relationships and community on Mediation

Former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia argues how Christians ought to resolve conflict based on 1 Corinthians 6: I think this passage [1 Cor. 6:1–8] has something to say about the pro...

Former cultures, whatever their faults, understood the imperialistic nature of energy, especially of spiritual, erotic energy. For the most part, they feared energy, particularly sexual and religious ...

In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ...

Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish economist and diplomat deeply committed to his Christian faith, served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations during some of the most turbulent times of the Cold Wa...

Contact Theory proposes that if diverse groups spend extended time together, their intergroup conflict and the negative effects of racism and ethnocentrism will gradually decrease and possibly even di...

Peacekeepers are conflict avoiders, sweeping important issues under the carpet so no conflict manifests itself. This often happens in families and churches. This also happens between alienated ethnic ...

Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flou...

The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one fr...

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven.

Being a peacemaker is part of being surrendered to God, for God brings peace. We abandon the effort to get our needs met through the destruction of enemies. God comes to us in Christ to make peace wit...

Jesus’ brand of peacemaking is extensive. It embraces the breadth of humanity. But peacemaking is also intensive. The commands to love and pursue peace challenge us not only to resolve conflict but al...

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a true story in one of his books about peacemaking in what is arguably one of the world's most difficult places to achieve it: the Middle East. One evening in the early ...

Reconciliation is indeed an invitation into a journey. It is not a “solution” or an end product, but a process and an ongoing search.

Jesus’ brand of peacemaking is extensive. It embraces the breadth of humanity. But peacemaking is also intensive. The commands to love and pursue peace challenge us not only to resolve conflict but al...

The key word in our definition of a disagreement (an unacceptable difference between two perspectives), isn’t “difference.” It’s “unacceptable.” Once the clash between perspectives becomes unacceptabl...

Loving God, you are always ready to forgive our sins. We are much less eager to forgive those with whom we disagree. So often when we have something against our friends, family, or strangers, we escal...

Two monologues do not make a dialogue.

There is a Russian parable about compromise that goes like this: A hunter raised his rifle, aiming carefully at a large bear. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the bear spoke in a calm, soothi...

Called to Pastor, Inclined to Argue When I was graduating from college in the mid-2000s, I was encouraged to take a career test to determine where my personality type would fit in the working world. ...

Maltbie D. Babcock, author of This Is My Father’s World and a Presbyterian pastor in Brooklyn, introduced a free pew system in his church, upsetting a wealthy woman who found strangers in her us...

Jesus does not limit the peacemaking to only one kind, and neither will his disciples. In the light of the gospel, Jesus himself is the supreme peacemaker, making peace between God and man, and man an...

Reconciliation is about how to relate even after forgiveness and justice have occurred. It’s about how to delve even deeper into relationship with one another. An absence of hostility is possible with...

Most of us need this type of push to help us start the [reconciliation] journey. We need someone or something to push us out of our comfort zones and the isolated social enclaves that keep us alienate...

Recently we found ourselves around a table with a team of faith leaders from an influential Midwestern church. Their restlessness was palpable. “Peace has been one of our core values for years,” they ...

The place to begin peacemaking is in our closest relationships. Jesus said, “If … your brother or sister has something against you, [drop what you are doing] …. [G]o and be reconciled to them.” How ...

Lord Almighty, you tell us that if we have a quarrel with another, we are to make amends before coming to worship. We seek your mercy today – for all of us live at odds with others to varying degrees....

I did some of my Clinical Pastoral Education Units in Gastonia. One of the units that I served was the Emergency Department. If there was an incident that was suspected to be gang related, they would ...

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.

If someone has done something wrong even at a personal level, the right thing to do is not to gossip about it, not to tell everybody else, not to allow resentment to build up and fester, and certainly...