John Paul Lederach

John Paul Lederach is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado. In 1994 he became the founding director for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor.^[1]

Early life and education

Lederach was born in Indiana into the family of a local preacher, whom he was named after. He graduated from Bethel College in 1980 with a degree in History and Peace Studies. During this time he was working for the Mennonite Board of Missions in Barcelona, Spain. He then pursued a Ph.D. in Sociology with a concentration in the Social Conflict Program from the University of Colorado, receiving his degree in 1988. During this time (from 1975-1996) he was also very active with the Mennonite Central Committee serving for a time as the Director of the Mennonite Conciliation Service. ^[2][3]

Academic work

Dr. Lederach's theories of elicitive methods of conflict resolution have been influential in the fields of political science, peace studies, international relations and conflict transformation. His works have been published widely in English and Spanish.^[3] His academic work comes from his experience in the field as a mediator, negotiator, peacebuilding practitioner, trainer and consultant. At the international level, this has involved input into peace processes in Somalia, Northern Ireland, Nicaragua, Colombia and Nepal. Within communities, his work has often been at the level of reconciliation within church and family.

"Change only comes through ensuring that people are represented. In Somalia where I did a lot of my early work, there was no government and it was a chaotic situation. My job was to engage in longer term bottom-up grassroots work. You do this by establishing organisations for elders, women's associations and so on which build strength into a community by creating space for civil society." - from a BBC interview ^[4]

Dr. Lederach has given many keynote, commencement, and high-level lectures, among them a keynote lecture entitled "Narratives of Care: The Social Echo of Community Transformation" at the Conversations on Attachment conference at Eastern Mennonite University.^[5] and a lecture entitled "Compassionate Presence: Faith-Based Peacebuilding in the Face of Violence" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.

Religion and beliefs

Dr. Lederach is a committed Mennonite Christian, and as he explains in his 1999 book Journey Toward Reconciliation (see below), his Christian faith has affected both his thinking and application of non-violent solutions to conflict. In 2000, he received the Community of Christ International Peace Award.^[6]

Lederach's work began to gain more widespread attention in the mainstream Evangelical world after Bill Hybels, founder and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church praised the book Journey Toward Reconciliation in a Christmas 2013 sermon series.^[7] In light of the sudden interest in the book, its publisher, Herald Press, released an updated edition under the title Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians in August 2014. The new edition includes a foreword written by Bill Hybels and his wife Lynne.

During both days of the 20th Global Leadership Summit August 14–15, 2014, Bill Hybels referenced the significance of the book and the importance of its principles of peacemaking and conflict resolution for individuals as well as churches.

“As a practitioner of peace, he accompanies the poor, the refugees and the victims of war – eliciting from them alternatives to violence,” Burish continued. “His wide-ranging experiences, profound analyses and deep moral imagination have formed the basis for a corpus of writing that has enlightened peace studies scholars and peacebuilders around the globe. He is, in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, ‘an instrument of peace.’” - Tom Burish provost of the University of Notre Dame^[8]

Awards and honorary degrees

• 2000 - Community of Christ International Peace Award^[6]
• 2002 - Keys to Access Award from CADRE (the National Center for Dispute Resolution in Special Education) ^[9]
• 2006 - Martin Luther King Order of Peace Medal^[10]
• 2009 Pax Christi Award - St. John's University and Abbey ^[11]
• 2009 Reinhold Neibuhr Award from the University of Notre Dame^[12]
• 2014 Distinguished Scholar Award - International Studies Association^[13]

In 2014 he has received honorary degrees from Conrad Grebel College at the University of Waterloo, St. Paul University in Ottawa.^[14]

Publications

• Els anomenats pacifistes: La no violència a l'estat espanyol, La Magrana, 1983. (Catalan)
• Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, Syracuse University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8156-2725-4
• Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, U.S. Institute of Peace, 1997, ISBN 1-878379-73-9
• The Journey Toward Reconciliation, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8361-9082-3
• From the Ground Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding, 2000, ISBN
• A Handbook of International Peacebuilding: Into The Eye Of The Storm, Jossey-Bass, 2002, ISBN 0-7879-5879-4
• The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, Good Books, 2003, ISBN 1-56148-390-7
• The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-517454-2
• Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 2014, ISBN 0-836199030

References

External links

• http://www.emu.edu/personnel/people/show/lederacj
• http://ecapc.org/articles/LederaJ_ChallengeTerror.asp
• http://kroc.nd.edu/people/directory/faculty/john-paul-lederach
• http://kroc.nd.edu/newsevents/news/peacebuilders-share-work-and-wisdom-apprentices-worldwide-485
• Lecture transcript and video of Dr. Lederach's speech at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego, February 2012
• December 8, 2013 sermon by Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Community Church