September 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

The Works of Peace

Paul Lacey, professor emeritus of literature at Earlham College, is Clerk of the National Board of Directors of the American Friends Service Committee.

This year is the 350th anniversary of George Fox's vision on Pendle Hill of a great people to be gathered, the event from which we date the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends. It is also the 85th anniversary of the founding of the American Friends Service Committee to provide means for Quakers to give concrete expression of their conscientious objection to war by performing acts of humanitarian aid for war's victims. Rufus Jones described the work of AFSC as "a service of love in wartime." That part of our story is well-known and beautifully documented in the Quiet Helpers exhibition, currently touring the US.

From the feeding and rebuilding programs after both world wars to the relief work in America during the Great Depression, to working with Japanese Americans forced into internment camps, aiding Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank after 1948, sending medical supplies to North Vietnam during the American War, and books, journals, and equipment to medical schools in Iraq, and food, blankets, and clothing to civilian sufferers in Afghanistan at present, humanitarian and material aid has always been fundamental to AFSC's work.

As even that very incomplete list of humanitarian commitments indicates, however, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, helping the displaced to a new beginning which have always been the most immediately popular, most readily understood aspects of AFSC's work, have inevitably led to deeper engagement and action beyond "relief work." Who can see the effects of war without feeling compelled to remove its causes? Who can see the effects of unjust economic and political institutions without feeling compelled to help their victims organize to change them? Our "service of love" is inadequate patchwork, what scripture calls "healing the hurts of My people slightly," without the search to eliminate what John Woolman called "the seeds of war" imbedded in our social, political, and economic institutions and even clinging to ourselves and our possessions when we uncritically accept the benefits of unjust societies. Our vision of the life God's children are intended to live will impel us to go beyond good works (which everyone admires) to controversial and unpopular acts: civil disobedience of unjust laws, fundamental challenge of unjust institutions, bold public witness to join our voices with the oppressed and unheard (all of which sometimes embarrasses the admirers of our good works). The deeper vision which animates our humanitarian work also drives us beyond it to peace work itself.

We do not break laws lightly, but there are times when it is not possible to reconcile Friends' respect for law and democratic institutions with the need to obey a spiritual leading to a greater justice. For example, in order to give medical supplies to relieve the suffering of victims on both sides in the war in Vietnam--to which we were called by obedience to our religious conviction that no one is our enemy--AFSC felt called to break the US law forbidding "trading with the enemy." That was peace work. So, we believe, is our present refusal to comply with the legal requirement that we document the immigration status of our employees.

The British Friend Wolf Mendl distinguishes two main expressions of the Quaker peace testimony: "In every generation, Friends have been found among the visionaries and the realists, or, if you will, among the prophets and the reconcilers...." Drawing on his experience organizing international student seminars for AFSC in Japan and serving as Quaker International Affairs Representative in Paris, Mendl describes the prophet as "filled by a vision of the ideal and attentive to its fulfillment,"and the reconciler as one whose "attention is focused on concrete particulars." I find these two terms useful to describe essential and complementary emphases in our current peace work.

The work of reconciliation rests on the conviction that peoples and nations in conflict can be brought into communication to pursue mutual interests which will lead to trust. Quiet diplomacy to open channels of conversation, encouraging moderating voices, finding the small work projects, seminars, exchanges through which cooperation can be tested, helping adversaries find common ground--that is the work of the reconciler. The reconciler always tries to be the honest broker, detached, seeking equilibrium, looking for what can be said for both sides of any issue, for what weight can be placed on either side of the scales. A British Friend who worked for Friends Service Council near the end of the Civil War in China told of overhearing two phone conversations which offer a parable of the reconciler's role. In an office of the Kuomintang, she heard Quakers described as people of good will trying to maintain communications with both sides, though "we think they favor the communists." In an office of the Communist side, she again heard that Quakers are people of good will...though "we think they favor the Kuomintang." Trying hard always to point out the valid arguments on either side, to stay in touch with adversaries, the reconciler must expect to be misunderstood by each. How often do we hear AFSC blamed for "lacking objectivity" because it does not unconditionally support one side's claims in a dispute? A good bridge will be walked on from both sides.

If the reconciler asks adversaries to consider that the practical, concrete socio-political truth may lie somewhere in between their positions, the prophet is called to witness to a more absolute truth. For example, fully understanding the fear that has gripped Americans since September 11, AFSC's prophetic peacework requires speaking out against government proposals to encourage Americans to spy on one another, against constraints on Americans' constitutional rights. Prophetic peacework means standing in solidarity with Muslim Americans, with immigrants, and people of color threatened by heightening "profiling." It means giving water to illegal immigrants who without it risk death from thirst in the deserts of the Southwest. It means encouraging nonviolent opposition and resistance to mobilization in the name of a war on terrorism. Prophetic peacework requires a great deal of firm, public nay-saying in the service of a deeper affirmation of the inextricable links between peace and social justice.

Arguing against pacifism, Reinhold Niebuhr asserted powerfully that there can be no peace without justice. He was right, but it is equally true that there can be no justice without peace. Wolf Mendl believed one person or one organization could not play both the prophetic and reconciling roles. Steve Cary, our dear Friend and lifelong supporter of the AFSC, always insisted that the two roles were not only possible but essential for us. If we split them apart, easy reconciliation may sacrifice too much for quiescence, and the glibly prophetic may accept violence as the price for justice. As the prophet and the reconciler play sometimes contrary but ultimately reciprocal roles, peace and justice may seem at odds in particular cases but are ultimately mutually sustaining strengths. Arthur Larrabee has said that some of us are called to action by faith, and some are called to faith by action. each of us enlightened by the Divine Light that came into the World, each capable of being spiritually led to lives of goodness. The light embraces all the colors of the rainbow. The Quaker peace testimony is single in vision but must be multivocal in expression, if it is to speak to all conditions. It is not a testimony unless it is a work.

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