Book Review-Preaching to a Divided Nation

Themelios, 2016

Reconciliation can happen alone or it can happen with others. It can happen when millions of people do something together, like singing a national anthem, or watching a national sporting event, or when millions of people do something individually, like casting a ballot. Reconciliation can be oral (“I’m sorry”; “I forgive you”) or written (a charter or a peace accord) or symbolic (a handshake, or wearing of the other side’s colors, the payment of money, the sharing of a drink, a hug). It can be the speech of a leader or the decision not to act, as in the foregoing of violence or stepping down from a position of power. It can occur anywhere that people are. It can happen on the streets, in schools, on the sports Welds, in places of worship, or in Parliament. It can happen in a sitting room of a modest home. It can happen in a board room of a corporate giant. It can happen on national television, or in the privacy of one’s mind. When it happens, it can be an emotional experience, a spiritual experience, an intellectual experience. Authors: Daly, Erin Sarkin, Jeremy

Political Theology, 2021

This article argues that Christians committed to peace must attend more fully to the political and discursive climate of democratic society. In social conflicts characterized by mutual distrust, voices of dissent are routinely distorted or dismissed. Polarization is one of the biblical “powers” that oppose and obscure the Reign of God. Drawing on conflict transformation literature and Anabaptist ecclesiology, I argue that political theologians must address the political processes and discursive factors that prevent dissenting voices from being heard rightly. Christian witness in divided societies must be simultaneously prophetic and reconciling, not standing apart from political organizations but working to challenge the resentment and chronic misrepresentation that often undermine activism and the pursuit of justice and peace. Given their emphasis on nonviolence and dialogue, I argue that Mennonites in particular are well-positioned to address polarization as a theological problem.

2015

Abstract: Healing is widely seen as an essential component of socio-political reconciliation, helping to promote a more peaceable future after violent conflict. At the same time, however, little is known about what exactly “healing ” means to traumatized people and whether particular reconciliation efforts do indeed constitute healing. Instead, social healing is described usually in metaphorical terms, compared to the way an individual body heals, for example. This biomedical language is explored and connected to medical ethics as a way to broach these difficult issues and come to a more systematic understanding of healing processes. Socio-political reconciliation after violent conflict is widely seen as crucial in promoting a more peaceable future. As stated by Ho-Won Jeong and Charles Lerche, the “significance of reconciliation is underlined by the need to overcome individual and collective trauma that passes from one generation to the next, perpetuating cycles of violence ” (2002...

book reiew

When the Charter of 1813 through its Clause XXXII allowed the propagation of Christianity and unrestricted entry of missionaries in India, no one would have perhaps imagined the impact it would have had in Indian subcontinent. The missionary entrepreneurs were aware of the heathens in the plains of India and had targeted the 'Hindoos' for conversion to Christianity and graduate them to civilization. But that they would fail in converting a reasonable number of Hindus or Muslim Indians plains and successfully transform the entire tribal population of north eastern India, had not definitely been foreseen even by themselves. Indeed by the time India achieved independence from British colonialism, most of its tribal population in the north eastern frontier had been successfully made dependent into a new faith -Christianity. Nowhere in the subcontinent such a vast number of people been converted from their indigenous faith to a new religion as in north east India. As a result "a whole world was lost, and entire social fabric was....It was a huge 'social revolution.' Yet the historians of India completely ignored the fact. There is not a single book of Indian history where this revolution was discussed. Even within north east India, which had evolved its own historical school after independence ignored this social revolution. The transformation of tribal societies and the religions of the tribal have not been found to be a subject worth researching. Few works that are available in on the missionary enterprise in north east India are all by ecclesiastical scholars or church historian who described the 'wonderful works of God in north east India' through the missionaries. These books were widely quoted and cited forgetting that even these are part of the propaganda works and are part of the missionary enterprise, funded by the church and published by mission houses. What is enormously regretful that the universities of north east India produce uncritical research works and doctoral dissertations which are no better than the church history. They acclaim the works of the missionaries and their works. There is a unwritten dictate that no critical estimation was allowed in the these works. There has to be only praise of God and his servants.

This volume is far from a complete textbook on preaching. You will have noticed that I've spent most of my time on why a certain kind of preaching is needed and what that preaching looks like in principle and in example but relatively little time on how to prepare a good sermon. A manifesto, not a manual, as I told myself many times in the writing of this book. (213)

Published in the International Journal of Public Theology September 2014

Johan Cilliers/Lea Hansen (Hrsg.), Preaching Promise. Within the paradoxes of life, 2018

In Germany, the political sermon has more or less been forgotten in recent times. If for no other reason, this is due to its extremely turbulent history. During the Second World War, for instance, a basic patriotic attitude along with the hope of German victory spread throughout the church. While the majority of pastors did not intend to be explicitly political, they supported the Hitler regime with their advocacy of a strong national state. No fewer preachers, moreover, openly supported German war efforts. Paul Althaus, for example, in a sermon interpreted the campaign against France in 1940 as God's work and paid tribute to the Führer and his soldiers. Althaus believed to have felt "the powerful step of God in history": Conversely, there were also sermons that criticised the war and the killing of the sick and-but rarely-the killing of Jews. After the Second World War, the political sermon played a role primarily in the context of the discussion of German rearmament. Karl Barth, Martin Niemöller and Ernst Lange spoke out particularly clearly and forcefully against rearmament and in support of global ecumenical reconciliation and all preached explicitly politically. In the years that followed, the Vietnam War, terrorism in Germany and the resistance to nuclear power plants were all publicly-discussed problems that were also addressed from the pulpit. A pivotal theological impetus for the political sermon in the 1970s and 1980s was provided by Jürgen Moltmann and Dorothee Sölle, both of whom are to be seen as among the most important Protestant representatives of political theology.' Both figures emphasised theology's political relevance and pushed Christianity towards societal critique and change. It was first and foremost the peace movement in the 1980s that motivated political sermons on a broad base. Following the NATO double-track decision (1979) and the stationing of atomic rockets in Germany, many theologians cited the Sermon on the Mount and in their sermons called on Christians to be peacemakers. Their demands were high: swords should be made into ploughshares (Micah 4:3) and armaments should be unilaterally and preferably completely renounced ("living without armaments", ohne Rüstung leben).

Journal of the American Society for Church Growth, 2004

Southeastern Theological Review , 2016