Sacred Spaces in Conflicts: Faith Based Organizations and the Peacebuilding Landscape in Northeast India and Southeast Myanmar
Ashe Chakhesang
2025, Conflict and Peace Studies Journal (CPSJ)
Abstract
This study examines how Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) create and sustain moral, spiritual, and communal spaces for reconciliation in two protracted ethno-political conflicts, namely, the Nagas in Northeast India (NEI) and the Karen people in Southeast Myanmar (SEM). Using Religious Peacebuilding Theory and drawing from historical documents and informal conversations with FBO leaders, the study analyzes how faith communities operate as critical yet often overlooked peacebuilding actors. The findings show that both movements emerged from similar colonial disruptions, which helped shape early political consciousness and collective ethnic identity. Although each community pursued self-determination, internal fragmentation driven by ideological and leadership differences complicated political negotiations. In these divided contexts, FBOs created “sacred spaces” that nurtured trust, dialogue, and communal healing in ways state institutions often could not. Among the Nagas, a largely Christian social setting allowed faith-based actors to draw on shared ideas of forgiveness, and covenant. This moral coherence gave them strong legitimacy to mediate between rival groups, ease internal violence, and support political dialogue. In the Karen context, where both Buddhist and Christian communities shape social life, peacebuilders had to form intentional interreligious partnerships. Faith actors worked together to create inclusive spiritual and cultural spaces that encouraged unity, strengthened resilience, and mobilized grassroots involvement in peace efforts. The study concludes that FBOs advance peace not only through theology but by creating sacred relational spaces where divided communities can envision new futures. Peacebuilding policy should recognize them as co-authors of reconciliation, strengthen interfaith cooperation, and deepen contextual theological training for conflict transformation.
The Impact of Religious Institutions in Peacebuilding: Case of Nagaland
Ashe Chakhesang
2024, Journal of Research for International Educators (JoRIE)
Abstract
Nagas are an ethnic and religious minority in India, and they are a Christian minority in Hindu majority India. Nagas in the northeastern part of India have been in violent conflict for more than seventy years. This problem originated as a struggle for independence from the Union of India but degenerated into a cycle of the Naga political group’s factional clashes that have drawn the society into a whirlwind of hatred, suspicion, and vengeance. The purpose of this research is to show the impact of religious institutions on peacebuilding and restoring stability in Nagaland. This paper discusses the role of a Christian prayer center, namely, Naga Shisha Hoho, in the formation of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation and the reconciliatory journey it took among the Nagas. The literature used in this work consists of religion and violence and religion and peace. The research methodology used in this article was the qualitative case study research design focusing on the work of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation. Findings reveal that the peace initiative in Nagaland by religious institutions has a positive impact on peacebuilding. This paper recommends the potential of religious actors to resolve conflict and decrease tensions.
In search of a befitting inter-faith dialogue model for the Socio-political and Religious Transformation of Kawthoolei
Wapangrenba Imchen
2022, Kawthoolei Hope Theological Seminary | Colloquium Paper
Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religious view among the Karen people which accounts for around 65 percent of the total population. However, many of them who identified themselves as Buddhist are not Buddhist but practice their ethnic religion, namely, animism.1 Kawthoolei is a land of religious diversity comprising of Buddhism, Animism, Christianity, the Lehkai, the Telahkon, and Muslim. Religious diversity plays an important role in the Karen people’s life. Looking back to history, in the 1990s, a Buddhist group broke with the Christian leadership and associated with the Burmese military. As a result, Christian and Buddhist Karen engaged in armed conflict against each other and even lost the life of some prominent political leaders.2 If the intruders can use religion as a tool to bring division among the people then it is pertinent for the Karen people to introspect and start engaging in inter-faith dialogue to unite all Karen despite the difference in beliefs and values to achieve their long-sought common goal. In the light of that, this paper gives an effort to discuss a few inter-faith dialogue models to stir up the readers' minds in delineating the topic of Kawthoolei transformation.
Exclusivity of the Cross and the Inclusion of Sinners to God
Ashe Chakhesang
2018, Hill Light Theological Seminary Magazine
The cross in the ancient world was an object everybody dreaded and disgusted. The Christian’s choice of a cross as the symbol of faith is more surprising when we remember the horror of which crucifixion was regarded in the ancient world. We can understand why Paul’s ‘message of the cross’ was for many of his listeners ‘foolishness’ and even ‘madness’. How could any sane person worship a God (a dead man) who had been justly condemned as a criminal and subjected to the most humiliating form of execution? This combination of death, crime shame put him beyond the role of respect, let alone of worship. We should remember that it is not the cross that saves but the risen Lord.
