Before discussing Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience and the effort it represents, it is well to say something about the diversity within the religious community and its concern for peace. Most of what follows does not deal, for instance, with those who espouse the position of absolute pacifism nor with the historic “peace churches” such as the Friends, Mennonites and others. (But even in these instances discretion is necessary since some of the “peace churches” [e.g., the Friends] are active in the political sphere and some of the groups originally formed by pacifist impetus [e.g., Fellowship of Reconciliation] are increasingly open to those who enter the quest for world peace from a different direction.)