If it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, then peacebuilding is a candle for our fractured time. In the US, peacebuilding can help reduce racial tensions and create an open and meaningful dialogue between dissimilar Protestant denominations. Hartford International University’s Master of Arts in International Peacebuilding (MAP) is a one-year program focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, the first to specialize in the skills and methods of interreligious reconciliation. HIU now seeks to provide American Black pastors and religious activists with these skills. HIU will recruit graduates of the Black Ministries Program (BMP) and other religious activists into MAP who intend to work across theological differences. Through HIU’s Howard Thurman Center for Justice and Transformational Ministry (HTC), they will also use peacebuilding techniques to pilot and facilitate an extended encounter between the Black church and conservative Christian groups to explore common ground within a Scriptural framework. HIU’s goal is to explore and understand the growing social and ideological rift that stymies serious dialogue on issues of race and the hermeneutics of social justice.