Evangelicals and Conflict Transformation: What It Looks Like

I end my series of blogs on religion and conflict transformation by sketching for you the qualities and characteristics of a Christian peacemaker.

This peacemaker’s work is built on the foundation of a biblical understanding of peace. In the Bible, “peace” in this world is not an absence of conflict, it is not an end to all violence, and it most certainly is not a ring of people holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” Rather, peace in this world is most basically characterized by an inner calm, a deep awareness that the Lord is in control of everything that happens and that he is working out all things for good. He desires for us to work for an end to conflict, violence, and perhaps one day to sing all together (although hopefully not “Kumbaya”), but it is not possible for that vision to be fulfilled in our fallen world. However, an integral, and life-giving, aspect of working towards that vision is the deep Biblical peace that recognizes that each of our lives is short, limited, and often frustrating, but that God knows all that is happening and is using it in his bigger, magnificent plan for us and for the world. This inner peace sustains us during the unavoidable backward steps in the conflict transformation process.

The Christian peacemaker’s work is also built on the foundation of conflict-as-gift. As John Paul Lederach, a scholar-practitioner in the field of Conflict Transformation and a practicing Mennonite, writes,

“Conflict flows from life…. [R]ather than seeing conflict as a threat, we can understand it as providing opportunities to grow and to increase understanding of ourselves, of others, of our social structures. Conflicts in relationships at all levels are the way life helps us to stop, assess, and take notice. One way to truly know our humanness is to recognize the gift of conflict in our lives…. Conflict also creates life: through conflict we respond, innovate, and change. Conflict can be understood as the motor of change, that which keeps relationships and social structures honest, alive, and dynamically responsive to human needs, aspirations, and growth.”1

Christian peacemakers embrace conflict as a window into the heart of their relationships and their society, as a way to see what is working well and what needs to be changed. They do not run from conflict or seek to minimize it, but welcome it and strive to learn and grow from it.

Christian peacemakers are characterized by a “clear sense of [their] uniqueness [which they] combine...with a willingness to explore and visit other worlds of meaning, without destroying them”.2 In the deep but humble confidence of their own identity, religious peacemakers are able to engage with people on the outside of their identity boundaries. They are able to acknowledge the “underlying spiritual unity,” or the image of God, in all humanity.3 This emphasis on firm religious identification and deep respect for humanity enables them to cultivate transformed relationships with all people, regardless of their political, ethnic, or religious affiliations. They take to heart Richard John Neuhaus’s advice when he says, “It is the will of God that we be tolerant of those who disagree with us about the will of God.”4 They are submersed in Biblical truths and traditions and are known by their acts of selfless love and service. Their entire life is marked by their commitment to cultivating peace, whether in the home, at work, or in international politics.

A Christian peacemaker is characterized by the image of a prophet entering a gilded city. He has just left the wilderness where he fasted, repenting of his own sins and passionately praying for the city he is now entering. His torn clothes hang loosely on his emaciated limbs, and black soot is spread all over his skin. He walks slowly and weakly, yet his voice is a strong, clear clarion call, echoing through the streets and into the countryside: Repent! Be reconciled to God and be reconciled to each other! Be children of God, be peacemakers!

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1. John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Transformation (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2003), 44-5.

2. Marc Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 6.

3. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 143.

4. As quoted in Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion, the Mission Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 266.