Prominent scholars of religious peacebuilding include Mohamed Abu-Nimer, Scott Appleby, Hizkias Assefa, Marc Gopin, John Paul Lederach, and Cynthia Sampson. The work of John Paul Lederach has been particularly important when it comes to defining peacebuilding. Lederach emphasizes that peacebuilding as a process that is dynamic and social and that involves transforming relationships:
[…Peacebuilding] is understood as a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates and sustains the full array of processes, approaches, and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships. The term thus involves a wide range of activities that both precede and follow formal peace accords. Metaphorically, peace is seen not merely as a stage in time or a condition. It is a dynamic social construct (Lederach1997, 84–85).
Marc Gopin has been instrumental in integrating religion into the field of conflict resolution. He focuses on the role of religion in emotional training, interpersonal relations, and encounters, respect and appreciation of mourning processes, forgiveness, and honor- all constitutive of meaningful peacebuilding (Gopin 1997, 1-31). Lisa Schirch in Ritual and symbol in Peacebuilding captures the ritualistic elements of religious practice as a framework for designing and analyzing the possibility of constructive change. She explicitly deploys the
lens of ritual theory in order to outline the “best approaches” for effective peacebuilding. The theatrical thread illuminates the practice of peacebuilding as a highly ritualistic engagement that optimally might produce liminal spaces and transformative moments when adversaries or enemies move beyond reified interpretations of their respective identities (Omer 2015, 5).
Two key authors and practitioners who highlight the relevance of culture and religion to peacebuilding processes are Kevin Avruch and John Paul Lederach (Lederach 1998). Peacebuilding must be a contextually sensitive enterprise, one that is self-conscious about the cultural biases and baggage that peace practitioners carry as well as the cultural specificity of the contexts of conflict. Gopin’s Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (2000) echoes the insight concerning the internal diversity and plurality of a community and the subsequent need to analyze why certain violent, exclusive, or otherwise peace-inhibiting interpretations of religious symbols, texts, and other narratives have gained dominance. Such exploration, Gopin suggests, might be pivotal for conflict analysis as well as conflict transformation. Applying a psychodynamic approach to conflict, Gopin traces the patterns of change within religious traditions; that is, what circumstances led to the adaptation of violent motifs and by which subgroups (Gopin 2000, 168). This approach typifies a presumption that violent motifs constitute inauthentic or perverted interpretations of religion. In other words, the task of religious peacebuilding amounts to a recovery of good religion.
Another important contributor is scholar-practitioner Mohammad Abu-Nimer. He underscores the dynamic character of Islamic sources and Islam itself as a continuous, lived revelation. His work consequently exemplifies the premise, despite proclamations of various literalists to the contrary, that religions are internally plural and thus that sacred sources are
subject to continuous interpretations. He labors to develop a nonviolent paradigm for peacebuilding from within the sources of Islam, underscoring core Islamic values such as justice, benevolence, patience, and forgiveness, service, faith, brotherhood, equality, submission to God, dignity, and sacredness of human life. These values and principles are applied in traditional dispute resolution training workshops (Abu-Nimer 2003).
As a religious peacebuilder and as an academic, Powers examines three critical dimensions of a strategic approach to religious peacebuilding: (1) its inherently public nature, (2) the relationship between nonviolence, just war, and peacebuilding; and (3) the role of ecumenical and inter-religious peacebuilding (Powers 2010, 318). He notes that “it is necessary to address the fundamental difference between the secularist view, which sees religion mostly as an atavistic and irrational cause of conflict that should be marginalized and privatized, and those who believe that religion is an under appreciated force for peace that should have a significant role in society” (Powers 2010, 319). Appleby calls this “weak religion” and “strong religion.” Most studies affirm that religion is a factor in a number of conflicts; however, it is rarely a primary or exclusive factor (Appleby 2000, 76-78).
Religious peacebuilding is strategic when it effectively integrates these diverse religious resources. Integrating ideas, institutions, and people-power is comparable to what Appleby calls “the saturation model” (Appleby 2000, 9). According to Powers, the effectiveness of religious peacebuilding depends on integrating theology, ethics and praxis; integrating the peacebuilding work of different parts of religious institutions; and integrating peacebuilding policy and process (Powers 2010, 329). Powers adds that a religious body is an effective peacebuilder when there is continuity between what it preaches and what it practices. Religious peacebuilding must be analyzed on its own terms, not solely by the standard metrics
for assessing political actors, interest groups or NGOs. This assumes that peacebuilding is integrated into the life and mission of religious bodies.
Hizkias Assefa, well-known for his theoretical and practical insights into the role of religion in peacebuilding, notably in Africa, has alluded to the huge potential of religious actors which in his view gives them an enormous advantage over secular organs in peacebuilding efforts. Indeed, Assefa emphasizes that religious leaders must not only lead by example and work together with their counterparts of other faiths but must also be seen to work together, in a visible cooperation among members of different faith communities (Haar 2005, 21). Both Ngala and Muzaffar emphasize that no other institutions are able to shape the worldview of individuals and groups as effectively as religious ones (Haar 2005, 22).