It has been well said that peace is not the absence of noise, trouble or hard work – rather it is to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart, says Jill Segger in the first of a series on the Quaker Testimonies.

Enter any public debate about the pros and cons of religion today, and it will not be long before someone raises the thorny issue of ‘texts of terror’ in the Bible, says Simon Barrow. Yet in the person of Christ our understanding of violence is turned upside-down.

On Earth Peace, a Church of the Brethren agency in the USA, is calling on churches and organizations to join its annual campaign to participate in the World Council of Churches' International Day of Prayer for Peace (IDOPP) on 21 September.

Peace is a way of life, says the Rev Dr Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, and it is the mission of the churches to bring up new generations of Christians to live out God's peace in all aspects of their lives.

Representatives from the Asia Mennonite Conference (AMC) have decided to move ahead on an “outline of merger” with Mennonite World Conference (MWC), strengthening relations in the 1.2 million world-wide peace denomination.

“Keeping our faith in times of trouble” is a model of hope, an international Anabaptist delegation to Zimbabwe has affirmed. It says the Brethren in Christ Church (BICC) in the troubled country is alive and strong. The Mennonite World Conference team also met local Catholics.

European head of state makes a surprise visit to peace churches in Latin America

St Francis of Assisi's prayer, 'Make me a channel of your peace', was the theme for a celebration of common commitment to overcome violence at a gathering of Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Protestant church representatives on 17 February 2007 in Wittenberg, Germany.

A half-million US dollars to counter world hunger, and to give substance to a commitment the UN Millennium Development Goals, was raised in 2006 by the Global Food Crisis Fund and the growing projects it spawned through the Foods Resource Bank - reports the Church of the Brethren, an Anabaptist denomination which sponsors the anti-poverty work.

A North American peace church aid and development organization which opposed the US war with Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, and has continued to build positive relations ever since, is providing 30,000 US dollars worth of help to communities affected by Typhoon Xangsane in the central region of the country.