Investing in Peace: The Relationship Between the Liberal Arts and Conflict Transformation

Clay Cooke, Fuller Theological Seminary

Conference on “War and Peace as Liberal Arts” at Westmont College

February 21-23, 2013

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INTRODUCTION:

Bringing Two Crises Into Relationship

The United States faces two seemingly unrelated crises. The first concerns higher education, in particular liberal arts and humanities programs in American undergraduate institutions. Megan McArdle’s recent article in The Daily Beast entitled, “Is College a Lousy Investment?,” captures the essence of this crisis. In her article, McArdle suggests that the time and money students devote to college leaves them worse off than when they first arrived. Specifically when pursuing liberal arts degrees, McArdle attests that students learn little that is of practical use for the job market. She concludes, therefore, that investing in a humanities degree does not pay off.1 Given this growing sentiment across the United States, one could argue that a liberal arts education is increasingly in danger of becoming marginalized and disregarded.

The second, seemingly separate, crisis facing the United States is the issue of war and peace: American soldiers still fight and die in the war in Afghanistan; just under a decade ago the majority of U.S. citizens supported the “shock and awe” of the Iraq War;2 terrorists invaded two U.S. consulates and killed four American diplomats in the Benghazi, Libya, attacks on September 11, 2012; a majority of Americans believe that Israel’s recent military strikes against Gaza were justified.3 These examples represent only a sampling of the war and peace issues currently confronting the United States. War, then, is an all-too present reality in our society. What’s more, a few well-respected, professional peacemakers now argue that peacemaking as a vocation has lost its way and is now in crisis as well. They say that the task of conflict transformation has become overly technical, solution-based, and oriented around “process management.” Their core concern is that peacemaking too rarely focuses on the heart, soul, and source of peace—that is, the personal character and moral imaginations of those in conflict.4

While upon first glance the liberal arts and peacebuilding seem like disparate crises, in this paper I hope to demonstrate that they are not so unrelated after all. In fact, I will contend that these topics can mutually benefit one another when properly analyzed and linked. Thus in the end, by bringing these two crises into relationship, my central aim is to ameliorate both.

In order to work toward this goal, I will divide my paper into three parts. In Part One, I will examine recent works by renowned peacebuilders John Paul Lederach and

1 Megan McArdle, “Is College a Lousy Investment?”, in The Daily Beast, September 9, 2012. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/09/megan-mcardle-on-the-coming-burst-of-the-college-bubble.html

2 Richard Benedetto, “Most Back War, But Still Want U.N. Support,” in USA Today. Accessed online December 1, 2012. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htm

3 http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/19/cnn-poll-57-of-americans-say-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-are-justified/ This poll asserts that 74% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats believe Israel’s attacks against Gaza were justified.

4 Marc Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide: The Inner Lives of Arab and Jewish Peacemakers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 6. See Also: John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), ix, 29, 49, 73, 86. 117.

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Marc Gopin—namely, Lederach’s The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace and Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide: The Inner Lives of Arab and Jewish Peacemakers. More specifically, I will compare how these works utilize the methodological variable of social change to make the case that proper character formation is key to building peace.5 In Part Two, I will turn my attention to the liberal arts6 as I consider Josef Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture and Martha Nussbaum’s Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. I will compare how these works employ the methodological variable of practice loyalties to display how the liberal arts can help form citizens with virtuous moral character.7 Finally, in Part Three I will synthesize the methodological analyses in Parts One and Two to construct the following argument: Insofar as a liberal arts education opens one’s mind to a new way of seeing the world, in turn it can generate certain virtues that contribute to establishing peace. On its own, however, a liberal arts education is insufficient for the challenging task of overcoming conflict, for it fails to reach the soul in a way that peacebuilding requires—soul that can only come from “basic convictions” such as the church and discipleship.8 It is to the task of explicating this argument that I now turn.

5 Glen Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context

(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 59. In this paper, I will use Stassen and Gushee’s model of holistic character ethics to inform my methodological analysis. Stassen and Gushee argue that there are four main dimensions to holistic character ethics: a person’s 1) way of seeing, 2) way of reasoning, 3) loyalties trusts, interests, and passions, and 4) basic convictions. The authors then identify a number of core variables within these four dimensions. They locate the variable of social change within the “way of seeing” dimension, which is to say that the manner in which one conceives of social change will affect her ethics.

6 For the purposes of this paper, I am defining the liberal arts as those activities that investigate what it means to be human and “are an end in themselves” (See Josef Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 36).

7 Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 59. The variable of practice loyalties comes from Stassen and Gushee’s “loyalties, trusts, interests, and passions” dimension of holistic character ethics. It means that a one’s regular practices will affect her view of the world and thereby her ethics.

8 Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 59-60. The variable of the church and discipleship originate from Stassen and Gushee’s “basic convictions” dimension of holistic character ethics. These basic convictions emphasize that human reason is not the foundation of ethics, but the larger drama of Scripture is this foundation. This drama, or narrative, is the authoritative source of the Christian life, and in turn it orients all Christian ethics. Any ethic that fails to account for “basic convictions,” Stassen and Gushee argue, will be insufficient.

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PART ONE: John Paul Lederach and Mark Gopin’s Perceptions of Building Peace

To say that John Paul Lederach and Marc Gopin have extensive experience and expertise in peacebuilding would be an understatement. Lederach, a committed Mennonite Christian, is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and is Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University’s Conflict Transformation Program.9 He has spent three decades as a peacebuilder in twenty-five countries, has written voluminous books and articles on the topic of peacemaking, and is a respected authority on the notion of “conflict transformation”—a theory that “suggests a dynamic understanding that conflict can move in destructive or constructive directions, but proposes an effort to maximize the achievement of constructive, mutually beneficial processes and outcomes.”10 Gopin, an ordained Jewish rabbi and practicing Jew, is James H. Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, and Director of the Center on World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) at George Mason University. He has worked the last twenty-seven years as a peacebuilder on the Arab/Israeli conflict, has written several books on the subject of peacemaking, and is a prominent voice in major news outlets, universities, and public forms on issues of conflict resolution, religion, and violence.11 Of Lederach and Gopin’s numerous books, most have focused on the concrete practices of peacebuilding and reconciliation. Lederach, for instance, has drafted book chapters on the “structure,” “process,” and “strategic and responsive evaluation” of peacemaking.12 He has also written extensively on a “framework for building peace,” effective “models” of conflict transformation, and useful “tools” for seeking reconciliation.13 Similarly, Gopin has written at length on citizen diplomacy as a means to overcome religious tensions,14 specific methods of conflict resolution,15 and “systematic recommendations for intervention in contemporary conflicts.”16 As these topics indicate, in past writings Lederach and Gopin have provided ample instruction on

9 John Paul Lederach, The Journey Toward Reconciliation (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999),

15. See Also: Walter Wright, “John Paul Lederach: A Peacebuilder Bibliography.” Accessed November 30, 2012. http://www.mediate.com/articles/wrightw2.cfm

10 John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 19. See Also: http://kroc.nd.edu/facultystaff/faculty/john-paul-lederach

11 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 3. See Also: http://scar.gmu.edu/marc-gopin, http://www.marcgopin.com/about/.

12 John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997), chapters 4, 5, and 10.

13 Lederach, Building Peace, chapters 2, 4-7, and 10. 14 Marc Gopin, To Make the Earth Whole: The Art of Citizen Diplomacy in an Age of Religious

Militancy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2009), all chapters. 15 Marc Gopin, Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2002), chapters 9-10. 16 Marc Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and

Peacemaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), chapter 9.

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what to do to build peace. Yet in more recent works—specifically, Lederach’s The Moral Imagination and Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide—both authors have shifted focus. They have, as it were, pivoted away from the mechanical and practical aspects of their vocations—from questions addressing what to do—toward queries that have targeted character, moral imagination, spiritual formation, or how to be.17 For both Lederach and Gopin, this “pivot” has not merely entailed a slight adjustment in emphasis; it has been more akin to a perspectival conversion or worldview transformation. To comprehend the full import and scope of this “conversion,” it is essential to conceive of how each author perceives the variable of social change. For how social change occurs is the core methodological variable that drives their transformed notions of establishing peace.18

Social Change: The Determinative Methodological Variable John Paul Lederach’s View of Social Change in “The Moral Imagination” In The Moral Imagination, the following question captures the crux of Lederach’s “social change” conversion: Is building peace essentially a technique, or is it more of an art form rooted in the soul? Lederach offers the following answer:

This book, as has been the case with my own professional journey, is a compilation of conversations about how we might find our way back to the art of the matter. I don’t see finding the art of the matter as a minor corrective to an otherwise healthy system [of peacemaking]. It requires a worldview shift. I will propose that, as conflict professionals, we must go well beyond a sideshow, well beyond lip service to attain the art and soul of constructive change. We must envision our work as a creative act, more akin to the artistic endeavor than the technical process.19

Over and over again in The Moral Imagination, Lederach admonishes himself and those within his profession for missing the mark on peacebuilding. It is as if he reflects back

17 In earlier works, therefore, Lederach and Gopin have tended to appeal to Stassen and Gushee’s

“Way of Reasoning” dimension—toward the rules and principles of conflict transformation. Yet in Lederach’s The Moral Imagination and Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, each appeals more to the “Way of Seeing” dimension.

18 Various methodological variables affect the arguments made and conclusions reached in Lederach’s The Moral Imagination and Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide. Both men, for instance, believe that the main “threat” to the world is the type of conflict that leads to war. Furthermore, as vocational peacemakers Lederach and Gopin possess strong “practice loyalties” toward the task of reconciliation, which is to say that their vocational practices significantly influence their passions and desires for how the world should be changed. Finally, in these works the authors’ “community loyalties” deeply shape them. Thus as a Mennonite Christian and practicing Jew, respectively, Lederach and Gopin’s worshipping communities form their chief desires toward the pursuit of peace and justice. Nevertheless, while these variables are important, they do not govern The Moral Imagination and Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, as does the variable of “social change.” Social change, then, is the basic methodological variable that determines how these works unfold.

19 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, ix.

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on his decades of work and realizes that his “way of seeing” social change has been misguided. Thus The Moral Imagination is his urgent plea to re-envision how social change really takes place—through what he calls the “art and soul” of conflict transformation.20 Lederach utilizes the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes to help epitomize the “art and soul” of peacemaking. Holmes says, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity. But I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”21 By way of Holmes’ poignant words, Lederach underscores the fact that seeking reconciliation is an enormously complex task. Although his previous books delineate this complexity in terms of concrete and scientific ways to pursue peace, The Moral Imagination takes a different route. It suggests that if peacemakers fail to move beyond the scientific complexity of their vocations, they will likely cultivate unhealthy visions of social change. They will, in other words, develop a form of “tunnel vision” that is guided exclusively by measured techniques and tactics. The danger is that this compressed vision not only overlooks opportunities for reconciliation; it can also aggravate extant conflict. It is for this reason that Lederach urges those who care about peace to recover the “simplicity on the other side of complexity.” This counsel does not signify Lederach’s rejection of complexity, but merely his qualification of it. Furthermore, it suggests that constructive social change is not finally about right tactics, but about art and soul. For tactics alone breed distorted perception, whereas art and soul engender an expansive moral imagination—a quality that becomes the bedrock of genuine social change.22 Before defining the moral imagination, it is first necessary to grasp the theory of social change Lederach sees this imagination most effectively functioning within. His view is that the moral imagination best generates social change when set within a relational, web-based framework. That is, he sees social change not as a strategy to persuade the highest number of people to a particular position. Instead, he perceives it in terms of establishing strategic relationships within interlaced networks of people. These key relationships, he maintains, have the ability to shift a society away from conflict.23 Thus a web-based approach is not about how many one can convince, but about whom she can convince. For when a web of relationships is both skillfully constructed and properly influenced at decisive points, real change is possible.24 In order to construct this “web” competently, Lederach maintains that a peacemaker will need a robust “moral imagination.” He defines the moral imagination in the following terms:

[I]magination is the art of creating what does not exist…. [It is] the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist. In reference to peacebuilding, this is the capacity to imagine and generate constructive

20 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, ix, 63, 174. 21 Quoted in Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 31. 22 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 115-124. 23 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 34-35, 88-89, 95. 24 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 91, 97.

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responses and initiatives that, while rooted in the day-to-day challenges of violence, transcend and ultimately break the grips of those destructive patterns and cycles.25

In this remark Lederach makes two significant points that deserve further examination: The moral imagination depends upon 1) the capacity to see and 2) the capacity to create. Concerning the capacity to see, Lederach repeatedly affirms the intimate connection between social change and “vision.” For social change depends upon the ability to perceive significant relationships and locations within a particular “web.”26 Lederach illustrates this idea potently in a story about a group of women from Wajir, Kenya. Faced with increasing clan violence, the Wajir women (which was initially comprised of less than a dozen individuals) gathered together to consider how to alleviate fighting in their society. They decided to start with a small, yet critical, location: the market. By assigning monitors, reporting violations, and working together to resolve issues, the women quickly established a territory of peace in the market. After achieving this success, the Wajir women increased their efforts. They formed strategic relationships with elders in their society, all while adhering to prescribed gender norms and restrictions. Next, along with these elders (now known as the Council of Elders for Peace) the women pursued conversations with government officials—many of whom subsequently supported the women’s peacebuilding strategies. Finally, the Wajir women engaged the primary participants of clan violence—the young men who often gained economic benefit from fighting. Although these efforts did not fully resolve conflict in Wajir, Lederach asserts that the women did prevent an impending war. Moreover, their efforts continue to influence Wajir today, as Wajir elders, government officials, and youth still actively work for peace.27 The point of this illustration is that the Wajir women possessed a “way of seeing” that led to social change. Or as Lederach states, “They [the women] were masters of web making for social change, spiderlike in their capacity to imagine the contours of the space and to imagine themselves in relationship with challenging sets of people who were not like-minded.”28 The Wajir women possessed the capacity to perceive social space and social networks deftly—skills basic to moral imaginations that helped transform conflict into peace. An enhanced ability to see, however, was not the only component of the Wajir women’s moral imaginations. They also had the capacity to create. The Wajir women, that is, not only envisioned how to bring peace to their society; they actually created peace. Given this emphasis on the act of “creating,” Lederach likens conflict transformation to the artistic endeavor. For the aim of the moral imagination is to perceive a social space pregnant with transformative potential, live within that social space, and then “give birth” to a new social reality. “Birthing” in this case is not technique-oriented; it is more akin to an aesthetic process of change, whereby the peacemaker innovatively responds to conflict and then creates something that does not

25 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 28-29. 26 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 86. 27 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 10-13. 28 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 94.

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yet exist, namely, peace. At her core, then, the peacemaker is an artist—a craftsman defined by her capacity to create a shalom-imbued world.29 Finally, Lederach argues that insofar as the moral imagination manifests itself as a kind of art, it thereby depends upon the soul. For the soul is the “source” and “well-spring” of authentic social change.30 Here Lederach takes a decisive turn inward—a turn toward the most intimate and personal regions of the human psyche. He does not, however, succumb to dualistic forms of Christian spirituality that accent the soul’s need to discard earthly or material substances. Rather, he contends that these entities—the material and the soul, or earthly social change and a basic conviction toward God—are deeply intertwined and related. He avers, for instance, that conflict transformation “requires soul-based disciplines. These [disciplines] I have come to appreciate as constituting a deeper plane that underpins the pursuit of authentic social change.”31 Lederach identifies three soul disciplines critical to peacebuilding: stillness, humility, and sensuous perception. Stillness, he says, calls for patience and focus within one’s surroundings;32 humility stresses civility and connectedness in the cosmic human community;33 and sensuous perception underscores the need to engage, hone, and rightly orient all human senses and faculties for effective conflict transformation.34 The point is that God, through these disciplines, bends one’s soul to desire and pursue peace. This basic conviction means that perceiving and creating social change depends upon prior soul formation. The soul, therefore, not only concerns heaven but also establishing peace in the here-and-now; it ultimately funds the moral imagination with the resources to help build relational bridges across enemy lines.35 Marc Gopin’s View of Social Change in “Bridges Across an Impossible Divide” Interestingly enough, building relational bridges constitutes the driving theme of Marc Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide. Although certainly different than Lederach’s The Moral Imagination in many respects, Gopin’s work nevertheless reaches many similar conclusions because of his comparable conception of social change. With regard to this methodological variable, Gopin undergoes a parallel, albeit less dramatic, “conversion experience.” For like Lederach, he recognizes both in himself and in other peace practitioners the conspicuous lack of emphasis on the “inner life.” As to this point he asserts, “In previous books I have described the work and practices of some of these peacemakers…. My focus in this study, however, is on their inner lives, because it is the inner spiritual life that is the key to creating a true partnership across enemy lines.”36 Akin to Lederach, then, Gopin’s social change “conversion” draws him away from the

29 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 29, 34, 71, 73, 149, 161, 172 30 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, vii, ix, 174. 31 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 103. 32 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 103. 33 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 106. 34 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 108. 35 Lederach, The Moral Imagination, 5. 36 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 4.

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techniques and tactics of peacemaking.37 Yet does this conversion draw him toward the same conclusions regarding conflict transformation? Before we can answer this question adequately, we must first understand how Lederach and Gopin derive their positions on social change. While Lederach determines his stance based on a propositional argument on the moral imagination, Gopin reaches his conclusions by examining the actual relationships and inner lives of peacemakers. Gopin, in other words, does not spend the bulk of his book explicating an idea (i.e., the moral imagination), but rather explores real, on-the-ground partnerships between peace practitioners. This approach necessitates that his readers do much of the analytical work for themselves; it requires that they distill Gopin’s central tenets of social change from the first-hand interviews of his seven selected peacemakers. Despite this dissimilar approach, though, Gopin’s “conversion” leads him to the same basic verdict regarding social change—namely, building peace is not finally a technique-oriented enterprise, but a task invigorated, oriented, and sustained by the heart, soul, and character of those in conflict.38 Whereas Lederach places this thesis within a web-like relational framework, Gopin sets it within intentional partnerships of Arab/Jewish peacemakers. Thus while Lederach’s theory of social change is web-based, Gopin’s is partnership-based. Both theories are fundamentally relational, albeit with distinct relational emphases. Gopin’s model, for example, focuses on “Unusual Pairs”—those who should by all accounts be in conflict but are purposefully seeking reconciliation. He contends that by way of their relationships, these pairs become miniature societies that embody how Arabs and Jews can live in peace. In turn, these micro-societies become the seeds capable of giving birth to a harmonious future. It is therefore the pairs themselves that serve as “bridges across an impossible divide.” They are the means of social change.39 Similar to Lederach, Gopin asserts that successfully inhabiting these partnerships will require a certain kind of “art and soul.” Although Lederach spends the bulk of his book clarifying the “art” of peacebuilding, Gopin devotes considerably less time to this practice. Nevertheless, it is still significant that Gopin highlights this same component of social change. He avers, for instance, “Peacemakers are in essence artists of human relations, socially adept at the art of reaching across high walls of hatred that are the trademark of enemy systems and wars.”40 Gopin’s point is that conflict transformation is not a science, as if it could be likened to a mechanical process capable of producing consistent, dependable results. It is more analogous to the artistic endeavor wherein one intuits, feels, and imagines the relational decisions that could create peace.41

Gopin illustrates this artistic, creative form of social change through the actions of two peace partners, Eliyahu McLean (a Jew) and Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari (a Sufi Muslim). McLean and Bukhari founded “The Big Hug of Jerusalem,” which takes place in arguably the most contentious religious spot on the planet—the Old City of Jerusalem. As a Jew, McLean believes that Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and the Kotel are holy sites.

37 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 26, 55, 61, 171. 38 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 3-8, 26, 151, 171, 197, 207. 39 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 3-4, 29. 40 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 77. 41 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 87, 163, 190-191, 220.

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As a Muslim, Bukhari views the Al-Aqsa as sacred. The close proximity of these holy places has bred conflict between Jews and Muslims for centuries. With the idea of “The Big Hug,” however, McLean and Bukhari imagined how these sacred locations might drive people together instead of apart. Thus they conceived of an idea where hundreds of people would gather together in rows and literally hug one another. They hug as a symbol of their shared love for Jerusalem. Bukhari even shares the story of an on-duty Israeli soldier, overwhelmed by her love for Jerusalem, joining in the “hug” and dancing with Arabs.42 “The Big Hug,” then, imagines Jewish and Arab passion for the holy city not as a reason to alienate these groups from one another, but as grounds to unite them.43 This illustration substantiates Gopin’s contention that the essence of genuine, heartfelt social change depends upon a transformed imagination. For it is the converted imagination that has the potential to touch the deep wounds of human conflict, and then transform these wounds into reconciled relationships.44

A converted imagination, though, requires acute attention to the soul. Gopin recognizes this fact, for he spends the overwhelming majority of his book highlighting the soul’s foundational importance. He notes that the soul (or the inner life) is the “strategy and philosophy of peacemaking,” and thereby it is the key to actualizing social change.45 Two features stand out in Gopin’s view of the inner life: 1) It is characterized by consistent and earnest self-examination, and 2) It requires cultivating proper emotions, desires, and loves.

As to self-examination, Gopin avers, “I have concluded after decades of observation that a central source of endless conflict and misery between enemies—but also a central source of endless conflict and misery in families and communities—is the emotional, cognitive, and ethical failure to be self-examined.”46 It is for this reason that Gopin concurs with the ancient Greeks’ conclusion that the quintessential virtue is the following: “Know Thyself.”47 “Knowing thyself,” or being self-examined, is indispensable to developing a proper sense of humility. Humility, in turn, is essential to developing patience, flexibility, and repentance—characteristics critical to building peace in conflict-ridden societies.48 Second, Gopin claims that the inner life demands the cultivation of right emotions, desires, and loves. For properly formed emotions and loves have the power to reach the hearts of those surrounded by perennial violence. They also afford people the situational sensitivity to empathize with the root wounds of conflict.49 Mere rules and principles are simply not up to this task.

Gopin deftly substantiates these claims with a personal anecdote about his 2003 travels to Aleppo, Syria. While in Aleppo, an Islamic scholar introduced Gopin to over 3,000 Muslims at a mosque. In his introductory comments, the scholar described Gopin as a “man of religion from America.” The scholar then pointed to another man in the

42 This emotional public demonstration is far from the norm for on-duty soldiers in Israel. 43 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 71-73, 87. 44 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 220. 45 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 8, 26. 46 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 6. 47 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 8. 48 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 25, 48, 61, 105, 188, 191, 207, 220. 49 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 105.

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audience, describing how he had lived for six months in Abu Ghraib prison and confined twenty-five days in a coffin. Gopin’s response is worth quoting in full:

So I started to cry and I couldn’t stay in my seat…. And I went to the man…and I asked him about his family and his missing brothers…. And I told him I wanted to apologize to him in the name of the American people…and so they [the Syrians] filmed us together…and then they put it on the national television…and later the President told [close advisors] that what we did in the mosque was more important to him than anything the American president could say.50

One could never find these moving remarks in a technician’s manual for peacemakers, which is Gopin’s point (as it is with Lederach). For technical rules fail to address the perceptions, emotions, and desires affected by living in Abu Ghraib prison or in a coffin. Properly cultivated loves, though, cut to the heart of this matter. They possess the ability to reconcile a deeply wounded victim into a “mystical union” with his oppressor (as depicted in Gopin’s anecdote above).51 For both Gopin and Lederach, this mystical union is rooted in an even more profound mystical union—one that exists between God and the individual soul. Like Lederach, then, Gopin sees the soul—or the inner life—as the founding, guiding, and sustaining factor in conflict transformation.52 While their perspectives often entail nuances with regard to emphasis, they ultimately come to the same conclusion concerning social change: social change depends upon properly formed moral character rooted in the soul. Yet where might we find resources to help cultivate this character? To address this question we turn to Part Two.

50 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 177-178. 51 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 55. 52 Gopin, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, 4, 29, 61, 67, 70-71, 103, 106, 151, 185, 189, 197.

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PART TWO: Josef Pieper and Martha Nussbaum’s Practice Loyalties

Practical, on-the-ground efforts at peacebuilding are not usually associated with the liberal arts. What, for example, do liberal arts topics such as Latin, Shakespeare, and Friedrich Nietzsche have to do with the stories of conflict transformation mentioned above—with, for instance, the task of organizing “The Big Hug of Jerusalem?” Upon first glance these topics seem completely unrelated. The goal of this section is to determine whether or not this is the case—whether, that is, the liberal arts connect in any way to forming the kind of citizens that peace and justice require. In order to make this determination, I will examine Josef Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture and Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Sale: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Specifically, I will compare how the methodological variable of practice loyalties shapes their perspectives on the value of a liberal arts education. This analysis will enable me to discern in Part Three whether there is a correlation between devotion to the liberal arts and achieving real world peace.

Practice Loyalties: The Determinative Methodological Variable Josef Pieper’s Practice Loyalties in “Leisure the Basis of Culture”

Josef Pieper (1904-1997) was a German Catholic philosopher who was professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Münster, Germany. As a humanities professor, Pieper was indubitably “shaped by loyalties to the practices and means [he] regularly use[d] to achieve [his] goals.”53 That is to say, his regular practices as a liberal arts professor were not neutral; they shaped his passions, interests, and loyalties—aspects of the self more associated with the gut than the intellect. Pieper’s “practice loyalties” would have included consistent reading in the field of philosophy, teaching philosophy courses, mentoring students, publishing articles, etc. Insofar as his passions were deeply connected to these practice loyalties, Pieper would have likely considered the liberal arts essential to shaping the world.54 Pieper’s brief work, Leisure the Basis of Culture, validates this perspective. In it he spends a short section analyzing the value and indirect social influence of the liberal arts. His analysis takes shape in two key phases. First, Pieper articulates the indelible relationship between leisure and the liberal arts. Second, he contends that as a form of leisure, the liberal arts are foundational to cultivating virtuous character. By way of these two phases, we see how Pieper’s practice loyalties in the liberal arts construct the prism through which he views humankind and the world. As to the first phase, Pieper utilizes an anthropological argument to establish the link between the liberal arts and leisure.55 His basic question is this: “What are humans made for?” His concern—or what he considers the basic threat to leisure—is the motto

53 Stassen and Gushee, 64. 54 Stassen and Gushee, 63-64. While Stassen and Gushee do not specifically discuss Josef Pieper,

I am appropriating their argument within the context of Pieper’s personal practice loyalties. 55 Josef Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture (Great Britain: Collins, 1965), 24.

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often heralded in his 20th century context: “Humans are made for work.” Pieper considers this “worker anthropology” fundamentally misguided. He laments, “Is there a sphere of human activity, one might even say of human existence, that does not need to be justified by inclusion in a five-year plan and its technical organization?”56 As evident in this remark, Pieper worries that profitability (an economic term) has become the sole measure of human activity, and that the world of work has come to invade all spheres of society. In this perspective work defines even leisure, whereby leisure is seen as “recharging one’s batteries” for the ultimate benefit of labor. Pieper disputes this ideology. He views capitalism’s penchant to subsume human identity under its own utilitarian ends as a legitimate threat to human flourishing.57 Given his lament over the totalizing, utilitarian world of work, Pieper’s test in Leisure the Basis of Culture is to validate non-utilitarian forms of human activity. His challenge, in short, is to substantiate leisure.58 To meet this challenge, he examines a set of concrete practices that he considers leisure, namely, those practices associated with the liberal arts—studying foreign languages, poetry, philosophy, etc. As to why Pieper categorizes these practices under the rubric of leisure instead of work, he says, “The liberal arts…include all forms of activity which are an end in themselves.”59 In other words, the liberal arts are literally free from the need to be useful. This trait is indeed what makes them “liberal.” Based on this perspective, learning Latin can be for the sake of learning Latin; reading Shakespeare can be for the sake of reading Shakespeare; and studying Nietzsche can be for the sake of studying Nietzsche. These practices need not be profitable in the free market sense of this word. In fact, the moment we try to make them profitable, Pieper affirms that we wind up “killing” them.60 For this reason, the liberal arts are by definition different from professional training. Training is for work; the liberal arts are for leisure.61 As to the second phase of Pieper’s argument, he avers that as a form of leisure the liberal arts can indirectly contribute to forming upright character. The word indirect is essential here. It suggests that the liberal arts do not intentionally aim to produce moral excellence. Nevertheless, as Pieper maintains, “[N]ot everything is useless which cannot be brought under the definition of the useful.”62 In other words, while the liberal arts may be intrinsically “purposeless,” nonetheless they still engender unintended results. One of these fortuitous results is the cultivation of virtue—that is, “a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude…[where] the soul of man is sometimes visited by an awareness of what holds the world together.”63 The liberal arts, in short, possess an incidental relationship to individual’s “power to ‘answer’ to the reality of the world.”64 In these remarks, Pieper suggests that consistent practices in the liberal arts—for instance

56 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 37. 57 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 22, 24-25, 37-39, 49. 58 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 39. 59 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 36. 60 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 22, 82-83. 61 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 38. 62 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 39. 63 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 43-44. 64 Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture, 43.

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reading Latin, Shakespeare, and Nietzsche—indirectly form one’s character so that she can see the world aright. Unfortunately, Pieper spends little time expanding on what specific character traits the liberal arts generate. In order to discover these traits and their relationship to the “practice loyalties” of the liberal arts, we turn to Martha Nussbaum’s recent work, Not for Profit. Martha Nussbaum’s Practice Loyalties in “Not for Profit” In Not for Profit, Martha Nussbaum extends Josef Pieper’s arguments. She does so by further explicating the relationship between the liberal arts (or what she calls the humanities) and virtue. Based on the variable of “practice loyalties,” it makes sense that Nussbaum would concur with Pieper’s conclusions, for she too is a humanities professor. She is currently the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago (UC). At UC she is also an Associate Professor in the Classics Department, the Divinity School, the Political Science Program, and a Board Member of the Human Rights Program.65 In these various roles, she and Pieper possess many overlapping practice loyalties—extensive reading, teaching, mentoring, publishing, etc. After participating in these practices for decades, Nussbaum’s passions, loyalties, and interests have undoubtedly been shaped by them (as with Pieper above). By way of this shaping process, she has been able to witness firsthand how the liberal arts transform herself, humankind, and the world. As she reports in Not for Profit, at least one way this transformation takes place is through the formation of virtue. Yet the challenge for the humanities, she says, is that virtue is not all that useful for expanding the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Virtue, as it were, refuses to operate according to free market ideals. Thus if the principle advantage of a liberal arts education is the indirect cultivation of virtue, the market will struggle to find value in such “useless” activities—activities that are not readily measurable in terms of profit/loss.66 Like Pieper, then, Nussbaum deems the totalizing tendencies of capitalism67 as a threat to the liberal arts. This threat is not merely lurking; it is a present reality. For example, given the slow economic recovery and increasing competition in our global market, budgets for the liberal arts are being cut at much higher rates than in math and science.68 Although his own education would seem to influence him differently, President Obama has made no significant alterations to these downsizings. According to Nussbaum, so far Obama’s educational policies have only focused on increasing “individual income and national economic progress,” which has led to the overwhelming prioritization of math and science.69 Nussbaum sees this trend as a problem. Given her practice loyalties in the liberal arts, indeed she calls it an all-out crisis—perhaps even a danger to democracy itself. She states:

65 http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/nussbaum/ 66 Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2010), ix, 80, 143. 67 This does not mean that Nussbaum rejects capitalism wholesale, for capitalism generates

innumerable benefits. Yet capitalism as an ideology (and therefore an idolatry) necessarily views all of life through its specific worldview. Thus it is this totalizing ideology that Nussbaum rejects.

68 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 2. 69 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 136-137.

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Thirst for national profit, nations, and their systems of education, are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive. If this trend continues, nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements. The future of the world’s democracies hangs in the balance.70

Nussbaum’s point is that democratic societies rely upon citizens possessing a certain set of virtues, and without these virtues, these societies risk failing. Our current issue is that free market ideals cannot inculcate these qualities on their own. In fact, the free market often impedes the cultivation of these qualities. If, however, a liberal arts education contributes to producing rightly formed, virtuous democratic citizens, then democracies depend upon the “unprofitable” practices of the humanities for survival.71 Up to this point, Nussbaum and Pieper’s practice loyalties have produced largely similar arguments—albeit Nussbaum focuses more on democratic societies than strictly individual persons. Yet Nussbaum goes decidedly beyond Pieper in her delineation of what virtues a liberal arts education can in effect generate. First, she says that the humanities help precipitate the ability to self-reflect and self-examine. As to self-reflection, she notes that studying subjects like philosophy and political science “stimulate students to think for themselves, rather than defer to tradition and authority.” 72 Therefore a liberal arts education—sometimes for good and ill—typically forces one to question all previously held traditions and ways of thought. The benefit of this challenge to authority is that it forces an individual to think for herself, and in so doing, trains her how to reflect on her own beliefs and the beliefs of others.73 As to self-examination, Nussbaum asserts that the practice loyalties of the humanities help one more effectively see her own participation, and guilt in, society’s problems. The humanities, in short, properly humble persons.74 Especially in political deliberation, Nussbaum maintains that this characteristic is critical. For when “people think that political debate is something like an athletic contest…they are likely to see the ‘other side’ as the enemy and to wish its defeat, or even humiliation.” In contrast to this arrogant demeanor, humility enables one to approach the “enemy” as she approaches herself—with the recognition that self-examination is imperative to healthy political dialogue. This inherently self-critical attitude, stimulated by immersion in the humanities, helps reveal the framework of one’s argument, potential points of common ground, and the modesty to listen and change.75 Second, Nussbaum declares that a liberal arts education can help “activate” empathy.76 In fact, she says that “empathetic understanding of experiences of many

70 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 2. 71 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 2, 6-7, 10, 19, 80, 93, 143. 72 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 48. 73 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 47-50. 74 I have found, however, that knowledge can also make one incredibly pretentious! 75 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 51. 76 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 96.

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different kinds” is by nature the “spirit of the humanities.”77 She then suggests that democratic societies rely on empathetic citizens for two chief reasons. First, a democracy such as the United States is characterized by acute pluralism. Americans are therefore forced to share citizenship and live alongside those who do not look, act, or believe in similar ways. Second, modern democratic citizens live in an increasingly interdependent world—a world where they depend on those they never have seen nor ever will see.78 Given these realities, a developed sense of empathy—“the capacity to see the world through another person’s eyes”79—is essential. It enables persons to join with those of fundamentally different worldviews for a common purpose.80 Finally, and closely related to the ability to empathize, is the fact that the liberal arts foster a healthy imagination. Indeed, Nussbaum sometimes links empathy and imagination, arguing that the practice loyalties of the liberal arts help develop “empathetic imagining.”81 Empathetic imagining goes beyond the mere act of empathizing because it envisions what another person (perhaps even an enemy) needs in order to flourish. This imagination, then, looks forward; it attempts to take seriously the hopes and fears of the “other” to see her thrive. Insofar as the liberal arts (or humanities) intrinsically explores what it means to be human—or how to make sense of human life and the world—these practice loyalties help cultivate the capacity to imagine the common good.82 As a result, Nussbaum argues that the liberal arts are a necessary “good” for democratic societies.83 For the virtues they instill—self-reflection, self-examination, empathy, and imagination—all orient, energize, and sustain democratic exercises. Yet is this also true of peacebuilding? In other words, do the “practice loyalties” of the liberal arts relate as closely to establishing peace as they do to strengthening democracies? Part Three will seek to answer this question.

77 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 7. 78 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, ix, x, 10, 19, 79-81. 79 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 96. 80 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 10, 84, 93. 81 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 19. 82 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 6, 54, 101-104, 107. 83 Nussbaum, Not for Profit, 10.

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PART THREE: The Sufficiency and Insufficiency of the Liberal Arts in Peacemaking

So far I have constructed two, seemingly unrelated, arguments. In Part One, I utilized the variable of “social change” 84 to contend that proper character formation, rooted in the soul, is indispensable for building peace in societies embroiled in conflict. In Part Two, I employed the variable of “practice loyalties”85 to attest that a liberal arts education has the facility to form the virtuous character essential for individuals and democracies alike. It appears, then, that we are left only with a simple process of addition: If 1) social change in the direction of peace depends upon particular virtues, and 2) the practice loyalties of the liberal arts engender many of these virtues, then 3) a liberal arts education can help produce the moral character needed to transform conflict into peace. If this equation is accurate, then our case is closed. As we shall see, however, this equation is both accurate and inaccurate.

The Sufficiency of the Liberal Arts in Peacemaking

As explored above, most of the virtues required for peacemaking in Part One are the same ones generated by the liberal arts in Part Two. Consider the following examples: John Paul Lederach maintains that conflict resolution depends upon the capacity to see situations correctly, and Josef Pieper affirms that the liberal arts help one see the world aright; Marc Gopin asserts that peacemaking necessitates self-examination, humility, and empathy, and Martha Nussbaum claims that the humanities develop one’s capacity to be self-examined, humble, and empathetic; Lederach and Gopin contest that a creative imagination is central to building peace, and Nussbaum insists that the liberal arts cultivate the moral imagination. Insofar as we recognize these shared outcomes and strategies, we can argue that the “practice loyalties” of the liberal arts contribute to peacebuilding as social change. Thus while the humanities may not provide much by way of free market profit, they do offer plenty by way of forming and fitting people for peace; they generate, in short, virtues essential to reconciliatory social change. Perhaps the best way to validate the indirect relationship between the liberal arts and peacemaking is to recount an anecdote Nussbaum shares in Not for Sale. Nussbaum tells the story of Billy Tucker, an undergraduate business major at a college in Massachusetts. Tucker, like all students at his college, was required to take a certain set of liberal arts courses, including a class in philosophy. The class’ final assignment required Tucker to argue against the death penalty, notwithstanding the fact that he personally favored this penalty in certain circumstances. Nussbaum’s subsequent remarks are telling:

He [Tucker] had never understood…that one could produce arguments for a position that one does not hold oneself. He [Tucker] told me

84 I examined this variable in John Paul Lederach’s The Moral Imagination and Marc Gopin’s

Bridges Across an Impossible Divide. 85 I investigated this variable in Josef Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture and Martha

Nussbaum’s Not for Sale.

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[Nussbaum] that this experience gave him a new attitude toward political discussion: Now he is more inclined to respect the opposing position and to be curious about the arguments on both sides, and what the two sides might share, rather than seeing the discussion as simply a way of making boasts and assertions. We can see how this humanizes the political “other,” making the mind see the opposing person as a rational being who may share at least some thoughts with one’s own group.86

As Nussbaum illustrates, this simple philosophy assignment intensely changed Billy Tucker. Although he had never considered constructing an argument for a position he did not favor, this activity formed him into a better democratic citizen. At minimum, then, Tucker no longer lived as an unreflective citizen clinging to his own ideological proclivities regarding the death penalty. Instead, by way of a simple liberal arts project, he was now a humble, thoughtful, and empathetic citizen willing to recognize the complexities and nuances of an issue like capital punishment.

What is fascinating is that so many of the virtues engendered by Tucker’s philosophy assignment are the exact ones needed by the Wajir women in Kenya and by Eliyahu McLean and Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari in Jerusalem’s “The Big Hug.” They all, for example, depended on humility, empathy, imagination, and the ability to self-examine—overlapping virtues in the liberal arts and conflict transformation. As a result, those who receive a liberal arts education like Billy Tucker are somehow, albeit indirectly, transformed. For during the course of these studies students receive a myriad of readings and assignments similar to Tucker’s, which over the course of time train them to see the world through a different lens. Unfortunately, in present-day American society the value of this “training” does not always receive the attention it deserves. Like Josef Pieper, then, our character, or who we are in the United States, is not the most prominent aspect of our identities. Rather it is what we do vocationally, or our jobs, that defines success. The problem with this pervasive “worker culture” is its inability to produce the virtue necessary for overcoming conflict. A robust liberal arts education, on the other hand, can train one’s mind to step back from this “total work” ethos and better understand, imagine, and establish peace. In the end, though, is this intellectual training enough?

The Insufficiency of the Liberal Arts in Peacemaking

The variable analyses in Parts One and Two enabled me to argue that a liberal arts education contributes to conflict resolution. Contribute is a key word here, because the humanities alone cannot generate or sustain the virtue needed to establish peace. The question that remains then is this: what specifically are the humanities unable to produce that Lederach and Gopin say peace requires?87 When considered in isolation, the humanities do not fully address or cultivate one’s soul.

86 Nussbaum, Not for Sale, 52. 87 Here I will focus solely on what Lederach and Gopin say in The Moral Imagination and

Bridges Across an Impossible Divide. I will not address Stassen and Gushee’s “Way of Reasoning” dimension because Lederach and Gopin do not address it in their books above. In fact, as I pointed out earlier in the paper, they feel that the Way of Reasoning dimension wrongly dominates the work of

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In Nussbaum’s Not for Sale, she frequently seems to suggest that if only everyone read the “classics,” or was exposed to Socratic dialogue, the world would be a happier, more harmonious place. On one level she is right: ignorance breeds insensitivity, incivility, and discord, while knowledge can help engender recognition and solidarity. Yet on another level, Nussbaum is entirely wrong. For though there are plenty of stories that resemble Billy Tucker’s moral transformation, there are also copious counter-examples—examples of people who grow cognitively but not ethically in liberal arts programs.88 In his article, “The Incoherent University,” George Mardsen explains why this disproportionate development is sometimes the case. He claims that universities are “morally incoherent” because they do not provide students with systematic ethical training. Universities, that is, offer ethical insights and encourage specific moral ideals, but students typically fail to obtain the tools they need to substantiate their moral positions while there. The instruction they receive, Marsden avers, is more like a hodgepodge of facts with no organizing center. Students are therefore left with an arbitrary, pick-and-choose morality—a morality based not on wisdom but knowledge.89 In contrast to wisdom, the weakness of lone knowledge is its tendentious inclination toward arrogance. In many ways the 20th century fittingly testifies to this arrogance. Motivated by scientific development, technological progress, and increased confidence in human reason, the 20th century was ironically the bloodiest hundred years in human history. The confidence and power of knowledge did not lead to harmony throughout the world, but it facilitated countless wars, atrocities, and deaths. The lesson is this: thinking rightly, while unquestionably significant for the development of virtuous character, does not necessarily lead to right action. Right thinking needs to be supplemented by something else.

In addition to an educated mind, Lederach and Gopin assert that peacebuilding requires a properly formed soul. If we relate this point to Stassen and Gushee’s holistic character ethics, it becomes evident that we have failed to investigate one of their key methodological categories—namely, the “basic convictions” dimension. We have, in other words, incorporated the variable of practice loyalties (“loyalties/passions” dimension) and subsequently articulated how these loyalties influence the variable of social change (“way of seeing” dimension). Moreover, like Lederach and Gopin we have assumed (not negated) the influence of rules and practices in the “way of reasoning” dimension. Yet we have not correlated these variables with the “basic convictions” dimension, nor have we considered how an ethic of peacemaking will lack proper grounding, cohesion, and direction if it does not address this category. Thus if we are to develop a unique methodology, whereby we supplement a liberal arts education by cultivating the soul, we need to address Stassen and Gushee’s “basic convictions” domain. Although we could justifiably examine all of their “basic convictions”—God, peacebuilding. Yet neither peacemaker wishes to discard the “rules and practices” in the Way of Reasoning dimension, as most of their earlier works exclusively emphasize this dimension. In The Moral Imagination and Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, Lederach and Gopin assume this dimension and its influence. As with them, then, for the task of peacemaking I assume (rather than negate) the rules and practices in the Way of Reasoning dimension.

88 For example, it was upon reading Marxist literature in school that Joseph Stalin decided to become a political revolutionary.

89 George Marsden, “The Incoherent University,” in The Hedgehog Review, (2000), 94. http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/University/2.3HMarsden.pdf

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Christlikeness, forgiveness, justice, etc.—for the purposes of this argument I will focus briefly on the variables of the church and discipleship. These variables contribute directly to the inquiries in Parts One and Two, and thereby serve as apt examples that equip us for more effective peacemaking.

Why Peacemaking Needs the “Soul” of the Church and Discipleship Insofar as Lederach and Gopin affirm that conflict transformation requires rightly formed character, our challenge has been to discover how to obtain this character. We have seen that a liberal arts education can contribute to shaping us morally, though this “shaping” is incomplete without the “basic convictions” of the church and discipleship. The liberal arts, as it were, fail to reach the soul in a way critical to peacebuilding, whereas the church and discipleship impact the soul appropriately. Why, then, are these two “basic convictions” essential for establishing peace? Why do they mold one’s character in a way that the humanities cannot? Perhaps no one has spoken more influentially about the church’s role in character formation than Stanley Hauerwas. In his work entitled A Community of Character, he unabashedly argues for the incorporation of virtue ethics into Christian spirituality. He views virtue language as helpful because conceptions of Christian discipleship are too often diluted and distorted by other ideologies, especially by the privatizing tendencies of liberalism.90 As a result, he draws on Aristotle and Aquinas to place the Christian spiritual and social task within the framework of virtue ethics.91 He says that this methodological shift correctly stresses the critical role the church community plays in spiritual formation; it helps highlight the fact that a righteous person cannot be formed privately. For Christians depend upon a community embodying a truthful narrative—namely, the “school of virtue” that is the church.92 The church serves as this foundational “school of virtue” because of its specific suite of practices: prayer, Scripture reading, baptism, reception of the Lord’s Supper, communal worship, etc. These practices, when grounded in the narrative of Jesus Christ, offer a formative education that is available within no other sphere of society. In contrast to the church, for example, the liberal arts are rooted in a narrative of liberty (i.e., to be liberal is to be free), and they are accompanied by exercises such as studying languages, reading philosophy, and writing poetry. These exercises are beneficial to conflict transformation because they capably touch the mind (and often even the heart). Yet they do not adequately shape and stimulate the deepest part of the human psyche: the soul. Only the Prince of Peace, who organizes a community of believers around His narrative of redemption and reconciliation, sufficiently impacts the soul. In turn, as the “body of Christ,” only the church is afforded the soul-based virtue that can sufficiently empower the pursuit of peace.93

90 Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Ethic (Notre

Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 73, 75, 130-131. 91 Hauerwas, 135-145. 92 Hauerwas, 83-86. 93 This is not to say that peacebuilding only needs the church. Rather, only the church and its

narrative can appropriately transform the foundational instrument of peace: the soul.

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In addition to the church, obtaining the kind of character necessary for peacebuilding depends upon the “basic conviction” of discipleship. Specifically, it requires a view of discipleship constituted by union with Christ. For seeking peace is not ultimately about perceiving the world correctly or even acquiring the right virtues. Rather, pursuing peace is at its core relational; it requires that a disciple be formed into Christ’s image by way of intimate communion with Him. This relational understanding of discipleship affects the soul in a way that a liberal arts education simply cannot. In bringing the soul into intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, it enables one to participate relationally (not merely intellectually or morally) in Christ’s work in the world—work that entails establishing His Kingdom of peace on earth. By supplementing a liberal arts education with the “basic convictions” of the church and discipleship, we meet Lederach and Gopin’s peacemaking demands. We are able to cultivate, as it were, the kind of character that captures the “art and soul” of peacemaking. For the practice loyalties of the liberal arts attend to the “art” of conflict transformation, while the church and discipleship (to name only two examples of relevant “basic convictions”), address the “soul” of this task. Marc Gopin concretely demonstrated this “art and soul” when he apologized to the Muslim who lived in Abu Ghraib prison. Now we can too.

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CONCLUSION: Investing in an Holistic Approach to Peacemaking

By drawing on the variable of social change in John Paul Lederach’s The Moral Imagination and Marc Gopin’s Bridges Across an Impossible Divide, I have shown that building peace requires more than proper structures and processes; to be effectual, it relies on the proper moral formation of its participants. Next, by examining the variable of practice loyalties in Josef Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture and Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Sale, I have shown that a liberal arts education, often dismissed in today’s increasingly utilitarian society, can contribute to the cultivation of virtuous moral character. Finally, by bringing these two variable analyses into relationship, I suggested that while a liberal arts education can help shape one for conflict transformation, this task ultimately depends on “basic convictions” that define soul formation—more specifically, the church and discipleship. My final goal, then, has been to add to the conversation of peacemaking by developing a unique method for ameliorating violence. In the end, though, my propositions have been merely conversation starters. There remain many facets to explore in the relationship between the liberal arts (or higher education in general), the Christian church, and discipleship. I contend that Christians need to investigate this dynamic seriously. For so often liberal arts topics are segregated to lofty obscurity, and the church and discipleship are sequestered into their own otherworldly, confessional realm. By so clearly segregating these practices, however, we limit the “formative relationship” between them. Thus by way of research and practical exercise, our challenge is to discover the dynamism behind this formative relationship. If we are to take up the pursuit of conflict transformation sincerely, perhaps we will have to answer this call—the call to integrate the liberal arts, the church, and discipleship into a holistic ethic of peacemaking. Taking this call seriously is without question a worthy investment.

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