Supplies for the Journey – Resourcing
Reconciliation is a process, not an event. Dispute and conflict are addictive drugs. Societies become hooked on them. Research has shown (as mentioned in Chapter 1) that prolonged exposure to conflict literally alters the DNA and has an impact on subsequent generations, especially when the conflict is intergenerational.1 A group that is always resolving disagreement with destructive forms of confrontation, even when they are violent, can only see solutions in terms of destruction of the other. As the last chapter said, reconciliation is a process of transformation, especially of the moral imagination.
That takes a very long time indeed. The aim is to create habits of dealing with diversity through collaborative endeavour, not simply trying to win. At this point many people will give up and think, ‘How naïve!’ Sometimes I do myself. Yet history gives us examples of change that demonstrate something far from perfect, but nevertheless offer hope.
Two examples have had a profound impact on the United Kingdom.
The first is the change in Europe since 1945. The European Union may arguably have failed the vision of the founders in some ways but in one respect it has succeeded. France and Germany have not fought each other. North-west Europe has not been a battleground since 1945, the longest period since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. That peace has been achieved by a sustained and deliberate policy of reconciliation and the Franco-German partnership remains the key grouping of the EU 27. For the rest of continental Europe, whether members of the EU or not, that success has altered the way of life. The EU has stabilized democracy in former dictatorships on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. It has helped economies grow rapidly. It has in many ways brought a freedom that is unrivalled in European history. The discussion of what its vision should be now, and whether it can be more than material wealth for some, is for a different place and probably does not include contributions from the UK.
The second is within the UK. From time immemorial the border with Scotland was a place of conflict. The Lords of the Marches, including the Bishops of Durham, had as their first duty the protection of England, and their equivalents north of the border had the task of protection from the English.
The possibility of Scottish independence is very real, something that in other countries might be a cause of war. Yet although the arguments are severe, the reconciliation between Scots and English – except in sport – is so robust that the idea of a war is absurd. Many will find it bizarre even to use that as an example, but for centuries the idea of war being out of any question would itself have seemed utopian in its turn. That is true transformation. Differences remain essential, even encouraged. School systems, the law, Scottish regiments, social policy, the established church, the flag, all differ. We are united but not adversaries, except, as I say, when it comes to sport. Even if the countries divide, it is taken for granted that the process would be by consent, not by war.
Reconciliation happens eventually, even in the most intractable conflict. War-weariness sets in, new leaders appear and what holds people together becomes more important than what causes them to hate. However, we also can point all too easily to conflicts that one can trace back through the ages, whether in the Holy Lands, Afghanistan, parts of Ireland, the Balkans or many other places. Transformation matters. Just because certain types of behaviour are customary and cultural, that does not make them right. Violent solving of disputes should always be a last resort that comes from failure in other approaches, and even then in Christian terms will almost always be wrong.
For example, resorting quickly to violence to resolve disputes is habitual in certain groups, where vendetta is linked closely to honour and shame. Failure to take revenge for an incident in a previous generation brings shame on a family or clan. It is still wrong, but it illustrates the need for transformation and not just peace agreements or a casual hoping that something new may turn up. It is also worth noting that the concepts of honour and shame are very present in all societies, as are vendettas and revenge, even if they are disguised in different clothes.
Very deep transformation is not something done to people by outsiders, but is a heart change, a change of spirit, a change towards an entirely different future. There is nothing new in this dream; in the eighth century bce the prophet Isaiah wrote of a time when God’s rule would come: ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more’.2
In a marriage it can take weeks to recover from a bad argument lasting a few hours. In a community or a church, wounds and disagreements badly handled become part of the folklore and often have very long-term effects. In a nation, or between nations, violent conflict can do damage in a week that takes generations from which to recover. In the UK the legacy of the bitterness of the Brexit campaign of 2016 was still experienced and showed itself in 2021 directly and indirectly, on social media and in political controversy.
The final plate to set spinning is the R of Resourcing the future. No facilitator or group can commit to decades, even generations of involvement, and even if they could it would not in any way be desirable. The presence of outsiders provides opportunities to shift responsibility for a good process to someone else. It creates dependency and it prevents transformation. Those in the conflict need to develop new ways of working, the capacity for moral imagination, the instincts that create possibilities of disagreeing well. They need changed hearts.
It is necessary to recall continually that reconciliation does not seek clones who work together in unanimity. It seeks human beings who grow in diversity and bring all their rich differences together for the common good. The vision of the global Church is that people from every nation should be united in love for Jesus Christ and for their neighbours, meaning in this case, their own locality, as well as further off.
The heart of Jesus’ teaching, signs and prayer in John’s Gospel is often seen as found in chapter 17. Whole books are written on this passage, which some see as the most profound of the Bible.3 It is a prayer by Jesus in the minutes before his arrest. In it he prays for his disciples and for those who believe in him because of the testimony of his disciples. The prayer is all-embracing. It begins with prayer for himself, affirming God’s authority and his own over the entirety of the creation. It embraces all things and all people, overwhelming every boundary that could exist in the human mind. Jesus prays in this section for the completion of all he is doing as a demonstration of God’s glory (vv. 1-5). In the second section he prays for his disciples and their purpose. He prays for their resourcing and for their protection as they carry on the work of Jesus (vv. 6-19). In the last and climactic section (vv. 20-26), Jesus prays for those who will believe through the testimony of his disciples. The theme is the union of all things with God in love, and of the unity of all those who desire God in that unity in love. The vision is breathtaking, impossible to absorb in all its depth and beauty. Described utterly inadequately (who could describe it adequately?), it sees a new humanity abounding in diversity in a world conformed to the love of God and seeking and desiring God with every part of human existence and every last ounce of strength.
In 20.19-23, Jesus comes to the disciples after his resurrection, and in verse 23 he breathes the Holy Spirit of God into them. The Spirit is their equipping to carry on the work of testifying to Jesus, of transforming the world, of cooperating with God in the work of reconciliation of all things.
This sense of the Church (the people of God through time and space) being equipped to become what they are called to be and to carry out the works of God is one that sets a pattern for the whole way in which we treat each other.
It is a vision that is to be a foundation of a new heaven and new earth, where truth, peace and justice reign and all creation rejoices a unity that is made more wonderful by holding together such diversity.
The vision is collective, not individualistic. The prayer and the gift of the Spirit is for all who believe in the name of Jesus, not for all those who believe AND qualify in some other way. God’s resourcing is gracious, generous, abundant, overwhelming and transforming. The gift of the Spirit breathes into the receiver the sense of the parenthood of God by adoption. The Holy Spirit creates a new people described in Peter’s first letter (2.9-11, NRSV) as ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’. The church is to be a global nation without arms, borders or police, united in love, called by grace, living in peace with all, sent to do the work of God.
This is a vision of complete reconciliation that will take all of human history to reach. It is also a process of equipping those on the journey to travel, to be renewed in their determination and vision and to take responsibility for what they do. God does not give us the option of leaving it all to God in a quietist or fatalistic way, nor does God leave disciples without the necessary means to do the work of being those through whom reconciliation flows to all, and who find the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit already at work.
For facilitators the greatest temptation is to seek the buzz of being needed and to pursue it by moments of high drama and not through the long, undramatic, grassroots work that is of the essence of peacebuilding. For those in senior positions, drama is the way to the possibility of prizes and recognition. Resourcing is about stepping back in a way that enables the journey to go on and grow and deepen in effect and skill and develop its own character, entirely without the presence of the facilitator. Best of all will be when those who are involved in a reconciliation process become peacebuilding facilitators themselves, take the skills they have learned and adapted, and, in their turn, give them away repeatedly.
This process of gift, and the quiet withdrawal, should be almost invisible.
For resourcing to happen, it must be a genuine objective of the facilitators, yet at any level of dispute involving a process of reconciliation, there is a temptation to remain and control, and, with the parties in the dispute, a desire to keep someone else around, if only to blame them for difficulties and to avoid responsibility.
One of the most obvious areas for such dependency is in marital or relationship disputes. Reconciliation can only work when the couple have decided to make it work, when they are clear that they want success in reconciliation, but they may feel that the only safe place for discussion of the most sensitive areas is with a relationship counsellor whom they know. That is fine for a while, but in the end, reconciliation cannot be said to be making serious progress until they are able to handle difficult discussions routinely by themselves.
At the other extreme end of conflict, the presence of UN forces as peacekeepers is both a support and resource, but the sign of serious progress in reconciliation is their withdrawal. In places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo they can become part of the problem if they are there too long.
Reconciliation is a normal part of life. Most people deal with it unconsciously day by day without the slightest need for advice or support. It is made up of apology, of good manners, of letters to clarify and explain, of telephone calls to settle a sense of unease. Sometimes it needs a cup of coffee to clear the air, but mostly we are unaware that we are reconciling; it seems that all we are doing is listening, deepening friendships, helping, hanging out together, sorting things out. It is perhaps over-simplistic, but the list in this paragraph could be called Researching, Relating, Relieving, Risking, Reconciling.
However, when relationships break down seriously between individuals or groups, then we find out whether our relational DNA inclines us towards destructive conflict or towards reconciliation. Where we have grown up and been formed in an aggressive and conflictual style, it is often the case that we lose the capacity to make agreements that work for all, to oil the friction points between groups, to heal hurts and defuse resentments and desires for revenge.
In the days when I was still in the oil industry, I remember one company that appeared incapable of having a discussion without aggression. They were an enormous organization and dominated by a culture that had formed the character of their employees and that went back to the 1920s. On one occasion, I asked someone with whom I had been negotiating why they behaved in such a way. His answer was one of surprise that I had noticed: ‘I thought everyone did. It’s the way we are trained.’ Not only did he behave that way, but he assumed it was the way the world works and should work. The result was that as a company they had more expensive and time-wasting litigation than most of the rest of us combined.
The Coventry Way
The aim of Resourcing is to begin a culture of reconciliation and leave it with the potential to become the natural way of handling things. That is transformation and it is also transformative for the people involved.
Coventry Cathedral, as I wrote earlier, is a worldwide symbol of reconciliation through the message of its rebuilding, the genius of its architecture and sacred art, and its continuing ministry as a place for training and developing in reconciliation. Yet, like all institutions, it has many ways to have arguments and for people to disagree very strongly with each other – that is because it has human beings attending and participating in its ministry.
Very early in its life after rebuilding, one of the clergy staff sought to address the issue with a structure of groups and of spirituality. That was updated in 2005 as the Coventry Way.4 It suggests a spirituality of reconciliation based on three concentric circles of relationship, widening out like the ripples of a pond.
Each circle is divided into sub-sections. They are typically about how we learn to deal with different aspects of living in reconciliation, and they vary in each of the three circles.
The first circle is about personal spiritual life.
It starts with prayer and scripture. This part is about reconciliation with oneself, the recognition that in Christ we are forgiven, born again and able to begin to live his resurrection life. That involves the hardest reconciliation of all, the acceptance of who one is, the recognition of and repentance and reparation for sins – where possible – and the freedom that comes with the complete forgiveness of God. It grows in us through our encounter with God in all the intimacy of solitude.
The second part of the first circle is study. Since the time of St Benedict in the sixth century ce it has been understood that Christians need to think long and hard, and to learn from others. For Benedict and the monasteries that obviously involved books and manuscripts; today it will be podcasts, films, TED talks and many other ways of learning and growing in faith through the testimony and understanding of others.
The third part of the first circle is in what the original writers called the Foyer. A foyer in this context is a small group meeting in homes for hospitality, deeper learning and walking together, the practice of extended community, prayer and the study of scripture. These groups must be diverse, for it is unity in diversity that is sought in reconciliation, not unity in identical ideas. The foyers are and should be places of challenge.
The fourth part of the first circle is that of the church congregation, of worship and life together as the body of Christ in a locality or an institution, cathedral, parish, chaplaincy or other local Christian gathering. Relationships will be more distant in any larger church, even of over thirty or so people. Yet this is where it is easy to settle into cliques of the like-minded, identifying most strongly with those with whom one agrees on everything important, even if the most important agreement is one’s disagreement with another group. It is important to note that the intimacy and trustful openness of the first two circles is very unlikely to be achieved in a larger group. However, this fourth part is essential for the learning of reconciliation, of love-in-action beyond the natural group of intimates or even of the often hard-earned intimacy of the foyer.
The four parts build on one another. Those who cannot accept that they are loved and forgiven by God (itself a long and progressive journey of reconciliation, but where starting opens the way to transformation), and in that security face the consequences of their sin and deal with it, are unlikely to find it easy or even possible to deal with others in a small group. Those who cannot cross boundaries in a small group will cling to the security of the familiar in the larger circle and exclude others.
The fifth part of the first circle is where the Church reaches out into society through its membership. This will typically mean in the sort of place that Archbishop William Temple described as intermediate institutions.5 They may be schools, clubs, places of work, almost anything that comes between the central state and the individual or household. The outreach of the Church in such places and institutions is part of normal life. Christians live in retirement homes, or go to work somewhere, or meet others. Here is where the reconciled person who has grown to be a reconciler begins to find themselves encountering disputes and conflict. In the first circle we are called to allow ourselves to be known to be Christians, and in life and love to demonstrate the transforming work of Christ in our lives.
The second circle focuses on the way in which a local worshipping community builds up and encourages habits of reconciliation within itself and its life in the world. In this circle the community is called to consider its role in God’s world. It is to be a community that is outward-looking locally and globally. It should pray for issues around the world as well as down the street. It should speak and campaign for the common good of its area, and join in the call for justice around the world.
The community should do all these things out of the overflow of the love of Christ, so its own internal reconciliation, worship and prayer life is essential to its lived-out love for those who encounter the community. It will be local as well as global. It is easy to speak clearly about issues over which one has no control and from which there is no fear of retaliation. It will self-audit as to its own standards of justice and listen to its own voiceless, those within its own life who are overlooked and ignored. Depending on the context they may be children and young people, or older people. Often they will be those with a more liberal or more conservative theological, social or political view than the fashion. It may be a group that challenges accepted behaviour and power structures. Essentially, this is where ‘love one another’ is made real, and it is often very tough. It must pay a living wage to its staff, safeguard the vulnerable and be conscious of exclusions and of imbalances of power.
The local community of worship is the very heart of the work of reconciliation. If it is not active in this way, no one else has the capacity to stand in for it. There is no Plan B.
The third circle is about engagement with the world around. From the first circle being the individual, to the second being the worshipping community, the third looks entirely outwards. It is here that a community of reconciled reconcilers, who deal with issues inside their own institution, equip each other to be active in reconciliation wherever their daily lives take them.
Once again, the ministry of reconciliation will start with prayer, but as suggested in Chapter 6 on Relieving, it will develop quickly into the formation of partnerships. Study and research will have revealed local and regional needs, and global prayer and the connections built to pray more knowledgably, through websites and other ways, will mean that different people in the community and in the group of communities that is the wider Church, in partnership with all of goodwill, of all faiths and none, will lead to deep and passionate concern to see transformation in God’s world.
One of the greatest examples of such engagement was in South Africa with the fall of the Apartheid regime. The Coventry Cathedral-linked Communities of the Cross of Nails (CCN) were involved, the leadership was interfaith, the basis was seen in the moral standing of President Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and all sorts of people around the world were drawn in. The image of the Rainbow Nation grew out of spiritual vision, the avoidance of civil war out of Truth and Reconciliation work, and the outcome continues to be messy, unsatisfactory, but better than it could have been. This is paradigmatic reconciliation work.
It sounds idealized but the examples are numerous. In each of them reconciliation is practised in different ways through the engagement of a worshipping community with areas of need that lead to alienation from society or the embedding of deep structures and powers of injustice and thus division.
Since the financial crash of 2008–09 and the very deep economic recession that followed in the UK, churches have gone into partnership to provide shelter for those sleeping rough. Seven churches will get together during the winter months in order for each one to do so one night a week.
Churches and other groups have also partnered together in providing food banks for those referred to them. Provision is often done through national organizations like the Trussell Trust, which ensures learning and development of best practice.
In many towns and cities, churches have got together to provide night-time patrols on Fridays and Saturday to provide care for those in the night-time scene at clubs and pubs, ensuring their safety, defusing trouble and caring for those who have taken too much of one substance or another. Street Pastors has become a national movement and the police are open and affirming about the reduction in crime and incidents where street pastors are operating.
At a national and international level, reconciliation hubs have set up more local centres to bring groups together, particularly around gang- or militia-controlled areas, and to help broker better ways of life. They have campaigned for nuclear disarmament, as part of protests against economic injustice or racial injustice, and above all in the area of climate change, especially at the major conferences.
At a national level, the Church of England is involved in a project called /together, which seeks, in many different ways, to challenge the deep differences that have grown up in society over the last decade or so. Almost forty different organizations are involved at a variety of points, including polling groups, media, the NHS, and many others. Events may be local or national, but in all cases, they are based around careful research and an effort to reimagine a future with more capacity to disagree well.
The /together project is in many ways the heart of reconciliation and illustrates the model set out in Part II of this book.
It is based on very extensive research, which continues, with large numbers of consultations on the views people of the UK have on what holds society together and where and how serious the divisions are.
It is aimed at deepening relationships at every level from the steering group to the local.
It is based around relieving needs in many ways, especially through existing work of those involved, which covers nearly every aspect of life, and on working in partnerships, avoiding any attempt to reinvent the wheel.
It does not impose views but seeks to take the risk of events and gatherings where relationships are developed, and that may fail.
It is a very long-term process of seeking unity in diversity, of fostering national reconciliation not by overcoming differences of opinion such as Brexit or nationalism, but by changing the way in which disagreements are negotiated.
It is at an early stage of looking at how to resource the way in which we look at difference.
When it comes to the most global of all required reconciliations, of human beings with the natural environment, there is not the time to take generations. Change must happen quickly, certainly by 2030 in terms of policy and some severe action. By 2050 there must be a decisive fall to near net-zero carbon emissions to avoid the climate change that will drive severe and damaging effects on weather generally. Habitability of coastal and of tropical areas in particular will be compromised and will become a driver of many other conflicts as a result of people movements.
The obstacles to the necessary steps are formidable. While most countries admit the problem, the capacity of political elites to lead on a solution appears to be nominal at best. It appears that little will be done if the short-term political cost is high. Here there is a need for internationally approved leadership that can continue not merely to advocate but to advance negotiations at speed. In addition, research needs to continue on necessary costs and a fair balance of burden sharing agreed.
These are uniquely demanding tasks, and it is difficult to see who will lead them. Outside Hollywood films there is no single nation that will save the world, nor is there, rightly, any appetite for such. Countries value their national history and autonomy, often achieved with great struggle. Even if the right leadership can be found, the task of potential mediation is vast. Here we see that the Risking is the point at which there is a danger of the global process being blocked, not by lack of Research, but by inadequate Relating so that love-in-action is missing and thus Risks are too big to contemplate.
The blockage is only resolvable by general political agreement on principles and commitment of political capital now for the generations yet unborn. The prize is a legacy of gratitude for centuries, but much struggle and political cost today.
These conflicts are open to reconciliation, but only with profound commitment politically and a foreswearing of seeking temporary advantage from them. There are many spoilers whose interests are against any reconciliation at all. The mood must change, and that is essentially a grassroots issue. Part III will carry the move from the theory of Part I through the principles of Part II to a grassroots resource for individuals and groups.
Summary
• Resourcing reconciliation means providing the means for those in conflict to be persistent in seeking a way forward.
• In Christian thinking the purpose of God in creating the Church was to have a body that represented and carried on the work of Jesus of reconciliation with God, with creation and with other people.
• The Church and the world are energized and resourced by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, changing hearts, renewing hope, giving strength.
• The divine pattern of reconciliation, as well as a sense of human weakness and forgetfulness of the pain of conflict, leads to the need for deep works of reconciliation to be resourced, perhaps for generations.
• Resourcing involves facilitators being willing to give away their skills, to render themselves superfluous and to fade away, leaving the participants in a conflict who have begun the journey of reconciliation to develop the process in their own way, to add to the skills they have received and themselves to facilitate others.
• For that to happen they must develop a culture, a DNA, of reconciliation. A Christian example, the Coventry Way, is given. Every place, religion, culture will develop its own pattern. At the heart of the Coventry Way are principles of locality, of renewal, of practice in safe settings and of a commitment to going out.
Points to Ponder
• What are your memories of serious and violent conflict like war? Are they first-hand or through friends and relatives? Does it seem to you a distant memory or a recent event?
• How will you pass on to future generations the ideals of peace?
• Within your own circles and organizations or voluntary bodies of which you are a part, do you seek to cross boundaries or stick with those you get on with easily? This is not suggesting that natural friendship groups or common interests are wrong. It is asking where and when – if at all – you form links across boundaries.
• What are the natural boundaries for you? Race or tribe? Age? Social background? Work type and interests? Other things; if so what?
• What are the resources and skills you need to make the effort to form close relationships across natural boundaries?
• Do you know any institution, faith-based or other, that challenges you to make the considerable effort to work at reconciliation?
A Case Study
A couple of years have passed. St Thomas is a better place, the community is stronger but still very fragile. What resources does it need in all the different areas in order to keep going? How can it celebrate progress and the journey still be completed?