Reconciliation is the resolution of violences. It begins
to happen when we participate in positive relations with previous
enemies. The term “Reconciliation” (katallagé), as
used by the Apostle Paul (II Cor. 5:16-21; Eph. 2:11-22),
was a word used for monetary exchange in the Hellenistic world.
It meant “the making of what one has into something other”
or, by extension, one becomes a new person by exchanging places
with another. It is not without effort (Matt. 5:38-41). In
the OT and NT the term implies agreement after estrangement,
with the apparent theological premise that sin has separated
humanity from God but that God purposes to aid God’s enemies.
Such biblical paradigms of reconciliation as that of Joseph
and his brothers in Egypt (Gen 50:15-21), the embrace of Esau
and Jacob (Gen 33:4) or, finally, Jesus’ death on our behalf
imply great cost. Here, one becomes a new creation because
a power from without enables one to be other than what one
was before.
1) Various Definitions: The Kairos
Document (SA) talked of “cheap reconciliation,” in analogy
to Bonhoeffer’s “cheap grace,” implying a reconciliation without
justice. It raises the question of the temporal sequencing
of justice and reconciliation and whether justice as perceived
by all parties can ever be finally determined, hence need
for truth, as we are bound in patterns of victim and perpetrator.
In this light, we might speak of “national reconciliation”
and wonders about “collective healing” and the pursuit of
“political unity,” but by whose definition. Or, in personal
relations stumble on the term the “forgiveness bypass” (Judith
Herman), a shortchanging of justice in inter-personal relations
on the way toward reconciliation. Worthington writes that
“Forgiveness happens inside an individual; reconciliation
happens within a relationship” (129). Volf, substituting the
term “embrace” for “peace,” claims four points about the relation
between justice and embrace: 1) the primacy of the will to
embrace, 2) attending to justice as a precondition of actual
embrace, 3) the will to embrace as the framework of the search
for justice, and 4) embrace as the horizon of the struggle
for justice. These views, taken from the domain of national
life and inter-personal relationships, remind us of the Latin
root for reconciliation, concilium, or a deliberative process
in which conflicting parties meet “in council,” (Müller-Fahrenholz,
3).
2) Consider the Following Example: John Paul
Lederach envisions reconciliation as a meeting place where
Truth, Mercy, Justice and Peace come together. He writes how
from his work in Nicaragua Psalm 85:10, the locus for these
terms, took on such revelatory and reconciling potential He
adds, “Reconciliation can be thus understood as both a focus
and a locus. As a perspective, it is built on and oriented
toward the relational aspects of a conflict. As a social phenomenon,
reconciliation represents a space, a place or location of
encounter, where parties to a conflict meet” (30). Dawson
outlines numerous areas in need of reconciliation
3) Examples of Recent Literature Include:
• John Dawson, Healing America’s Wounds (Regal Books,
1994).
• Colin Holtum, Reconciliation. The History and Purpose
of Coventry (City Vision, 1998).
• Nicholas Frayling, Pardon and Peace ( London, 1996).
• John Paul Lederach, Building Peace (USIP, 1997).
• Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, The Art of Forgiveness
(WCC, 1996).
• C. W. du Toit, Confession and Reconciliation (UNISA,
1998).
• Wilhelm Verwoerd, My Winds of Change (Randburg,
SA, 1997).
• Walter Wink, Violence and Nonviolence in South Africa.
Jesus’ Third Way (Phil.: New Society, 1989). See his
later works as well.
• Everett Worthington, Jr., Dimensions of Forgiveness
(Templeton, 1998).
