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TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2011 

                                                GUEST:

                               MARK C. JOHNSON Ph.D

                                          Executive Director:

                             Fellowship of Reconciliation

www.forusa.org

www.forpeace.net

mjohnson@forusa.org

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More about: MARK C. JOHNSON & FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., became the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation/USA on March 1, 2007.  A 1969 graduate of The College of Wooster in Ohio, and with a 1981 doctorate in sociology from Columbia University in the City of New York. Mark has spent most of his professional career in the YMCA and as a volunteer in environmental, arts, and peace and social justice organizations. His longest tenure was as the executive director of the Silver Bay Association, a YMCA conference and training center on Lake George in the Adirondacks.

Mark was president of the Lake George Land Conservancy for eight years and a trustee with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Adirondack Land Trust for nine years. He did his alternative service as a conscientious objector in Lebanon, living and teaching in Beirut for six years. From 2002-2006 he was active with the emergent Alliance for Middle East Peace and supported the development of leadership and training programs for young adults at the Jerusalem International YMCA as a member of the staff of the YMCA of the USA.

Currently Mark serves on the non-profit boards of Interfaith Peace Builders, Associated Solo Artists/Creative Leaps International, Schools That Can (a national alliance of public, private independent and parochial charter schools), and the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP).

He is married and has three adult children. He lives in Stony Point, New York near the Nyack, New York headquarters of FOR. He contributes regularly to publications and blogs of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and this material can be found at  www.forusa.org. In the spirit of Parker Palmer, Mark sees himself as a poet doing the work of a peacemaker.

Organizational Sketch FOR

Mission, Vision, History, Membership and Structure

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) is the largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States and the world. The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), founded in 1914, has more than half a million members and supporters in more than forty countries. The United States FOR, active since 1915, has over 18,000 registered members and supporters. The purpose for which the corporation is formed are to explore the power of love and truth for resolving human conflict through non-violent reconciliation to achieve a just and peaceful world community with full dignity and freedom for every living being.

Our Mission: FOR seeks to replace violence, war, racism and economic injustice with nonviolence, peace and justice. We are an interfaith organization committed to active nonviolence as a transforming way of life and as a means of radical change. We educate, train, build coalitions, and engage in nonviolent and compassionate actions locally, nationally, and globally.

Our Vision: FOR envisions a world of justice, peace, and freedom. It is a revolutionary vision of a beloved community where differences are respected, conflicts are addressed nonviolently, oppressive structures are dismantled, and where people live in harmony with the earth, nurtured by diverse spiritual traditions that foster compassion, solidarity, and reconciliation.

Membership: The Fellowship of Reconciliation is composed of women and men who recognize the essential unity of all creation and have joined together to explore the power of love and truth for resolving human conflict. While it has always been vigorous in its opposition to war, the Fellowship has insisted equally that this effort must be based on a commitment to the achieving of a just and peaceful world community, with full dignity and freedom for every human being. In working out these objectives, the FOR seeks the company of people of faith who will respond to conflict nonviolently, seeking reconciliation through compassionate action.  The Fellowship encourages the integration of faith into the lives of individual members. At the same time it is a special role of the Fellowship to extend the boundaries of community and affirm its diversity of religious traditions as it seeks the resolution of conflict by the united efforts of people of many faiths. In the development of its program the FOR depends upon persons who seek to apply these principles to every area of life.

Local Groups, Peace Fellowships and Affiliates: FOR has over one hundred local groups, peace fellowships, and affiliates who are committed to the FOR vision in forty states across the country.  FOR’s religious peace fellowships promote nonviolence within many religions, including various branches of Ba’hai, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism., and other faith traditions.

FOR’s History: FOR has played a key role in major peace and justice efforts since its beginning at the start of World War I, when it worked for the legal recognition of conscientious objectors and sought to secure civil liberties for workers and minorities. In the following decades, FOR opposed totalitarianism and war and worked for the nonviolent resolution of conflict and the protection of victims of war. It opposed the Cold War and the nuclear arms race and promoted US-USSR Reconciliation. FOR played an important role in the civil rights movement, working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. FOR has organized nonviolence training programs for activists in the US and abroad, and promoted peace building in the former Yugoslav and the Middle East, especially in Israel/Palestine and Iraq. 

FOR has worked extensively through delegations and campaigns.  Delegations visit region of current or prospective conflict, such as Colombia and Iran at the current time. Campaigns are collaborative efforts to advocate for changes in governmental policies by organizing citizens and groups to urge elected officials to change policies and practices of violence and injustice. FOR’s Peacemaker Training Institute offers workshops in nonviolent conflict resolution and peace and justice issues to young adults. FOR’s emphases are on demilitarization, counter-consumerism, anti-oppression, and earth stewardship.  FOR publishes a quarterly magazine, Fellowship, the oldest continuously published peace journal in the United States, a bi-annual newsletter called Witness, and operates a web-based communication and alert practice on peace and social justice issues @ www.forusa.org.                         

                                    241 West 36th StreetNew York,N.Y. 10018 Phone: 212-695-6351 E-Mail: HHC@NYC.RR.COM