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Winter 2009 | Volume 32, Number 1
| Features
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Biblical Reconciliation
What the Scriptures Say About Loving “the Other”
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12
The Christian Story in a Divided World
“Jesus is offering a way to find meaning for our lives in a world that is fragmented by ethnic, gender, age and social class divisions. He is providing a way for people to experience real Christianity — the story that offers hope for the future. However, to embrace this we will need to exchange our outdated, culturally conditioned ideas and methods that limit the power and effectiveness of the gospel. We have a message that is more powerful and compelling than the realities that we face. We have been entrusted with the greatest story ever told. What Jesus wants to offer the world through us is a way for people to bring their stories into interaction with God’s story, so that they can have a new storyline full of purpose, meaning and hope.”
Brenda Salter McNeil
A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race (IVP Books, 2008)
“We need to look for an alternative both to forgiveness and reconciliation outside of justice and to forgiveness and reconciliation after justice. I want to suggest that such an alternative notion of forgiveness and reconciliation is to be found at the heart of the Christian faith — in the narrative of the cross of Christ, which reveals the very character of God. On the cross, God is manifest as the God who, though in no way indifferent toward the distinction between good and evil, nonetheless lets the sun shine on both the good and the evil (cf. Matthew 5:45); as the God of indiscriminate love who died for the ungodly to bring them into the divine communion (cf. Romans 5:8); as the God who offers grace — not cheap grace, but grace nonetheless — to the vilest evildoer.”
Miroslav Volf “Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Justice: A Christian Contribution to a More Peaceful Social Environment,” in Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Peterson, ed. (Templeton Foundation Press, 2001)
“[W]hen we are redeemed we become part of the transcendent bride of Christ in which there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28). But the Bible teaches that we become even more responsible for dealing with the implications of our identity when new life is born in us. Even though each person stands before God alone and is in no way guilty for the sins of his or her ancestors or any other group, God is looking for volunteers who will open themselves to experience godly sorrow and confess the sins of the land. This is where reconciliation begins.”
John Dawson “Hatred’s End: A Christian Proposal to Peacemaking in a New Century,” in Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Peterson, ed. (Templeton Foundation Press, 2001)
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