What Does the Course Say About War?

A few weeks ago, when tensions were higher than usual between the United States and Iran, there was a lot of talk around whether we were headed into yet another war. This got Robert and I wondering what the Course has to say on the topic of war and, turns out, it’s quite a lot.

I hope you’ll listen to the latest edition of Exploring A Course in Miracles to learn more, but two things that have stayed with me since our discussion are 1) Jesus lays out a very clear picture in the Course of what he thinks of war, and 2) the collective battlegrounds we see in the news begin with the individual conflicts in our own lives. No surprise, then, that we cannot free ourselves from the larger, global issue of war until we understand forgiveness and true equality in our own hearts.

As Greg Mackie and Robert outline in a wonderful article from the Circle’s online library, Jesus says we can achieve this “freedom” from war not by fighting for it, but by siding with peace. Incidentally, this stance was the inspiration for the United States Department of Peacebuilding that Marianne Williamson championed in her presidential campaign. Even though Marianne is no longer in the race, I hope we all continue to side with the vision that war is best prevented by the active cultivation of peace.

Finally, the Circle has released our schedule of events for 2020 at www.circleofa.org/events. We have workshops and presentations scheduled from Los Angeles to London and we hope to see many of you on the road.

Love,

Emily Bennington
Executive Director
Circle of Atonement