Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – What Does Faithful Christian Witness Look Like in a World of Destructive Conflicts?

By Chris Rice This vocation of reconciliation is not a one-time event or a linear journey of progress. It is a long and costly journey. In a Christian understanding, no one has the greater burden to take the first step in this journey—whether majority or minority, powerful or powerless, aggressor or afflicted. The initiative for reconciliation begins wherever people find the courage to lose themselves and discover the human face of the “other.” Indeed, reconciliation requires a risky journey in which all groups are transformed and called to costly sacrifices. Reconcilers are often seen as traitors by their own people, and often become a bridge painfully trampled on by both sides.

When Do We See Reconciliation?

Only God knows what true reconciliation looks like. The challenge is to see where we are in the journey and to point out signs of hope. The Church is called to eagerly pursue hope in three dimensions:

1. The Church should be a key indication of hope, a living alternative, infusing and challenging the social sphere with a more radical vision of God’s reconciliation. At the heart of this witness are blended congregations where historically separated peoples share deep, common life and Christian institutions unlearn discrimination and unjust use of resources. It is also critical that Christians cross barriers and pursue a transnational identity which forms them into people whose ultimate loyalty is to Christ alone.

2. The Church should have faithful practices of social engagement, even if they result in no visible change. These are profound indications of hope amidst destructive conflicts. Examples are when Christians forgive persecutors, prophetically challenge unjust situations and offer hospitality across divides.

3. The Church should eagerly work for indications of reconciliation in society. Two examples include (1) enemy leaders entering dialogue, stopping violence, seeking restorative justice and seeing truth around a painful shared history appropriately and communally remembered and (2) communities becoming places of shared, peaceable life.

Placing Reconciliation at the Heart of Christian Mission in the Twenty-first Century

In a world increasingly marked by conflict, there is an urgent need for the Christian community to embrace and embody peace and reconciliation as central to its life and mission.

Toward this end, the final call of the paper is to:

  • call the Church to humble examination,
  • identify and dismantle the escapist ideologies and practices which steer us from reconciliation,
  • cross difficult divisions and barriers to engage those we are separated from,
  • preach and teach costly peacemaking as normative of Christian faith,
  • refuse neutrality or silence in relationship to destructive social conditions and
  • intentionally shape pastors and congregations able to live an alternative life of shalom.

In all this, we joyfully and publicly proclaim God’s victory in Christ and God’s plan for the future of reconciling “all things” in himself.

The Lausanne Occasional Paper “Reconciliation as the Mission of God,” including “Roots & Realities” vignettes and case studies of pain and hope, is available at: www.lausanne.org/documents/2004forum/LOP51_IG22.pdf. A shorter booklet is available in English and French (forthcoming in Arabic and Spanish) at: www.reconciliationnetwork.com/.

Chris Rice is co-director of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, USA. He served as convener of the Lausanne 2004 Issue Group on Reconciliation. He is author of More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel and Grace Matters.

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