conflict resolution

Albin Hillert 12-06-2018

Mayerlis serves 48-year-old Ivan a meal of sarapa – rice and chicken wrapped in a Cachibou leaf. Ivan lived 31 years as a FARC guerilla combatant, before settling in San José de León after the 2016 peace treaty in Colombia. All photos: Albin Hillert/LWF

For the past two years, a group of families of former FARC-guerrilla combatants have settled down to cultivate a piece of land in northwest Colombia. Laying down their weapons following the 2016 peace treaty with the Colombian government, many ex-combatants now face trauma, stigma, and insecurity, and slow progress in the implementation of the treaty makes the situation precarious.

Jim Wallis 3-15-2018

As Trump and Kim Jong-un approach possible conversations, here are 3 truths for American Christians to keep in mind.

Jim Wallis 9-30-2013

(Sabine Schmidt / Shutterstock)

IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, President Obama told the American people that the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad of Syria was a moral atrocity that required international consequences.

Religious leaders agree with the necessity of a determined response to the Assad regime, which is responsible for the deaths of 100,000 of his own people, including the brutal use of chemical weapons on civilians. But many faith leaders are asking tough moral questions about what that response should look like.

We fundamentally reject the assumption that refraining from military action is “doing nothing.” We need more imagination and a deeper response than the traditional one of military strikes, which haven’t proven effective and almost always have serious unintended consequences, risk dangerous escalations, and consistently create more suffering for innocent civilians.

As religious leaders, we are called to peacemaking, not just peace loving, which requires harder and more imaginative work than merely falling into old habits of military “solutions.” Our priorities should be to mobilize global support for the many vulnerable Syrians—including the millions of refugees—and to do the hard work of conflict resolution that could lead to a political solution.

Tom Ehrich 1-08-2013
Photo illustration , lolloj / Shutterstock.com

Photo illustration , lolloj / Shutterstock.com

Conflict happens everywhere, from Congress to congregations, from boardrooms to bedrooms. The dysfunction of Congress is just a highly public instance of a typical conflict scenario.

I recently compiled some basics of church conflict. See if you agree with me that this playbook applies broadly.

Church conflicts – which will happen to all clergy and congregations eventually – generally focus on the clergy, just as conflict in any enterprise tends to focus on the top leader. That’s because the underlying issue usually is power – who calls the shots, who can initiate change, who can hold others accountable.

Secondary issues like specific actions, perceived performance and trust get the spotlight, but are surrogates for the power issue. People who want power don’t relish being perceived as wanting power. They prefer being seen as the aggrieved, better performers, more trustworthy, more faithful to ultimate purposes.

Church conflicts usually spring from a small group of antagonists, perhaps even a single person, who start with a conclusion, largely intuitive and emotional, and then search for reasons. Those reasons tend to be moving targets that defy better information. Deal with one reason, and two more take its place.

Antagonists, meanwhile, intimidate others into compliance, or at least silence, by making it clear they will stop at nothing to win.

Toya Richards 1-07-2013

EACH DAY REV. JAMES BYENSI seeks the face of God in one of the world’s deadliest places, an environment where rape has been used as a weapon, children have had their innocence stolen, and the church of Jesus Christ is called to stand in the gap.

He lives in Bunia, a town on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And while only the largest events of the DRC’s conflict—such as the M23 militia’s takeover of Goma, a city 300 miles south of Bunia—make world headlines, every day Byensi engages his community and country as an active agent of peace. For example, recently he helped deter a cycle of violence from escalating in his hometown. “Even as I write, I have just received a call from the mayor to join him in talking to a group of people who are protesting against the killing of their brother last night,” Byensi told Sojourners in October in one of several email interviews. “The killers were one of the rebel groups operating in the area surrounding Bunia.” While advocacy against violence is a cause close to Byensi’s heart, the protest itself threatened to become part of the problem: “Protest in this area is always violent and followed by looting or even rape,” he explained. The result of that meeting was that Byensi and the mayor together “devised the way to address the people and cool them down,” which included the mayor’s office helping the bereaved citizens with burial expenses.

That is the kind of advocacy and justice work Byensi does on a daily basis as a leadership and conflict-management consultant and trainer, and through the nonprofit he founded, the Rebuilders Ministry.

Rose Marie Berger 10-25-2010
In the November issue of Sojourners, Rose Marie Berger reviews seve
Jim Wallis 3-25-2010
Sometimes, the timing of events seems almost providential.

Phil Haslanger 12-21-2009

For much of the world, the heart of Bethlehem is found down a narrow stairway in a small cave area under a huge church where a 14-pointed silver star marks the spot that, for at least 17 centuries, Christians have honored as the place where Jesus was born.

Jim Wallis 12-14-2009
President Obama laid out a moral defense of the use of force in his acceptance speech in Oslo
If all we notice in President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Lecture is a justification of war, we will miss the 21st<
Efrem Smith 10-27-2009
This morning as I was running on the treadmill, I was also watching CNN. A story came on about a shooting in Washington, D.C. The police chief was speaking, with the mayor of D.C looking on.