March 15th, 2025, 12:01pm MDT
Provo, Utah – The world today witnesses the absence of peace, Pastor Lawrence Edward Carter pointed out.
This absence of peace is evident in everything from individuals launching verbal attacks to nations launching bombs and missiles across social media and across borders.
“Where can I ask for help from this dark mood?” asked Pastor Carter during a presentation on Thursday, March 13th at the Hinckley Center on the Brigham Young University campus in Provo, Utah.
On August 28, 1963, Pastor King – an American civil rights activist and Baptist pastor – gave an iconic “I Have a Dream” speech from the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
In that speech, Pastor King shared his vision for a “loved community” that “people of all races, religions and nations can live together in peace and harmony and work together for the common progress of humanity.”
During his lecture at the BYU Wheatley Institute on Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, Rev. Carter issued a new generation of humanitarians’ appeal to promote nonviolent peace or to become co-creators of sustainable and global “loved communities.”
“I call on you to join the mission for peace, become an active actor in the work of peace, and become a supporter of the visible voices of those, groups and institutions working for justice and peace around the world,” said Rev. Carter.
The Need for Peace Makers
Thursday’s lecture was co-hosted by the BYU Religious Education Division and the Peacemaker Project, a campus initiative inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference speech in April 2023 entitled “Peacemakers necide.”
In that speech, President Nelson taught: “Contest is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. There are agents who choose to compete or settle. I would recommend you become the usual piece maker now and always.”
On April 13, 2023, President Nelson was awarded the Gandhi Kingmandela Peace Prize from Morehouse College, an African American civilian arts university.
In accepting the award, President Nelson repeated his message about being a peaceman, emphasizing that people don’t need to act to love each other.
“If there is hope to create the goodwill and the sense of humanity that we all admire, then it must start with the interaction of each and every one of us, one and one,” declared President Nelson.
“May we be God’s sons and daughters – as eternal brothers and sisters – within our power, we build one another, learn from one another, and respect all God’s children. Can we link our arms with love and brotherhood?”
Rev. Carter presented the award to President Nelson. President Nelson was chosen as recipient “for his global efforts to “relinquish and act on the attitudes and prejudice of God’s children’s group through non-violent methods.”
During a lecture at the Wheatley Institute, Rev. Carter said in parallel with President Nelson’s words, “Peace is not when everything or everyone agrees, but when we respect our differences and still can play together in the sandbox.”
“A rich and deep pagan friendship”
Rev. Carter was introduced on Thursday by Elder M. Andrew Gard. Andrew Gard is the area of Latter-day Saints’ Church of Jesus Christ in Atlanta, Georgia, and is home to Morehouse University.
Over the years, Elder Gart and Rev. Carter “developed a rich and productive interfaith friendship that helped pave the way for a truly historical engagement between Morehouse College and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” explained Paul Edwards, director of the Wheatley Institute.
In April 2023, Rev. Carter traveled to Salt Lake City and presented President Nelson with the Gandhi King Mandela Peace Prize.
He also attended in October 2023. The Tabernacle Choir in Temple Square welcomed Morehouse College Gree Club and Spellman College Gree Club as part of the music and talk. That historic event was recreated in September 2024 when the Tabernacle Choir toured in Georgia.
During his lecture at BYU, Rev. Carter spoke about President Nelson’s oil portrait. President Nelson was placed in the International Chapel Hall of Fame as part of the Prophet’s Peace Prize.
As the dean of the chapel, Rev. Carter said he was often asked to tour the Hall of Fame and explain the portrait. “I tell the story of the Latter-day Saint Church of Jesus Christ. People are absolutely amazed at what I say. It shatters stereotypes and helps us reunite the broken body of Christ,” said Pastor Carter.
Use non-violent resistance for peace
The great faith man, Pastor King, believed that humanity must develop ways to deal with conflicts that refuse to revenge, aggression and retaliate, said Rev. Carter. “The basis of such a method is love.”
Pastor King once said, “The order to “love the enemy” rather than the respectable injunction of a utopian dreamer is an absolute necessity for our survival. ”
Non-violent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi and adopted by Rev. King – “A weapon unique in history, a weapon that wields it without being injured and shows off those who wield it,” said Rev. Carter.
On the basis of his Jewish-Christian faith and theology of non-violence, Pastor King said, “influenced and guided the greatest ecumenical social justice movement in American history.
Referring to Pastor King’s words, Rev. Carter said: It is the real movement needed for peace, movement of the heart, movement of the heart, movement of the feet. ”
He explained, and he explained, “it represents the need to look at the map and stop going to your destination.” …We must understand that peace is a verb, a positive outflow of love, and that non-violence is an absolute commitment to the path of love. ”
Pastor Carter continued, individuals need to focus their energy on peace rather than against war. “We need the Department of Peace. We need the Secretary of Peace, not the Department of Defense, not the Secretary of Defense. Why? Because there is no path to peace. Peace is the path.”
Understanding the difference requires enlightenment, revolutionary courage, wisdom and compassion, Pastor Carter said. “We must be peace, in itself. You cannot get what you are not. You cannot preach and lecture on peace, and you cannot be effective unless it appears as peace. Jesus tried to teach this.”
In addition to being realized by individuals, enduring peace is institutionally “taking action” in the systems and structures of civilization, he continued.
Pastor Carter told listeners he doesn’t have to leave Provo or Utah to make a difference. “Only if we do not act, we will be surely dragged through long, dark and shameful corridors reserved for those without compassion, without morality and power, without vision.”
Agaperabh, or what Latter-day Saints might call charity or the pure love of Christ – it is “glow, transformation, purity,” transcending all boundaries and limitations, and is the mother of nonviolent peace.
“I hope you accept the call to be a non-violent peace ambassador for human rights. We all want to see the body being created, walk between us, and be filled with grace (and) peace.”
