A Christian Response to Global Conflict: Realism and Reconciliation

This article considers avenues for fruitful engagement between international relations and public theology in order to ask what an ethical Christian response to global conflict should entail. The process of mediating principles of biblical justice into a contemporary international context requires interpretation in a reality of territorial bounded states, with rules and norms governing international interactions that are unique to the present day. This article draws on two theologically oriented contributions to international relations, Christian realism and political reconciliation to probe the question as to how we conceptualise justice as a pursuit in international relations from a Christian worldview. It reflects on the contingencies of the present-day context of global conflict, and the implications for praxis from a public theology standpoint.

The Limits of Reformist Religion

How have American religious communities responded to the rapid growth of the prison? With ambivalence—as we show through case studies of Protestant responses. Protestant institutions consistently spoke out against the growing prison system, charging that it runs against a Christian sense of justice. But, from the 1960s, liberal Protestant elites no longer had the public’s ear. Evangelicals, led by Charles Colson, also spoke out about the prison system from the perspective of biblical justice, but their methods of engagement were too easily incorporated into the prison state. At the margins, meanwhile, Protestant institutions funded a variety of grassroots anti-prison organizations, which generated the restorative justice movement and the international prison abolition movement.

Advancing justice in the search for peace: An exegetical study of Micah 6:8 as a recipe for peace in Africa

Peace has been elusive to the greater part of the African continent. For peace to thrive in any place, certain fundamentals for societal cohesion must be entrenched in its social fabric. This essay studies Micah 6:8, with the aim of identifying such important biblical fundamental principles for societal peace. This article employs rhetorical analysis with the historical grammatical method of textual analysis to exegete Micah 6:8. The article begins with an exploration of the biblical concepts of peace and justice. It then exegetes Micah 6:8 in its historical and literary contexts, explaining the three critical demands of YHWH in the verse, namely, to act justly (both in the judicial administration of justice and in the maintenance of right relationships in the community), to love mercy (highlighting loyal loving commitment to God and the brotherhood in covenant) and to walk humbly with God (a basic call to discipleship). This is followed by an analysis of the African crisis situation, pointing out the similarities between the socio-economic conditions of Micah’s times and ours. Ultimately, these biblical principles are interconnected with the African situation, showing how the implementation of Micah’s justice agenda (employing the retributive, restorative and redistributive elements of justice) is a recipe for peace in Africa.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This essay challenges the approaches towards the pursuit of peace in Africa and calls for a biblical justice approach for finding peace. It works across the disciplinary fields of biblical studies, biblical theology, public theology and social justice.

Rethinking the Justice of God with Asian Sensibilities

This article proposes the need to rethink the concepts of justice with Asian sensibilities. For centuries the idea of justice has been read and interpreted along and within the classical Greek philosophical framework. In some ways, this Greek categorial framework is also seen in the concepts of biblical justice. However, in an Asian context, the character justice and its application need to be explored in the light of restoring harmony, with the self, other, cosmos and God, which is integral in many of the Asian spiritualities. In modern times, the theories of John Rawls and Robert Nozick are much quoted in studies regarding justice. However, Asian sensibilities call for a deeper exploration of justice for the purpose of harmony and that is the intent of this article.