C of C International Peace Award 2023

 

C of C International Peace Award 2023 Excerpts from the C of C News re its 2023 International Peace Award Recipient— https://cofchrist.org/news/2023-international-peace-award-recipient/ 5 September 2022 The International Peace Award sponsored by Community of Christ and the Shaw Family Foundation will be awarded at the 2023 World Conference in April. We are pleased to announce Community Peacemaker Teams as the 2023 recipient. Initially supported institutionally by Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren, Community Peacemaker Teams later were joined by a Roman Catholic religious order, Quakers, and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, among others. Teams are made up of a diversity of staff from a variety of faith and spiritual backgrounds, with a commitment to nonviolence. Learn more about Community Peacemaker Teams at www.cpt.org. About the Award Honorees represent diversity in ethnicity, gender, and faith. Their work aligns with Community of Christ’s efforts to Pursue Peace on Earth and Abolish Poverty and End Suffering by seeking avenues of peace amid conflict, injustice, and suffering of persons, creatures, and the environment. The award includes a financial gift to be donated to the charitable peace, justice, or environmental organization(s) of the recipient’s choice. ________________________________________ About the far-left, New Age, Community Peacemaker Teams (excerpts from their website— https://cpt.org/about CPT [and CRT] understands violence to be rooted in systemic structures of oppression. We are committed to undoing oppressions, starting within our own lives and in the practices of our organization. CPT enlists spiritual communities and individuals in an organized, nonviolent alternative to war. CPT’s initial roots among Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Quakers have spread into a broad multi-faith network that supports spiritually-centered peacemaking, creative public witness, nonviolent direct action, and protection of human rights. OUR WORK INCLUDES: Human rights observation and reporting. Solidarity networking: partnering with individuals and organizations to work toward change. Page 2 of 2 This is the lens through which CPT conducts our work. We believe that violence is a symptom of underlying systems of oppression (sexism, racism, heterosexism, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism) that perpetuate acts of violence. We seek to address these root causes at an interpersonal, organizational, state, and global level. Decolonization Much of our world has been violently colonized by empires throughout history and continually oppressed through racist, extractivist, and capitalist systems of destruction. CPT advocates for decolonization: dismantling these systems of oppression and moving towards systems of caregiving, balance, and mutual aid. Partnerships Our work is built on partnerships and led by local peacebuilders. We only work in spaces where we have been invited to join together with established initiatives, and we are committed to long-term relationships with our partners who resist oppression every day, not only during emergency situations. Creative Nonviolence CPT supports nonviolent resistance movements and wages nonviolent direct action to confront systems of violence and oppression. We believe in creative nonviolent action as a tool for sustainable transformation rooted in liberating love. Spiritually-guided CPT was born out of a Christian community’s response to increased militarism and violence. We have since grown into a diverse group of peacemakers, many of whom draw inspiration for their nonviolent practices from multiple spiritual and philosophical understandings and beliefs. We know and celebrate that the sacred is recognized and revealed in many traditions and tongues, identities and images, colours and cultures. Collective Liberation We understand each of our teams’ struggles for justice—while diverse and contextually nuanced—as united together for collective liberation. We cannot dismantle the structures of oppression without the knowledge and experience of our diverse identities. Together, we will overcome.