Today marks the International Day of Peace. Established in 1981 by the United Nations, the International Day of Peace aims to promote the United Nations’ founding objectives—maintaining international peace and security and protecting future generations from the horrors of war. This year’s theme is “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” Today, we encourage you to reinvest in your own commitments to peace and join the Office of Public Witness and the Presbyterian Ministry at the UN in the ongoing work of peacemaking.

This year’s International Day of Peace comes to us at a time when it is hard for many to muster hope in the day’s original objectives. The US is approaching nearly 7 months of unauthorized war with Iran. The Administration continues to push Congress to pass an unfathomable $1.5 Trillion Pentagon budget to undergird further warmaking while having simultaneously zeroed out the Atrocities Prevention Fund and the Complex Crises Fund.  And international nuclear arms controls have expired leaving the world at risk of a new nuclear arms race.

In the face of these challenges, this year’s International Day of Peace theme—“Invest in Peace”—helpfully reminds us that peace is not passive. Real and sustainable peace-work requires active participation and political will. It also reminds us that investments in peace also involve financial commitments and just national and international economic arrangements.

As Christians, the pursuit of peace is fundamental to our faith. In Philippians 4:7, the Apostle Paul writes: “And the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Here Paul commends a peace which can lift even weary and dispirited hearts and minds so that we can in turn make the investments in peace our communities desperately need.

May we mark this year’s International Day of Peace by reinvesting in peacemaking, peacebuilding, and peacekeeping as active, holy pursuits and Christian ministries.

Join us in this work by contacting your elected Representatives and urging them to:

• Oppose the $1.5T Pentagon budget;
• Restore funding for peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts like the Atrocities Prevention Fund and the Complex Crises Fund;
• Renew international nuclear arms control agreements as an important safeguard on the road to nuclear abolition;
• Call on US to pay approximately $3 billion in arrears for global peacekeeping missions;
• Participate in the First Review Conference of Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, November 30 - December 4, 2026.