Küng and Paulos Mar Gregorios. Bringing them together, Father Philip claims that in Hans Küng and Mar Gregorios, the western and eastern Christian traditions converge with the single purpose of bringing about peace in the world. Hans Küng and Mar Gregorios, who have been giants in the world of thought, have so much in common although they have come from the two diverse tributaries of Christianity. The common goal of peace and justice has made the differences between them insignificant.
What is the most authentic form of Christianity with which all the other forms of Christianity can be measured and evaluated? This is the point at which Hans Kung and Mar Gegorios apparently disagree. As the most authentic form of Christianity, Hans Küng views Jesus Christ and the New Testament church, whereas Mar Gregorios gives due importance to the Holy Tradition as a whole. If we compare the Holy Tradition of the church to a stream, its source is Christ and His gospel, and its record is the Holy Scriptures, with the writings of the fathers, creeds, and liturgy as its subsequent expressions. Even though both Hans Küng and Mar Gregorios take this into consideration, Hans Küng's focus is more on the source of this stream whereas Mar Gregorios takes the stream as a whole seriously.
By peace they both mean shalom-- all humanity existing together maintaining right relationship with the environment (nature) and with the transcendent. We do not have peace today because all these relationships are disrupted. We do not maintain a right relationship with God; in fact, we live our life based on a worldview that does not even have a God. Instead of taking a responsible role in relation to the nature, we keep on exploiting it. Instead of making peace with our fellow beings and living together as a family, we spend a good part of our resources to develop ways to annihilate each other.
The Godless worldview which originated in the European enlightenment and spread all over the world is seen by both as the primary reason behind the mess our world is in today. Although the European enlightenment helped us to see the world in a better way and helped develop the modern medicine, education, science, and technology, it blinded us from seeing the transcendent ground of everything. This Godless worldview is the root cause of the uncontrolled exploitation of nature and of mounting moral crisis leading to violence in global scale. The irresponsible misuse of authority by the Christian church in Europe is what originally led to such a development. The solution today is to adopt a worldview that affirms God’s existence. We need to turn to our rich God-affirming religious resources with an open mind, which can enrich our medicine, education, economics, science and technology, paving way to a much better and more meaningful way of life for mankind.
There can’t be peace without justice. How can there be peace and justice where there is slavery and exploitation? Global peace cannot be established or maintained without a conscious and united effort of the humanity to establish justice in the world. Religious people must have the willingness to join hands with the nonreligious people in this mass movement for justice and peace.
Although Hans Küng and Mar Gregorios are well-rooted in their own religious traditions, they extend their arms to hold the entire human race. Their religious faith does not prevent them from working for the wellbeing of all; on the contrary, their faith empowers them to do so. Thus from their own life, they set this as an example for all the religious people in the world. They advice all people to be well-rooted in their own religious traditions, but stretch their arms to include all the fellow beings without excluding any. Such an attitude and approach can root out fundamentalism and communalism.
Although they have unshaken faith in God, neither of them does the mistake of trying to contain God within their own religious community or tradition. They both believe in a God who transcends all limits and barriers. They see God’s presence wherever there is good, and they challenge their fellow Christians to see God in other religious communities and even among nonreligious people.
Father Philip begins this study with a biographical note of Hans Küng and Mar Gregorios. After presenting a detailed study of their commitment to the Christian faith and to global peace in several chapters, a comparison of their thought and work is made in the last part. Father Philip has made it readable for all by avoiding the theological jargon as much as possible and by providing appropriate explanation and translation wherever needed.
The work of father Philip is a contribution to ecumenism as well as to global peace. Hope and pray that this work will serve as a stepping stone to further studies on this topic.

source: http://johnkunnathu.blogspot.com/2009/12/christian-faith-and-global-peace.html