The Shamatha Project is a research project that is attempting to measure the human potential for happiness by studying the long-term benefits of meditative practice. It is a collaboration between neuroscientists and psychologists at the University of California and B. Alan Wallace, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who is founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness […]

Janet Ramsey is associate professor of congregational care leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. She teaches a cross-disciplined course on forgiveness and healing at Luther, speaks frequently on the topic at churches and conferences, and is the author of several articles and two Sunday school series on forgiveness. She is co-authoring, with systematic theologian […]

Rodney L. Petersen is executive director of the Boston Theological Institute, which offers a certificate program in religion and conflict transformation that includes forgiveness training. He is the co-editor of Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Religion, Public Policy and Conflict Transformation and teaches classes in conflict resolution and reconciliation in religious and international arenas.

Read an Aug. 3, 2012, Associated Baptist Press column on assault weapons, in which Editor Marv Knox says that “This, too, is a pro-life issue.”

Read an editorial in the Aug. 13, 2012, edition of the Jesuit weekly America calling for more gun control in the wake of the Aurora, Colo., shooting.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki condemned the August 2012 shooting at the Sikh temple. He told a local radio station: “None of us are free from evil in the world. There is evil. Individuals have free choice. Hopefully, they’re guided by the sense of devotion to God and justice, but we know that evil touches the lives […]

Read an Aug. 19, 2012,  Jewish Daily Forward story about Reform and Conservative rabbinical leaders calling for increased gun controls in the wake of the spate of shootings.

The United Methodist Church has an official statement on criminal justice and restorative justice in its Social Principles and a statement on gun violence in the Book of Resolutions.

The Catholic bishops have cited the need for reducing gun violence a number of times. In November 1994 U.S. bishops released a pastoral letter, “Confronting a Culture of Violence: A Catholic Framework for Action,” which addressed gun violence. In November 2000 the bishops adopted a statement, titled “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal […]