Peace history and interfaith dialogue

Hellou,

and welcome to my webpage! I am Rony Mikael Granfelt (nee Ojajärvi), a Doctor of Theology working in the field of Peace and Church history. My work examines the role of Jesus-centered religions in fostering peace, focusing on movements that unite diverse communities and promote understanding across faiths. I aim to highlight the significance of interfaith dialogue in global peacebuilding efforts, drawing on historical context and contemporary practice.

Read more

Exploring the Roots of Peace through History

Learn More

Research

Learn more

In my dissertation, titled Losing Faith, Finding Reason: Religious language and religiopolitical worldview in the history of Finnish Peace Movements, 1919-1975, I researched the role of religions in Finnish peace movements. In my work, I utilized interdisciplinary methodological approaches, combining qualitative network analysis to critical discourse analysis within the framework of history of ideas.

My work illustrates how faith, Jesus and His Sermon on the Mount was replaced in peace movements with a secular leftist rationality. This has led peace movements in Finland to a situation in which religious argumentation is nearly non-existent in peace work.

My current research project, “Contesting the Collectivization of Peace in the Nordic countries of Eurasia. Religeopolitical Peace Diplomacy in the Global Cold War (ReliGeoPAX Norden),” focuses on Nordic peace history. I research how the Soviet Peace Campaign utilized religion when influencing Nordic politics of neutrality and how faith-based peace movements contested this form of cultural diplomacy of foreign powers.

Peace Work

In addition to research, I have been engaged in peace activism since 2017, with organizing peace demonstrations and campaigns against nuclear weapons, Russia’s invasion to Ukraine and buying of Fighter Planes.

Whereas before I focused on secular peace activism, I am currently focused on interfaith peacebuilding and build bridges between people. Through my research and experience I have come to the conclusion that disarmament and nonviolence is possibly only when one can find a stable balance between inner and outer peace.

Through my work, I want strengthen the faith in us so that one day we will be ready to forge the swords into ploughshares and learn to turn the other cheek, while loving our enemies.