Given the levels of violence in the world today, it is hard to imagine a world in which the energies fueling militarism have been transformed into peace-building energies. Yet it is also true that it is impossible to work for something one can't even imagine. That is why the prophetic voice proclaiming the earthly peaceable kingdom is so important in each religious tradition, even though the details of the prophecy may vary. The religious imagination has suffered in the secular atmosphere of the twentieth century. Even the basic hope for a better future is jeered at as being "unrealistic." Yet that prophecy and that hope are the most precious resource of humankind, and the very capacity to imagine the other and better is ... our most completely human capacity.
Elise Boulding"Cultures of Peace and Communities of Faith" in Transforming Violence
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