Who are We?

The Amsterdam Centre for Religion and Peace & Justice Studies (ACRPJ) is an academic research centre, focused on the intersection of peace and justice, and religion. Founded in 2011 by the Mennonite Seminary (at the installation of the professorship for Peace-Theology and Ethics), the ACRPJ is embedded in theFaculty of Religion and Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam/TheNetherlands. ACRPJ seeks to communicate insights by means of education in its widest sense, with the intent to create spaces for peace and justice.

One example of this effort is the coordination of a one-year Master’s program on “Peace, Trauma and Religion”. This program offers students from diverse cultural and religious (or non-religious)backgrounds and various disciplines to explore the complexities of conflict, peace building with justice, coping with trauma, and the role of religion in both legitimizing and fueling violence – with a post-colonial hermeneutic approach. Other examples of the center’s activities include summer schools, excursions, public lectures, conferences and publications. Focus-themes of the ACPRJ in the past years include Reconciliation, the Spirituality of Nonviolence, Racism, the Construction of Narratives in Conflict-Loaded Societies, and Just Peace.

Written by: Rita Cruz