The quality of [our] nonviolence is decided largely by the purity of the Christian hope behind it. If Christians hope that God will grant peace to the world, it is because they also trust that human beings, God's creatures, are not basically evil: that there is in humanity a potentiality for peace and order which can be realized provided the right conditions are there. Christians will do their part in creating these conditions by preferring love and trust to hate and suspiciousness. The hope of the Christian must be, like the hope of a child, pure and full of trust.

Thomas Merton, Living Peace by John Dear