shown that when a future outcome, however noble, seems of greater worth than the human being before us, any means, any atrocity, is possible. Non-violence as a way of life is based on the realization that the means determine the ends, that the means are how we live our lives.

We should carry on this struggle on the lines of strict non-violence, i.e., by suffering in our own persons.... I want you to feel like loving your opponents, and the way to do it is to give them the same credit for honesty of purpose which you would claim for yourself.

-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Gandhi on Nonviolence

When we act in the humble recognition that every party to a problem or dispute has some portion of the truth, our object becomes not winning but reconciliation. We seek methods to deal with conflict, such as mediation, that build and develop cooperation and community. Conflict, an inevitable fact of life, becomes creative opportunity when we can fashion from our differing approaches a combined vision that is closer to Truth than any of our original positions.

PEACE AND INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING

I told them that I lived in that life and power that takes away the occasion for all war.

-- George Fox, Journal, 1694

We repudiate war because it violates the primacy of love, destroys lives that God has given, and tears the fabric of society. War is a test of power, not a search for truth or justice. We thus urge the use of peaceful methods, consistent with the ends we seek, which may heal the hates and hurts of individuals and nations. We support all who take the stand of conscientious objection to war and violence. While we do not question the bravery and commitment of people who fight, the question that sets us apart from them is, "Can any war truly be the will of God?"

We hold that it is inconsistent with our religious principles to participate in military service. There are and have been among us those who have accepted imprisonment or alternative service on the grounds of conscience and religious conviction. New York Yearly Meeting in 1960 and again in 1990 reaffirmed the traditional testimony against war of the Declaration of Friends to Charles II in 1660:

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever; and this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not change