Mending the Divides (eBook)

Creative Love in a Conflicted World

Jon Huckins, Jer Swigart (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
192 Seiten
IVP (Verlag)
978-0-8308-8110-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year Award of Merit - Mission/The Global Church Conflict, hatred, and injustice seem to be the norm rather than the exception in our world, our nation, our communities, our homes. The fractures and fissures run so deep that we're paralyzed by our hopelessness, writing off peace as a far-fetched option for the afterlife. Even if there was the possibility of peace, where would we begin? Instead of disengaging, Jon Huckins and Jer Swigart invite us to move toward conflict and brokenness, but not simply for the sake of resolving tensions and ending wars. These modern-day peacemakers help us understand that because peacemaking is the mission of God, it should also be the vocation of his people. So peace is no longer understood as merely the absence of conflict-peace is when relationships once severed have been repaired and restored. Using biblical and current-day illustrations of everyday peacemakers, Mending the Divides offers a theologically compelling, richly personal, and intensely practical set of tools that equip us to join God in the restoration of broken relationships, unjust systems, and global conflicts. 

Jon Huckins is a pastor and the cofounding director of The Global Immersion Project, a peacemaking training organization helping individuals and communities move toward conflict equipped to heal rather than to win. After much international travel and study in the Middle East, Jon focuses his writing and speaking on peacemaking, local/global engagement, and activating the Church as an instrument of peace in our world. Jon has written for numerous publications including USAToday, Red Letter Christians, Sojourners, and RELEVANT. His books include Thin Places: Six Postures for Creating and Practicing Missional Community and Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling, and he is a contributing author to multiple books. Jon regularly speaks at churches, universities, and conferences and has a master's degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in theology and ethics. He lives in San Diego with his wife, Jan, three daughters, and one son, where they colead an intentional Christian community seeking to live as a reconciling presence in their neighborhood of Golden Hill. 

Autor

Jon Huckins is a pastor and the cofounding director of The Global Immersion Project, a peacemaking training organization helping individuals and communities move toward conflict equipped to heal rather than to win. After much international travel and study in the Middle East, Jon focuses his writing and speaking on peacemaking, local/global engagement, and activating the Church as an instrument of peace in our world. Jon has written for numerous publications including USAToday, Red Letter Christians, Sojourners, and RELEVANT. His books include Thin Places: Six Postures for Creating and Practicing Missional Community and Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling, and he is a contributing author to multiple books. Jon regularly speaks at churches, universities, and conferences and has a master's degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in theology and ethics. He lives in San Diego with his wife, Jan, three daughters, and one son, where they colead an intentional Christian community seeking to live as a reconciling presence in their neighborhood of Golden Hill.  Jer Swigart is a church planter, a social innovator, an organizer, a professor, and the cofounding director of The Global Immersion Project, a peacemaking training organization that forms, equips, and mobilizes individuals and communities to enter any kind of conflict to heal rather than to win. He was the founder and lead pastor of The Open Door Community, a courageous collective of people pursuing God's dream for the San Francisco Bay area, and he is a contributing author to a number of books that focus on theology, leadership, justice, and reconciliation. A modern-day peacemaker, Jer has found himself contending for restoration in beautifully bizarre corners of our global village. Whether in the tribes of northern Pakistan, the slums of India, the red-light districts of Southeast Asia, the violence of Israel and Palestine, or the racial injustice of his own neighborhood, Jer loves people in a way that disarms violence and dismantles divides. His engagement within national and international conflicts has formed him into a guide for the church as she seeks to leverage her influence as an instrument of peace in our world. A sought-after speaker, Jer frequently teaches in the areas of peacemaking and conflict transformation, faith and culture, neighbor and enemy love, spiritual formation, culture creating, and innovative leadership. He completed his undergrad at The University of Northwestern-St. Paul and has an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he received the prestigious David Allen Hubbard Award. He currently resides with his family in Bend, Oregon.

Textauszug

TWO

SPEAKING OF PEACE

At the very beginning of the Global Immersion story, we sat with one of our advisors on a porch overlooking the Rocky Mountains. Rick Malouf is1 a gentle soul with an edgy, strategic curiosity that makes everything and everyone around him better. We had been in conversation for nearly an hour about peace and reconciliation. Playing devil’s advocate, he questioned our every thought about peace, what it required, what it looked like, whether it was the same as justice or something far more.

The conversation, equal parts exhilarating and discouraging, zeroed in on the point with one question: “What do you mean when you speak of peace?”

Silence.

We didn’t know what to say.

Recognizing that his young mentees were in a necessary moment of disequilibrium, our friend smiled, sat back, gestured toward the meadows, the aspen groves, and the mountains looming in the distance. “This is peace, is it not?” he asked.

On the one hand, we couldn’t help but to agree. Our experience in that moment matched what we had learned about peace as a couple of young white faith leaders. We were in a beautiful place, relaxed, on a spiritual retreat, and among good friends. There was no conflict that we could see, hear, or read about on our social media feeds. All seemed “right” in the world—or at least on the porch of that particular cabin.

But on the other hand, we knew that peace meant something more than the general experience of tranquil stability or absence of conflict. We knew that the very moment of “peace” we were experiencing in the mountains was likely, at the same time, a moment of terror for countless friends around the country and world.

We knew this because we had both arrived in the mountains having just left encounters with conflict. A month earlier we were in the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with one of our learning delegations of US-based faith leaders. Jon had just flown to Colorado from San Diego where the immigration phenomenon was reaching a dangerous fervor. I (Jer) had just left my home in San Francisco’s East Bay where the divide between the black and white communities was growing dangerously wide. While we were at ease on the porch that evening, our work had us in the thick of conflict in our neighborhoods, country, and world. We were convinced that the peace God waged in Jesus resulted in something far bigger than a sense of calm and stability for the privileged.

But to define it? We were stumped.

With the patience of a sage, our mentor listened to our silence and then watched us continue to wrestle a convincing definition of peace into existence.

At long last, once our attempts had expired, our mentor offered this counsel: “Everyone defines peace differently. The vision for peace that you have is really big and has the potential to inspire people of faith to bring it to life in ways that will change the world. But your definition needs to flow from the Scriptures. Study the Scriptures. Learn from the traditions. Let your understanding of peace pour out of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And then define what it is you’re hoping to bring to life in the midst of our conflicted world.”

With that, the conversation concluded. But we had work to do.

SHALOM

We didn’t have to look very far in the Scriptures to discover how central peace is to its story. Shalom is the Hebrew word translated as “peace.” More than merely the absence of conflict or lack of violence, shalom indicates wholeness2, completeness, fullness, salvation, and flourishing. Showing up 397 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, shalom is used as a greeting, a description, a desired reality, and even a name for God.

What surprised us was neither the repetition nor the various uses of the term but the fact that shalom, peace, wasn’t created. Shalom is who God is. Much like we say, “God is love” or “God is hope” in our efforts to establish God as the exemplar of these qualities, we can also say, “God is peace.”

With the phrase “In the beginning God . . . ” (Genesis 1:1), the author is clear that before anything else existed, God was complete, fully whole, fully alive, and filled to the brim with vigor and vitality. Then, throughout the first chapter of Genesis, God is identified not through singular but plural pronouns (see Genesis 1:26). Why? Because God was and is understood as unity-in-diversity. Our triune God—later described as the Father, Son, and Spirit—lived in a constant state of mutual reciprocity, mutual submission, and diversity in function. The triune image of God is a perfect picture of community and the ultimate embodiment of peace. We can imagine that God was totally satisfied and already wrapped up in the experience of deepest abundance before creating anything.

Peace was real before anyone had uttered the word.

Then God, who is shalom, began to speak existence into being. After establishing the framework of creation, God crafted the pinnacle of his work: humanity. When the human beings woke up, they entered a grand story and began to live their lives dancing to the rhythm of the divine heartbeat. It was beautiful, whole, and complete. Life as they knew it was the expanded embodiment of peace.

We can imagine the two original human beings working together, playing together, worshiping together, imagining together, disagreeing with each other, even making love together all in the company of a wholly satisfied God. Humanity existed together with God in a constant state of mutual reciprocity, mutual submission, and diversity in function.

Humanity flourished as they embraced their identity as God’s beloved, the wonder of their diversity, and the gift of being cherished by each other. Creation flourished as humanity stewarded it with wisdom. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. They were naked and unashamed, fully known, fully alive, fully free (Genesis 1:27). All of existence was complete and whole. It was peace on earth . . . for two chapters.

As suddenly as creation appeared, shalom disappeared.

It all started with a deceptive serpent (Genesis 3:1). While seemingly innocent, the snake expressed a cunning curiosity that began to unsettle humanity’s confidence in the goodness of God. They began to wonder whether they were truly beloved or just pawns in a divine drama. By conversation’s end, they resented the fact that they had been created into a story of which they were not the authors.

So, fueled by pride, they reached for the fruit of power and in so doing crossed the only boundary the Creator had established for them. Coveting authorship and longing to be in a story about themselves, they took the fruit, shared it, and ate (Genesis 3:6-7). In that moment the relationships between humanity and God, humanity and self, humanity and one another, and humanity and creation were fractured.

Conflict was born that day. Shalom—peace—was shattered. And the implications were immediate.

The couple, once fully known and cherished by the other, now chose isolation. Where nakedness had been a celebration of their belovedness by God and each other, fig-leaf garments now covered their shame. Where their words had once been of each other’s beauty and virtue, now they used their voices to accuse and blame. Where once they passionately contributed to each other’s flourishing, now they sought their own best interest at the other’s expense. Where once they had shared a beautiful equality, now hierarchy emerged and power was wielded to subjugate. Where once the presence of God was exhilarating, now they were terrified by the nearness of the Creator.

Shalom was still God and God was still very near, but peace on earth was no more.

The garden, a place of intimacy and purpose, had been replaced with a wandering, toiling existence. Home for Adam and Eve was now a world beyond shalom. It was a world marked by uncertainty, pain, and conflict.

CONFLICT: IS IT A FOUR-LETTER WORD?

Your heart rate just quickened, didn’t it? The word conflict slams into our bodies with the weight of painful memories. It evokes fear in some and anger in others. We all bear the scars of conflict.

For many, the word leads to memories of physical and emotional pain, relational brokenness, heartbreak, loneliness, and despair. For others, conflict conjures memories of guns, bombs, sexual assault, or crooked leaders. The word is associated with the loss of homes, businesses, and family members. Experiences like these have kindled a fear that causes us to avoid conflict at all costs. We learn to “keep the peace” by either absorbing the conflict or moving as far away from it as quickly as possible.

For others of us, aggression was our model. We learned at an early age that when conflict emerged, we were to win at all costs. Victory usually came through the demonstration of dominance, increased volume, and physical intimidation. So when conflict surfaces today, a familiar anger and survival instinct surges in us and we “keep the peace” by engaging the conflict armed for victory.

Our lived experiences have shaped our understanding of and behavior within conflict. But why does conflict happen?

REDEEMING CONFLICT

When God created, diversity was inevitable.

Think about it. If God is unity in diversity, then when the triune God created, the realities of diversity, distinction, and uniqueness were certain to inhabit creation. We see diversity etched into the created order: in plants and animals, the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.8.2017
• Vorwort: Lynne Hybels
• Verlagsort: Lisle
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Familie / Erziehung
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Pastoraltheologie
• Schlagworte: books for relationships • books on relationships • Compassion • conflict • Conflict Resolution • Discipleship • everyday book • Faith Formation • Family conflict • Global immersion project • Immigration • Injustice • Israel • Justice • kingdom living • love books • mending the divide • mending the divides • mending the soul • Middle East • Palestine • Peace • Peacemaker • peacemaking • purposeful living • Reconciliation • relationship books • relationship conflict • Social Justice • Spiritual Formation
• ISBN-10: 0-8308-8110-7 / 0830881107
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8308-8110-9 / 9780830881109