‘Doing Justly’ Event Highlights How Adventists Are Working to Create Peace

On September 14, thought leaders from the Center for Law and Public Policy at Washington Adventist University (WAU), the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (GC PARL), and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) came together to talk about how Seventh-day Adventists work to create peace within their many spheres.

The program, entitled “Doing Justly: Peacebuilding in an Unequal World. Adventist Voices and Adventists in Action,”highlighted the philosophical and biblical mandate of a Christian’s role in peace building, as well as ADRA’s practical humanitarian work on the ground that contributes to peace building in more than 120 countries around the world. The event was held on the WAU campus ahead of World Peace Day, celebrated every year on September 21.

“The idea that peace is a participatory process that requires dialogue across institutions, across countries and across peoples, that is the essence of why we’re hosting this conference today,” said Jonathan Scriven, associate director of the WAU Honors College and co-director of the Center for Law and Public Policy. “Specifically, we’re interested in the role faith-based groups, and the Adventist Church in particular, play in this process.”

Navigating Conversations and Overcoming Conflict

Bill Knott, associate director of GC PARL responsible for Adventist Church interface with the US Congress, White House, and diplomatic corps, and Nelu Burcea, liaison to the United Nations for GC PARL, each spoke on the importance of reconciliation, relationships, and following Christ’s example of peace building.  

“For Christians, the pursuit of peace is not an optional avocation,” Knott said. “If we claim to be followers of that young rabbi of Nazareth, who’s famously known as the Prince of Peace, peacemaking is a non-negotiable part of what we signed up for.”

Knott spoke about the importance of peace, not just in the world, but in our homes, our churches and our workplaces. Quoting Matthew 24:12, “The love of many will grow cold,” he shared the importance of conversations, little olive branches, and appropriate compromises that exist through relationships, as the world becomes more divided. Only through these small steps can peace slowly start to emerge as we hear what Paul said in Ephesians, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”

Burcea agreed with Knott in his presentation, saying, “Throughout the Bible, peace is presented as a vital part of God’s plan for humanity. It is the state of our prosperity and justice from living in accordance with God’s will.” 

“The Bible teaches that peace is not just an absence of conflict but a positive state of being that requires us to live in love, kindness, and compassion towards all people,” Burcea said. 

The Role of Faith-Inspired Humanitarian Organizations in Peace Building

“The topic of peace is not new to ADRA,” Imad Madanat, vice president of Humanitarian Affairs for ADRA International, said. “But it’s not been framed the way we’re going to talk about it today.”

“It’s a challenge,” he continued, “because we are practitioners, we are on the ground, we don’t normally think about peace academically.” 

Madanat went on to give a history of ADRA, from the time the Adventist Church increased its relief efforts in Europe and the Pacific Islands post-World War II, to the current iteration of ADRA that includes development, long-term projects, and peace building. “It’s important to see how we started as impulse relief, to development, to this new framework that links peace to our work,” he said. 

ADRA’s work has always been about peace building through the work it does in education, livelihoods, health, and after disasters through relief work. In relief, sustainable long-term development, and peace building ADRA does not discriminate and keeps an unbiased approach, providing aid to anyone, anywhere that it’s needed.

“We are inspired by our faith,” Madanat said. “Peace is a core value for us in ADRA. We mobilize support. We know how to mediate conflicts. We train in peace making, in the way we do our work. We address the root cause of conflict such as lack of food, health, and security. We have a sense of calling. Our mission is peace.” 

Herma Percy, director of International Humanitarian Advocacy for ADRA International, highlighted the work ADRA does around the world — promoting peace through programs and the way it gives relief.

“Our ministry to the world is not just in the realm of doctrine. It really has to be demonstrated in acts of justice, love, and compassion,” she said. “You’ve heard in the previous presentations, peace isn’t just the absence of war and conflict; you need to work with love, justice, and compassion. However, I’d like to add, peace is also creating favorable conditions for communities to thrive, and that is what we’re aiming for in ADRA.” 

Percy went on to talk about the world we live in today and why ADRA’s work for peace is so important. Around the world, close to a quarter of all people live in conflict areas, and about 120 million have been forced to leave their homes. This, she said, is the highest number we’re seeing since World War II, adding that conflicts drive about 80 percent of humanitarian needs. It’s predicted by 2030 that half the world’s poorest people will be living in conflict areas.

How can we start to promote peace in our communities? “We have to promote norms that contribute to equality, conflict prevention, and economic development,” Percy said. “And by recognizing the inter-connectiveness of our global challenges, we can pave the way for the future where the root cause of conflict can be uncovered, and we can sow the seeds of peace around the world.”

Akintayo Odeyemi is currently the head of ADRA’s United Nations Liaison Office and has previously served as a country director in multiple countries in Africa, as well as the regional director for ADRA’s Africa office. Odeyemi took time to present the practical ways ADRA builds peace around the world. 

ADRA focuses on four peace-building efforts and strategies that include fostering dialogue, reconciliation, and understanding among diverse communities; promoting social cohesion, empowering marginalized groups; and finally, addressing the root cause of conflict, Odeyemi said. For instance, ADRA South Sudan has been working to facilitate peace dialogue within communities. While visiting there, Odeyemi saw leaders from different faith communities come together, sitting together, discussing the need to promote security, do away with disturbing of the peace, and working with young people. 

Odeyemi realized what they were saying was true. “If we take care of the youth, if we give them another picture, if they would be gainfully employed, we are contributing to peace,” he said. By fostering these conversations, ADRA South Sudan is working with the communities, trying to understand people, encourage people, and therefore, promoting peace in their area.

In another example, this time from the Ukraine, Odeyemi reflected on the incident in which a bomb was dropped by a drone on a group of ADRA workers during a food distribution. Thankfully no one was hurt. “They just went right back [to work],” Odeyemi said, “because they were working for peace.”

In Niger, ADRA continues to build the capacity of women on rights and duties and training. For this project, the agency brought the government into the discussions to help with training and implementation, and to talk about what concerns them. ADRA employees worked on defining peace and explaining how peace can be upheld through economic empowerment of women, young people, and people with disabilities.

“A lot of ADRA’s peace-building efforts are centered around women and youth,” Odeyemi said. The goal is “to empower them, to keep them occupied, to help them realize that peace is something everyone must work on.”

As Knott wrapped up his presentation, he complimented ADRA and the work it does around the world. “Few things make me prouder to be a Seventh-day Adventist Christian than the fact the development and relief agency of the faith to which I’m committed is building peace through food distribution, well building, by caring for refugees in some of the hottest conflicts in the world,” he said. “But maybe even more important,” he added, “preventing future conflicts over food and water and resources by teaching and modeling sustainable agriculture and wise cropping. 

“If you want to look for the peacemakers in our denomination, you don’t have to look further than the thousands of workers who work for ADRA around the world,” he said.

Supporting Justice and Advocating for Peace

In the final presentations of the day, Nicholas Miller, professor of Law and Religion at WAU’s Honors College, spoke about the work WAU’s Center for Law and Public Policy is doing with students to engage in peace-making efforts in their communities. Through the newly implemented Branson Fellows program, students are put in charge of projects, work with church leaders through PARL departments, with Liberty magazine, and put on conferences and work on issues of peace. 

As Miller put it, “Peace really is a central part of our identity.” The Center for Law and Public Policy aims to influence public policies from a Christian Seventh-day Adventist perspective, but not in a way that makes them part of the culture wars. “We’re not seeking to make culture warriors,” Miller said. “We are instead focused on the passage from 2 Corinthians 5:18, which reads, ‘Christ reconciling us to himself and giving us the ministry of reconciliation,’” and talks about Christians becoming ambassadors. “So, instead of us being culture warriors,” Miller said, “we are looking for young people to become ambassadors of reconciliation, which are really peace-makers in our world.”

As Percy said in her presentation, we are now all global citizens. “The planet is our neighborhood,” she said. “It’s a place of different cultures, religions, ideals, but at the base of it, we are created in His image.” All of us are called to be peacemakers in our communities. There is no exception.

Throughout Scripture, from the Old Testament prophets to the New Testament, God calls His people of reconciliation to be peacemakers. As Percy put it, “We are difference makers and maintainers of peace. Faith isn’t invalid unless you’re living it out.”