Our shared commitment to nonviolence unites the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Quaker communities residing at The Community of Living Traditions. At CLT, dedication to religious nonviolence as a way of life incorporates the study and practice of strategic nonviolence. We view conflict transformation, inner discernment, the struggle for racial justice and intergenerational and multicultural solidarity as essential to the task of waging nonviolence in our own communities, in our neighborhoods and in the world.
Members of The Community of Living Traditions understand nonviolence as a transformational force in service of human dignity and well-being. Nonviolence is the opposite of passivity. Passivity implies victimhood, whether as bystander or targeted victim. Nonviolence engenders empowerment and agency directed toward resisting all attempts at treating persons as things, from large systems designed to humiliate and dehumanize to individual acts of impulse, from bullying to murder. As Gandhi said, nonviolence without direct action is meaningless.
CLT is passionately engaged with current day expressions of nonviolence. We actively participate in unfolding global nonviolence movements as represented by the people of Tahrir Square, the Immokalee workers of Florida, and Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. We align ourselves with everyone struggling for a nonviolent future grounded in restorative justice and peace.
CLT is based at the Stony Point Center, which welcomes people of all faiths and nations to discern, discover, learn and lead. Together, bold dreamers experience the movement of God’s Spirit to create pathways to peace, nonviolence and justice.
