American Friends Service Committee
   HOME



picture info

American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends ('' Quaker)-founded'' organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by American members of the Religious Society of Friends to assist civilian victims of World War I. It continued to engage in relief action in Europe and the Soviet Union after the Armistice of 1918. By the mid-1920s, AFSC focused on improving racial relations, immigration policy, and labor conditions in the U.S., as well as exploring ways to prevent the outbreak of another conflict before and after World War II. As the Cold War developed, the organization began to employ more professionals rather than Quaker volunteers. Over time, it broadened its appeal and began to respond more forcefully to racial injustice, international peacebuilding, migration and refugee issues, women's issues, and the demands of sexual minorities for equal treatm ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Religious Society Of Friends
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers because the founder of the movement, George Fox, told a judge to "quake before the authority of God". The Friends are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. Quakers have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa followed by 22% in North America. Some 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to ''evangelical'' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Peacebuilding
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. The process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing before, during, and after any given case of violence. As such, peacebuilding is a multidisciplinary cross-sector technique or method that becomes strategic when it works over the long run and at all levels of society to establish and sustain relationships among people locally and globally and thus engenders sustainable peace. Strategic peacebuilding activities address the root or potential causes of violence, create a societal expectation for peaceful conflict resolution, and stabilize society politica ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Mennonites
Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of the Habsburg Netherlands within the Holy Roman Empire, present day Netherlands. Menno Simons became a prominent leader within the wider Anabaptist movement and was a contemporary of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560). Through his writings about the Reformation Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders as well as early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Peace Churches
Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism or Biblical nonresistance. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches: * Church of the Brethren, including all daughter churches such as the Old German Baptist Brethren, Old Brethren and Dunkard Brethren; * Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); and * Anabaptists, including Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites. In addition to the Schwarzenau Brethren and Mennonites, other Anabaptist Christian fellowships, such as the Hutterian Brethren, River Brethren, Apostolic Christian Church and Bruderhof teach pacifism as well. This phrase has been used since the first conference of the peace churches in Kansas in 1935.Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites p6 Donald B. Kraybill – 2010 "In 1935, BRETHREN, Mennonites, and Quakers met in North Newton, Kansas, for a conference on peace. The term HISTORIC PE ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Military Draft
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force. Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; sexism, in that historically men have been subject to the draft in the most cases; and ideologic ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 1,603,797 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is the urban core of the Philadelphia metropolitan area (sometimes called the Delaware Valley), the nation's Metropolitan statistical area, seventh-largest metropolitan area and ninth-largest combined statistical area with 6.245 million residents and 7.379 million residents, respectively. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Americans, English Quakers, Quaker and advocate of Freedom of religion, religious freedom, and served as the capital of the Colonial history of the United States, colonial era Province of Pennsylvania. It then played a historic and vital role during the American Revolution and American Revolutionary ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Friends (Quakers)
''Friends'' is an American television sitcom created by David Crane (producer), David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004, lasting List of Friends episodes, ten seasons. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, the show revolves around six friends in their 20s and early 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City. The original executive producers were Kevin S. Bright, Kauffman, and Crane. Kauffman and Crane began developing ''Friends'' under the working title ''Insomnia Cafe'' between November and December 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, and together they pitched a seven-page treatment of the show to NBC. After several script rewrites and changes, including title changes to ''Six of One'' and ''Friends Like Us'', the series was finally named ''Friends''. Filming took place at Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Quaker Peace And Social Witness
Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), previously known as the Friends Service Council, and then as Quaker Peace and Service, is one of the central committees of Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends – the national organisation of Quakers in Britain. It works to promote British Quakers' testimonies of equality, justice, peace, simplicity and truth. It works alongside both small local and large international pressure groups. In 1947, the then ''Friends Service Council'' received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the American Friends Service Committee, on behalf of the Quakers. UK Peace Work ''Peace Campaigning and Networking'': aims to encourage a wider and deeper understanding of the peace testimony and to promote disarmament and work against militarism. ''Turning The Tide'': promotes positive social change and helps groups to increase their effectiveness using active nonviolence. ''Peace Education'': supports a range of initiatives for peace educat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Conscientious Objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–industrial complex due to a crisis of conscience. In some countries, conscientious objectors are assigned to an alternative civilian service as a substitute for conscription or military service. A number of organizations around the world celebrate the principle on May 15 as International Conscientious Objection Day. On March 8, 1995, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights resolution 1995/83 stated that "persons performing military service should not be excluded from the right to have conscientious objections to military service". This was re-affirmed on April 22, 1998, when resolution 1998/77 recognized that "persons lreadyperforming military service may ''develop'' conscientious objections". History Many conscientious objectors h ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Conscription
Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day under various names. The modern system of near-universal national conscription for young men dates to the French Revolution in the 1790s, where it became the basis of a very large and powerful military. Most European nations later copied the system in peacetime, so that men at a certain age would serve 1 to 8 years on active duty and then transfer to the reserve force. Conscription is controversial for a range of reasons, including conscientious objection to military engagements on religious or philosophical grounds; political objection, for example to service for a disliked government or unpopular war; sexism, in that historically men have been subject to the draft in the most cases; and ideol ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]


picture info

Military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a distinct military uniform. They may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of a military is usually defined as defence of their state and its interests against external armed threats. In broad usage, the terms "armed forces" and "military" are often synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include other paramilitary forces such as armed police. Beyond warfare, the military may be employed in additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within the state, including internal security threats, crowd control, promotion of political agendas, emergency services and reconstruct ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]