Reconciliation, Forgiveness and Violence in Africa

Reconciliation, Forgiveness and Violence in Africa PDF Author: Marius J. Nel
Publisher: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
ISBN: 1928480527
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
What might reconciliation and forgiveness mean in relation to various forms of personal, structural, and historical violence across the African continent? This volume of essays seeks to engage these complex, and contested, ethical issues from three different disciplinary perspectives – Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology and Practical Theology. Each of the authors reflects on aspects of reconciliation, forgiveness and violence from within their respective African contexts. They do so by employing the tools and resources of their respective disciplines. The end result is a rich and textured set of interdisciplinary theological insights that will help the reader to navigate these issues with a greater measure of understanding and a broader perspective than what a single approach might offer. What is particularly encouraging is that the chapters represent research from established scholars in their fields, recent PhD graduates, and current PhD students. This is the first book to be published under the auspices of the Unit for Reconciliation and Justice in the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology.

Forgiveness, Peacemaking, and Reconciliation

Forgiveness, Peacemaking, and Reconciliation PDF Author: David K. Ngaruiya
Publisher: Langham Global Library
ISBN: 1839730994
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Book Description
In this fifth volume from the Africa Society of Evangelical Theology, contributors explore forgiveness, peacemaking and reconciliation as necessary prerequisites for human flourishing. Ranging from biblical studies and church history to medical ethics and public theology, this collection offers a rich diversity of voices and perspectives as each author reflects on God’s heart for conflict alleviation within the contexts of their own communities, nations, histories, and academic disciplines. Taken together, these contributions offer profound insight into both the particularities and generalities of God’s transformative, healing work in the world, and how we, the church, are called to partner with that work – in Africa and beyond.

Justice and Reconciliation

Justice and Reconciliation PDF Author: Andrew Rigby
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781555879860
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Book Description
Rigby (Center for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Coventry U., England) investigates different approaches to "policing" the past, from mass purges on one end of the spectrum to collective social amnesia on the other. He uses case studies based in Europe, Spain, Latin America, South Africa, and Palestine to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each, clarifying the connection between how the past is acknowledged and prospects of a present and future culture of peace. c. Book News Inc.

Forgiveness & Reconciliation

Forgiveness & Reconciliation PDF Author: Raymond G. Helmick
Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press
ISBN: 189015184X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
This book brings together a unique combination of experts in conflict resolution and focuses on the role forgiveness can play in the process. It deals with theology, public policy, psychological and social theory, and social policy implementation of forgiveness. This book is essential for libraries, scholars, conflict negotiators, and all people who hope to understand the role of forgiveness in the peace process. The book's first section explores how ideas like "forgiveness" and "reconciliation" are moving out from the seminary and academy into the world of public policy and how these terms have been used and defined in the past. The second section looks at forgiveness and public policy. One of the chapters, by Donald W. Shriver Jr., addresses forgiveness in a secular political forum. The third section of the book draws us to a more thorough analysis of the relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation from voices in the academic and theological community, and the final section highlights the work of practitioners currently working with religion, public policy, and conflict transformation, particularly in areas such as Ireland and Africa. Contributors include Desmond M. Tutu, Rodney L. Petersen, Miroslav Volf, Stanley S. Harakas, Raymond G. Helmick, SJ, Joseph V. Montville, Douglas M. Johnston, Donna Hicks, Donald W. Shriver, Jr., Everett L. Worthington, Jr., John Paul Lederach, Ervin Staub, Laurie Anne Pearlman, John Dawson, Audrey R. Chapman, Olga Botcharova, Anthony da Silva, SJ, Geraldine Smythe, OP, Andrea Bartoli, Ofelia Ortega, and George F. R. Ellis.

Forgiveness Makes You Free

Forgiveness Makes You Free PDF Author: Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594718725
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
“‘Jesus, where are you?’ I prayed every night as I wept . . . I felt I had failed as a priest, for I had preached love and the people made genocide. . . .Then I heard God speak to me. Jesus wanted me to use these experiences to evangelize later. It was then that I knew my life would be spared. God would make a way.” During the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga tells the dramatic story of how he survived while losing more than eighty of his family members and 45,000 of his parishioners in the killings. In the aftermath, Fr. Ubald experienced a renewed sense of purpose as a minister of reconciliation and a healing evangelist in his homeland and around the world. In Forgiveness Makes You Free, he offers five spiritual principles that can help those traumatized by the past to experience healing and peace in Christ. In 1994 the world looked on in disbelief and horror as Rwanda erupted in violent bloodshed. All across the landlocked African country, militant Hutus rose up to exterminate the Tutsi population, including women and young children. One hundred days later, a million bodies littered fields, streets, and even churches. Now, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a powerful testimony emerges of the power of God to bring peace and reconciliation into hearts full of fear and hate. In Forgiveness Makes You Free, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga shares his own dramatic story of how he survived the genocide and its traumatic aftermath. He testifies about how God spared his life so that he might help others with deep physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds to experience peace and healing. In retelling the story of how he forgave the man who killed his family and cared for the man’s children while he was in prison, Fr. Ubald demonstrates how showing mercy can facilitate true forgiveness even in the most painful circumstances of our lives. Throughout the book, Fr. Ubald teaches about five spiritual keys that draw us to Christ, the only source of lasting peace: be thankful and have faith choose to forgive denounce evil decide to live for Jesus claim the blessing Each chapter combines Fr. Ubald’s story with reflection questions that guide readers along their own path of healing: from fear to faith, from shame to freedom, from isolation to reconciliation, from resentment to mercy, and from conflict to peace. The final chapter offers a guided meditation to help those who need to experience the power of God to release those held in bondage by fear and hate and to find the secret of peace. An appendix contains information about “The Mushaka Reconciliation Project,” a catechetical tool that has been used successfully by parishes in Rwanda, and could easily be adapted by parishes in the United States, to mediate reconciliation between individuals and groups who have become estranged by violence, trauma, and ethnic or cultural divisions.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Forgiveness and Reconciliation PDF Author: Ani Kalayjian
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441901817
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
We all long for peace within ourselves, families, communities, countries, and throughout the world. We wonder what we can do about the multitude of con?icts currently wreaking havoc across the globe and the continuous reports of violence in communities as well as within families. Most of the time, we contemplate solutions beyond our reach, and overlook a powerful tool that is at our disposal: forgiveness. As a genocide survivor, I know something about it. As the genocide unfolded in Rwanda in 1994, I was devastated by what I believed to be the inevitable deaths of my loved ones. The news that my parents and my seven siblings had indeed been killed was simply unbearable. Anger and bitterness became my daily companions. Likewise, I continued to wonder how the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda could possibly reconcile after one of the most horrendous genocides of the 20th century. It was not until I came to understand the notion of forgiveness that I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Common wisdom suggests that forgiveness comes after a perpetrator makes a genuine apology. This wisdom informs us that in the aftermath of a wrongdoing, the offender must acknowledge the wrong he or she has done, express remorse, express an apology, commit to never repeating said harm, and make reparations to theextentpossible.Onlythencanthevictimforgiveandagreetoneverseekrevenge.

No Future Without Forgiveness

No Future Without Forgiveness PDF Author: Desmond Tutu
Publisher: Image
ISBN: 0307566285
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
The establishment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a pioneering international event. Never had any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy both by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom President Nelson Mandela named as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the final report of the Commission just published, Archbishop Tutu offers his reflections on the profound wisdom he has gained by helping usher South Africa through this painful experience. In No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu argues that true reconciliation cannot be achieved by denying the past. But nor is it easy to reconcile when a nation "looks the beast in the eye." Rather than repeat platitudes about forgiveness, he presents a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another, and yet retains a sense of idealism about reconciliation. With a clarity of pitch born out of decades of experience, Tutu shows readers how to move forward with honesty and compassion to build a newer and more humane world.

The Sunflower

The Sunflower PDF Author: Simon Wiesenthal
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0307560422
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
A Holocaust survivor's surprising and thought-provoking study of forgiveness, justice, compassion, and human responsibility, featuring contributions from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Cynthia Ozick, Primo Levi, and more. You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What would you do? While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place? In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past.

The Journey of Reconciliation

The Journey of Reconciliation PDF Author: Emmanuel Katongole
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781626982505
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
What does it mean for Christians in Africa to receive the gift and invitaƯtion of reconciliation in the midst of the stubborn realities of war, poverty, and violence? Here, Emmanuel Katongole outlines a theological vision of reconciliation as God's journey with creation--both gift and mission. He then explores the ecclesiological dimension of reconciliation and provides different porƯtraits on why and how the church matters for reconciliation in Africa. Finally, he draws on stories of peace activists in Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda to illuminate the spiritual and practical disciplines that sustain those who labor for reconciliation. -- Provided by publisher.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness PDF Author: Arthur Acy Rouner
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595239064
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
The world was wrenched with the story of the 1994 killings of nearly a million people in the East African nation of Rwanda. TIME magazine reported that a depth of evil had overtaken that land, so searing to the soul as to be virtually incomprehensible. Rwanda's gaping needs captured the world's imagination, so that countless people went there to help. Refugees fled to camps just beyond Rwanda's borders, and the world's great humanitarian aid organizations followed. As the refugees returned home - many of them with their houses having been taken over or destroyed by others, and none of them allowed to have jobs for six months-it became clear that, despite the overflowing prisons and the attempt to bring to justice those who had murdered in the genocide, the deepest need of the whole population was to find some way for forgiveness to happen, and for reconciliation to take place. The Pilgrim Center for Reconciliation is a Christian outreach ministry based in Edina, Minnesota, dedicated to healing the broken heart of the world. It was founded by The Reverend Dr. Arthur A. Rouner, Jr., following his 40+ years of pastoral ministry. In 1996, the Pilgrim Center, in partnership with World Vision U.S., developed and initiated a healing/ reconciliation ministry among Church leaders in the blood-soaked countries of Rwanda and Burundi. FORGIVENESS: THE ROAD TO RECONCILIATION is the story of the Holy Spirit's work, through the efforts of a small, three-person team from the Pilgrim Center, in an intimate retreat ministry with African church leaders. Through their participation in three-day retreats, Hutus and Tutsis alike experienced the balm of forgiveness and restoration, empowering them to "pass on" this spirit and manifestation of reconciliation throughout their own families, churches, and communities.