Proclaiming the Peacemaker

Peter Rowan

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781908335058
• eBook ISBN: 9781911372530
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

With a history of racial violence and in recent years, low-level ethnic tensions, the themes of peaceful coexistence and social harmony ar recurring ones in the discourse of Malaysian society. In such a context, this book looks at the role of the church as a reconciling agent, arguing that a reconciling presence within a divided society necessitates an ethos of peacemaking. With a combination of theological, historical and sociological perspectives, Rowan sets out to demonstrate that being an agent of reconciliation is linked to our effectiveness in bearing witness to an identity given to Christ.

The Theology of Reconciliation and its Importance in the Theology of Mission

Christianity... properly consists in the mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in himself the two natures, human and divine, saved men from the corruption of sin in order to reconcile them with God in his divine person.¹

Blaise Pascal

A book concerned with the Malaysian church as an agent of reconciliation must at some point lay out a theology of reconciliation. Our method in this thesis leads us to do so in the opening chapter. In subsequent chapters we will look at Malaysia from within this theological framework and give careful consideration to certain specific aspects of the Malaysian context.

Reconciliation: en vogue in the Global Context

There is an increasing awareness that we live in what is being described as a “world society”.² Territorial spaces are said to be an illusion, with countries no longer able to shut themselves off from the rest of the world.³ Never before has humanity so self-consciously viewed itself as a single entity.⁴ Such global societal change has opened up many opportunities for dialogue across cultures. However, globalisation is by no means a straight path to the reconciliation of peoples. As Vinoth Ramachandra observes: “Conflict, rather than blending, seems the norm of the day. At the same time as we become aware of our global interdependence, we also experience the erection of new barriers between peoples.”⁵ As the global community continues to come to terms with the effects of globalisation and the threat of global terrorism, many missionaries and church communities find themselves in situations ranging from simmering ethnic tensions to explosive and life-threatening violence. Amongst Christians and politicians alike, the word ‘reconciliation’ has taken on renewed interest and urgency. “The rhetoric of reconciliation”, writes Christoph Schwobel, “is en vogue in the present. Not only in the churches but also in political life reconciliation has become one of the key words of current discourse.”⁶

After surveying a number of important events and trends that took place in the 1990s, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the emerging effects of globalisation and the growth of HIV/AIDS in Africa, Robert Schreiter summarises the challenges facing the world of the 21st century:

The last decade has made us all keenly aware of the depth and strength of violence in our world today. Prospects in the immediate future do not harbour much hope for change... The rise of terrorism in recent years and the greater awareness of violence across the board, due in part to the reach of the global media, make ending violence and the rebuilding of societies after violence a major priority for the world today... Ten years ago, with the end of major nuclear threat, some people opined that peacemaking might become an obsolete undertaking. No one would say that today... So we now find ourselves with a keen interest in themes like ending violence, peacemaking, and reconciliation.⁷

Others, reflecting on the world post-September 11, believe that in no other time in history has the world “needed a consciousness of common identity”⁸ so much so that “the concept of ‘otherness’” is said to have become “the defining theological issue of our times.”⁹ This has led organisations such as the World Council of Churches’ to launch initiatives such as The Decade to Overcome Violence, and the United Nations to declare 2009 as International Year of Reconciliation.¹⁰

There is wide agreement therefore on the need for reconciliation. But with such a wide range of groups using the vocabulary of reconciliation, there emerges, inevitably, great diversity about what is meant by it and expected from it. For instance, those seeking to explore the interface between theological and political reconciliation tend to overemphasise the social dimension without sufficient focus on Paul’s words to the Corinthians that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ...” (2 Corinthians 5:19). John Webster, writing on “The Ethics of Reconciliation”, has recently criticised a number of works which seek to emphasise the connection between the divine work of reconciliation and the Church’s reconciling activity:

These various attempts to articulate the concrescence of soteriology, ecclesiology and moral theology are by no means necessarily lacking on a theology of divine prevenience, for they are often quite explicitly directly against the individualistic moral heroics of modernity, and often root ecclesiology in considerations of the Trinitarian relations in which the Church graciously participates through the work of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, they are characteristically less drawn to expansive depiction of the sheer gratuity of God’s act of reconciliation, and more commonly offer lengthy accounts of the acts of the Church, sacramental and moral, often through the idiom of virtues, habits and practices.¹¹

Given that politics as well as theology is used to speak about absolutes and ultimates, their shared vocabulary can lead to conceptual overlap, confusion, or worse.¹² Therefore, those wishing to apply the theology of reconciliation to political realities must be clear about what reconciliation is about from the Christian perspective, otherwise, says John de Gruchy, the danger exists of “confusing the genre and ending up in a futile quest that cannot be fulfilled.”¹³ This applies just as much to when Christians are working in reconciliation initiatives in non-Christian or multi-faith contexts. De Gruchy asks: “In a world of many Christianities and many faiths, what is it that we have to say that must be said, and which others might find worth hearing?”¹⁴ In his book Reconciliation: Restoring Justice, de Gruchy employs Dietrich Ritschl’s categories of primary and secondary level expressions of reconciliation:

At a primary level of expression the content of reconciliation is invisible and undemonstrable; but it can also be stated in the linguistic form of the hopes and recollections of Israel and the early church. For anyone to whom this language is alien, the primary talk of reconciliation also remains incomprehensible and uninteresting. On the level of secondary statement we have the signs set up by believers and the words that comment on them. For their part believers arrive at an insight into a reconciled relationship with God through their perception of the statements and signs on the secondary level...¹⁵

It is not altogether clear what is meant here about “the content of reconciliation” being “invisible and undemonstrable”. For de Gruchy, faith language about reconciliation “can be highly inappropriate and counter-productive” if used “uncritically or directly attached to political discourse.”¹⁶ Part of the difficulty, says de Gruchy, “is that the Church’s witness to reconciliation relates to a promise that has yet to be fulfilled in social and political terms.”¹⁷ Perhaps, more simply, we may understand de Gruchy, and his employment of Ritschl, to be distinguishing the principle of the doctrine of reconciliation from its application. In other words, the primary level expression of reconciliation has to do with its underlying doctrine, whereas the secondary level contains those expressions of reconciliation that are worked out in the wider world. We should add however, that the primary level expression of reconciliation need not, indeed should not, be incomprehensible and uninteresting if it is properly contextualized and centred in the biblical drama of redemption which centres on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christian churches have the twofold task of proclamation and engagement:

The challenge in speaking about reconciliation from a Christian perspective is not simply that of proclaiming primary expressions of reconciliation, but engaging in public life in ways that make God’s gift of reconciliation and Christian hope a reality through secondary expressions.¹⁸

In his book Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, Willard Swartley makes observations on “the contemporary church’s peace witness” which may also be true of the way churches understand and apply reconciliation. Those who engage in peacebuilding, according to Swartley, too often base their work and witness “not in Scripture but in general cultural notions of justice and fairness.” Meanwhile, Christians with a high view of the Bible’s authority “react by criticising peace and justice proponents and then put peace and peacemaking on discount, regarding it secondary, perhaps even unimportant, to the evangelistic mission of the church.”¹⁹ Swartley believes that when the key New Testament texts are examined, they point to a biblical unity between evangelism and peacemaking. He therefore issues a call for Christian leaders to “seek a holistic gospel of Jesus Christ, with peacemaking, reconciliation, and associated NT emphases guiding our theology and moral praxis.”²⁰

Attempts to articulate a holistic understanding of reconciliation have until recently been hard to find. It is difficult to avoid the dichotomous language that refers to the vertical and horizontal aspects of reconciliation. Haddon Willmer reminds us that “the distinction is no more than a tool of analysis in the attempt to understand an integral reality which is not to be parcelled out.”²¹ It is largely the case, however, that theologians and missiologists have not tended to explore the social implications of the doctrine of reconciliation particularly for the church in its mission to the wider world. It is generally found that where the theology of reconciliation is examined the emphasis falls on the restoring of the vertical relationship between the individual person and God. For instance, the well known New Testament scholar, Leon Morris, contributed the article on ‘Reconciliation’ in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, publish...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Theology of Reconciliation and its Importance in the Theology of Mission
• Chapter 2: The Socio-historical Context of the Church in Malaysia
• Chapter 3: The Socio-political Context of Malaysia as Reflected in the Findings of a Survey on Attitudes of Malaysian Christians to the Church’s Role in Malaysian Society
• Chapter 4: Seven Key Issues Identified and Explored
• Chapter 5: Identity and the Ethos of Peacemaking
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Back Cover