DALLAS (ABP) — Worldwide an estimated 1.6 million people die each year due directly to violence. Violence is responsible for 14 percent of all deaths among males age 15 to 44 and 7 percent of deaths of females of the same age, according to the World Health Organization.
And it's up to Christians to stop it, according to several Christian groups working to promote peace around the world.
Three such groups, all based on the teachings of Jesus, pursue peace in significantly different ways and settings.
Steve Bostian of Hope Unlimited said the nondenominational group's focus on investing in children in a Christ-centered way separates it from other, often failed, attempts to eradicate violence among Brazil's 10 million street children.
That investment in individuals rather than broad social change is a model for peace that Bostian said he hopes to spread across Brazil.
Founded by David Swoap, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services, and father-son team Jack and Philip Smith, Hope Unlimited received the 2006 Kanitz Award as one of Brazil's top 50 charities for the decade.
Now in its 15th year, the non-profit group has provided education, medical care, housing, counseling and job opportunities for 1,000 children. Located near Sao Paulo, it currently cares for more than 600 children in three locations.
According to Bostian, U.S. director of Hope Unlimited, only 18 percent of Brazil's street children are biological orphans. The vast majority are children who have run away from home to escape violent or neglectful parents.
Once the runaways hit the streets, however, they find that option isn't much safer — in fact, for many it is brutal and deadly. The average lifespan for a Brazilian street child is less than four years, with most meeting a violent end. In 2006, the United Nations reported that 16 children are reported murdered every day in Brazil. Many more murders go unreported.
It's up to Christian groups to help create peace in the country, Bostian said, because the government can't be counted on to help. Brazil as been so overwhelmed with the violence that, as a whole, people have given up, he said.
“The government has been a big part of the problem because they have espoused these … United Nations rights of children reforms, which were so leftist and so extreme that they basically say you can't tell any child what to do with their life,” Bostian said. “If a child wants to live on the streets, you can't tell them they can't live on their streets. If a child doesn't want to listen to their parents, they don't have to. It was kind of a good thing that went bad.”
Philip Smith agreed. He said international good-faith efforts to protect children's rights have strayed from logic to a free-for-all that doesn't allow parents or authorities to provide moral structure for children.
“Is it wrong for parents to impose moral views on children? In Brazil it is,” he said, adding that Brazilian children have virtually no state-imposed restrictions. “If a child wants to do drugs and stay on the streets, then that's okay. It goes against biblical parenting, where we understand that human beings are inherently sinful and need guidance.”
Life on the streets and without guidance makes children tough. Many by necessity turn to lives of petty crime, prostitution and drug abuse. In conditions like that and without support from home, children quickly lose all hope and confidence for the future, Smith said.
“The biggest challenge is to help them overcome that lack of hope,” he said. “Taking away hope from a child is a death sentence.”
Indeed, the high level of violence in Brazil continues at an alarming rate. The New York Times reported that more than two dozen people have been murdered in gang violence after a deadly showdown in Rio de Janeiro Dec. 28.
In Sao Paulo, roughly 9,000 homicides were reported in 2001, according to National Geographic. In contrast, New York City had 700.
The situation got so bad in the late 1980s and early 1990s that Brazil faced international condemnation after news emerged about death squads killing thousands of “street urchins” pestering local vendors. During those years, Amnesty International listed “street execution” as the third leading cause of death for Brazilian children.
“The death squad situation was really the impetus for Hope Unlimited,” Bostian said. “Philip and Jack heard about the death squads and went down to check it out.”
It was worse than they feared, with street children routinely murdered just because they were living on the street.
The squads consisted of off-duty police officers hired by merchants to get rid of the “nuisance.” Bostian called the underpaid and barely educated police force “a formula for corruption.” Death squad-type murder still happens in Brazil today, he added.
Short of radical social change, making progress with individual children in Brazil comes down to realizing their worth and potential in Christ, Smith said.
“That's where the Christian mission comes in,” he said. “It's really about good, solid biblical parenting. [The children] need discipline. They need instruction.”
Much of Brazil's violence is exacerbated by the disparity between the rich and the poor. The majority of Brazilians live in abject poverty. And as “haves” and “have-nots” try to coexist in dense urban areas, it becomes a recipe for violence, Bostian said.
According to the World Health Organization, violent death rates vary according to country income levels. Rates of violent death in low- to middle-income countries are more than twice as high as those in high-income countries (32 deaths per 100,000 people versus 14 per 100,000, respectively).
That link between violence and poverty is a key component of Rick Warren's PEACE Plan, a five-point plan the megachurch pastor developed to eradicate the “giant problems” of poverty, disease, corruption, spiritual emptiness, and ignorance that oppress billions of people around the world.
The only entity big enough to solve those problems is the Christian church, Warren told a crowd of 30,000 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., during his April 2005 announcement of the plan.
“The Scripture shows us that Jesus shared the good news, trained leaders, helped the poor, cared for the sick and taught the children,” Warren said. “Our PEACE plan will just do the five things Jesus did while he was here on earth.”
PEACE stands for “plant churches, equip servant leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick and educate the next generation.” The plan works by a network of 2,600 small groups that each adopt a village in which to act out the plan.
Groups “do normal tasks that can change the world,” Mike Constanz, Saddleback's pastor of missions, said in a letter about the plan. “Everyone can participate through personal, local and global PEACE projects.”
The goal is to equip every participant to “fulfill the mission that God has given each of us to share the good news of Jesus Christ and care for the hopeless and hurting,” he added.
Rwanda has been a particular focus for the group. In 1994, more than 1 million people were killed there in a 100-day genocide. Warren has already partnered with local government authorities to address the violence.
So far, more than 4,500 Saddleback church members are involved in pilot projects. Warren said his ultimate goal for the PEACE project is to mobilize 10 million churches, 100 million small groups and 1 billion Christians.
“Why do we do this?” Warren asked in an ABP story in 2005. “Why should I care about the sick and the poor and the uneducated and the spiritually empty? Because of what Jesus has done for us. We do it out of gratitude.”
That Christian mandate drives Ken Sehested and the members of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, a Charlotte, N.C., group that provides resources and support to Baptists building “a culture of peace rooted in justice.”
Sehested, the founding executive director of the group, wrote in a letter to constituents that a united front of Christians working together toward peace is important, but Baptist institutions should not neglect promoting peace from within the ranks too.
“Unfortunately, our reputation as an arrogant, sectarian people is mostly deserved,” Sehested wrote. “Therefore it is with good reason that some question the need for an explicitly Baptist peace fellowship. [But] there is also a theological component to the rationale for our work. I do believe that our Anabaptist heritage has insights especially significant for our modern crisis.”
Anabaptists from the 16th century led to Mennonite, Amish and other “peace churches” today, inspiring generations into social action and peacemaking based on Jesus' teachings. Tenets of those peace groups often include simple lifestyles, peace and justice initiatives, nonviolence and communal living.
Evelyn Hanneman, interim coordinating director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship, said peace is essential to living the Christian life because it's what Jesus embodied.
“The whole issue of peace is important, given that Jesus is the Prince of Peace,” she said. “Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.' Peace is what Jesus was about in so many ways.”
Baptist Peace Fellowship emphasizes the concept of shalom as justice. Shalom is a Hebrew word that means peace. More specifically, it refers to true inner peace, safety, healing and well-being.
Like shalom implies, the simple absence of war doesn't bring total peace, Hanneman said. Public policy, laws and governments must protect all people so they can live freely in the pursuit of happiness, she said.
“We are very clear that peace is rooted in justice because without justice, you won't have peace,” she said. “There has to be justice, and that will bring true peace.”
That conviction has political applications as well. The peace fellowship frequently takes stands on political issues on behalf of its 80 partner churches. Hanneman said they're planning a “Christian Peace Witness for Iraq” March 16 in Washington, D.C. The event will involve prayer services for peace, Bible study and a candle-lighting ceremony.
In a “Baptist declaration in opposition to present U.S. Policies in Iraq,” peace fellowship members signed a petition citing their Baptist heritage as a reason for nonviolence.
“As Baptists in the United States, we have no desire to further the division in our nation or across the globe,” the petition said. “But neither can we remain silent in the face of the policies and practices of our nation that are so diametrically opposed to our religious faith and what we understand to be the democratic values of the nation.”
For Sehested, Hanneman and others at the Baptist Peace Fellowship, peace is indelibly rooted in faith in Jesus Christ. The bottom line? Peace is not only the goal but the means to a better world.
“Can you imagine this? One day, when the general public hears the word Baptist, they will think immediately of gospel-inspired justice and peace work,” Sehested said. “Instead of associating the name with the follies of TV evangelists, wouldn't it be nice if they thought, ‘Oh, those are the folks who care for the poor, who resist racial discrimination, who speak out against gun-barrel diplomacy, and who care for the environment.' Imagine that!”
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