THE ROLE OF FAITH IN CROSS-CULTURAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION – One of the most important findings of cross-cultural conflict resolution research is that Religion is a perpetual and perhaps inevitable factor in both conflict and conflict resolution.

Religion, after all, is a powerful constituent of cultural norms and values, and because it addresses the most profound existential issues of human life (e.g., freedom and inevitability, fear and faith, security and insecurity, right and wrong, sacred and irreligious), religion is deeply implicated in individual and social conceptions of peace.

To transform the conflicts harassing the world today, we need to uncover the conceptions of peace within our diverse religious and cultural traditions, while seeking the common ground among them. When we speak of the role of Faith in cross-cultural conflict resolution, our challenge is to honor the diversity of the world’s humanistic and spiritual traditions while seeking common ground among them, that common ground is that we are all same GOD’s creation, HE IS OUR GENERATOR, OPERATOR and DESTROYER.

We need new frameworks for organizing knowledge about Religion, Culture and Spirituality. Frameworks that recognize the powerful role that faith and belief play in conflict and conflict resolution, and that do not privilege one culture as ‘normal’ and label another as ‘exceptional’. Education of the masses about different religions is the key in resolving conflicts.

Many Religions and One Community: – Our contemporary situation raises many serious questions: How can different cultures and faith groups find ways to live together in peace and prosperity in a shared society? To what extent are tensions between different faith groups and cultures inevitable? How should these tensions be understood and handled? History provides us with a number of resources for thinking about these questions and about how we might answer them today.

Defining the Role of Religion in Conflict and Peacemaking: – Peace and conflict resolution are both universal and particular; similar as well as divergent approaches derive form and vitality from the cultural resources of the people.

Religion in Conflict Situations: – In promulgating the ideals and values held in highest esteem by groups and individuals, religion profoundly influences goal-seeking behavior in conflict situations, by establishing the criteria or frames of reference for determining the rightness and wrongness of events.

Religion and Conflict Resolution: – The religious cosmology of a group, in privileging some values and ideals over others, specifies how restoration, wholeness and healing can be achieved through distinctive paths of resolution adopted by different cultures. The ruptures experienced in conflict situations often require symbolic or other social exchange found within collective cosmologies. In this way, conflict resolution strategies manifest distinctive conceptions of peace, which illuminate the terms and conditions necessary for social harmony to be both understood and experienced.