BYU Lecturer Calls for a New Generation to Be ‘Nonviolent Peace Ambassadors for Human Rights’

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By Rachel Sterzer Gibson, Church News

The world today is witnessing an absence of peace, noted the Rev. Lawrence Edward Carter.

This absence of peace is manifest in everything from individuals launching verbal attacks face to face and over social media to nation states launching bombs and missiles across borders, said Rev. Carter, senior professor and founding dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College.

“From this dark mood, where we can turn for help?” Rev. Carter asked during a presentation in the Hinckley Center on the Brigham Young University campus in Provo, Utah, on Thursday, March 13. “I believe Dr. King offers a model, which he conceived more than 60 years ago, that can still serve us today.”

On August 28, 1963, Rev. King — American civil rights activist and Baptist minister — delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In that address, Rev. King shared his vision for the “beloved community” in which “people of every race, religion and nation could live together in peace and harmony and work together for the common progress of humankind.”

During his BYU Wheatley Institute lecture on peace, non-violence and human rights, the Rev. Carter issued a call for a new generation of humanitarians to promote nonviolent peace — or to be co-creators in the sustainable, global “beloved community.”

“I call on you to join me on a mission for peace, to be active doers of peace work and to be visible and vocal supporters of people, groups and institutions that work for justice and peace around the globe,” Rev. Carter said.

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The Need for Peacemakers

Thursday’s lecture was co-sponsored by the BYU Religious Education department and the Peacemaker Project, a campus initiative inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s April 2023 general conference address titled “Peacemakers Needed.”

In that address, President Nelson taught, “Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to be a peacemaker, now and always.”

A little more than a week later, on April 13, 2023, President Nelson was awarded the Gandhi-King-Mandela Peace Prize from Morehouse College — a private liberal arts college for African American men.

In accepting the award, President Nelson echoed his message on being peacemakers, emphasizing that people do not need to act alike or look alike to love one another, and it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

“If we have any hope of creating the goodwill and sense of humanity for which we all yearn, it must begin with each of us, one person and one interaction at a time,” President Nelson declared.

“May we as sons and daughters of God — as eternal brothers and sisters — do all within our power to build up each other, learn from each other, and demonstrate respect for all of God’s children. May we link arms in love and brotherhood.”The Rev. Carter presente

He was also in attendance in October 2023, when the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square welcomed the Morehouse College Glee Club and the Spelman College Glee Club as a part of Music and the Spoken Word. That historic event was reprised in September 2024 when the Tabernacle Choir went to tour in Georgia.

During his lecture at BYU, Rev. Carter spoke of the oil portrait of President Nelson, which was placed into the Hall of Honor in the King international chapel as part of the Prophet’s peace prize.

As dean of the chapel, Rev. Carter said he is often called upon to give tours of the Hall of Honor and explain the portraits. “I tell the story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and people are absolutely amazed at what I say, and it shatters stereotypes and helps reunite the broken body of Christ,” said Rev. Carter.

Using Nonviolent Resistance for Peace

A man of great faith, Rev. King believed that humankind must develop a method of dealing with conflict, which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation, said Rev. Carter. “The foundation of such a method is love.”

Rev. King once said, “Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, the command to ‘love one’s enemy’ is an absolute necessity for our survival.”

Nonviolent resistance — developed by Mahatma Gandhi and adopted by Rev. King — “is a weapon unique in history, one that cuts without wounding and ennobles the person who wields it. It is a sword that heals,” said Rev. Carter.

On the foundation of his Judeo-Christian faith and theology of nonviolence, Rev. King inspired and led “the greatest ecumenical social justice movement in the history of the United States that was designed to ensure the peace of the beloved community and equal and human rights for all Americans,” he said.

lawrence-carterReferencing the words of Rev. King, Rev. Carter said, “If we are going to give peace a chance in our [neighborhoods], our cities, states, the nation, the world, we need an inner revolution of values. That is the real movement required for peace, a movement of the mind, the heart, the feet.”

The feet, he explained, represent action or the need to stop “looking at the map and go to the destination. … We must understand that peace is a verb, an active outpouring of love, and that nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love.”

Individuals need to focus their energy on peace, not against war, Rev. Carter continued. “We need a Department of Peace. We need a secretary of peace, not a Department of Defense, not a secretary of defense. Why? Because there is no path to peace. Peace is the path.”

Understanding that difference requires enlightenment and revolutionary courage, wisdom and compassion, Rev. Carter said. “We must be peace, the thing itself. You cannot have what you’re not willing to be. You can’t preach and lecture about peace and be effective unless you show up as peace. Jesus tried to teach this.”

In addition to being actualized by individuals, lasting peace must also be “actionized” institutionally in the systems and structures of civilization, he continued.

Rev. Carter told listeners they do not need to leave Provo or Utah to make a difference. “Only if we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality and strength without sight.”

Agape love — or what Latter-day Saints might call charity or the pure love of Christ — which is “radiant, transformative, pure” and transcends all boundaries and limitations, is the mother of nonviolent peace, Rev. Carter said.

“I hope you will accept the call to be the nonviolent peace ambassador for human rights. We all wish to see that made flesh and walk among us, full of grace [and] peace.”