Baltimore Yearly Meeting reaffirms the Religious
Society of Friends’ historic peace testimony and Friends’ historic
peace witness. We commit ourselves, individually and collectively,
to live in ways that take away the occasion for war. We affirm
that of God in ourselves and in all others, including those
who attempt to do us harm. In these commitments we are pulled
by an ideal and pushed by reality. The ideal is our desire to
follow in the way of Jesus of Nazareth and the reality is the
suffering and ultimate inadequacy of war.
As we affirm the unchanging principles of peace,
we acknowledge the radically changed nature of war. As we have
in the past, we continue to support and offer a sanctuary to
those who reject violence in all its forms, in conscience and
in deed.
We understand the need for all of us as individuals
to discern faithfully how God calls us to live our peace testimony.
We acknowledge the struggle of the individual to discern ways
of achieving justice and peace as a means to take away the occasion
of further violence and war of any kind. We challenge ourselves
and all who share the peace testimony to open ourselves to the
leading of the Spirit, the Seed of Christ, the Inner Light,
so that we can find new ways to make our peace witness relevant
and effective in today’s climate.
