ABSTRACT

Peacebuilding seeks to consolidate an existing peace and thus is different from peace enforcement. Peacebuilding activities include education, inter-faith and intrafaith dialogue, advocacy, mediation and so on. In this sense, transnational religious and faith-based movements can play crucial roles in peacebuilding with their strong faith-based motivation, long term commitment, religious, spiritual and moral authority and ability to facilitate constructive social relations between different groups (Stassen 1992, Thistlethwaite and Stassen 2008, Sampson and Lederach 2000, Gopin 1991). It is not so much religion itself but rather the ways in which it has been interpreted and practiced that are influential in religion’s orientation toward radicalism, violence, conflict resolution and peacebuilding (Coward and Smith 2004).