Communication and Reconciliation: moving towards embrace

By Jed Stone

The importance of storytelling in bringing about reconciliation. This book draws from the disciplines of theology, psychology, sociology and anthropology to unveil the mysteries of cognitive and affective engagement that bring about the change in attitude, behaviour and relationship that reconciliation requires and introduces a three-dimensional relational model of the process.

The strategic implications of the model for social policy are outlined emphasising the need for developing a constructive public awareness that facilitates reconciliation. In particular the role of the mass media in preventing reconciliation is considered.

The book looks at how narrative facilitates or hinders reconciliation and highlights the importance of harnessing effective means of mass communication to assist reconciliation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jed Stone
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465902160

Jed Stone

I began writing professionally over 40 years ago, when I started work for a traditional English weekly newspaper. The five journalists at the Middleton Guardian sat round a table in the middle of a room no more than 15 metres square. All of life flowed across that table.My first assignment was the Founder’s Day Service for a posh girls’ school in the town. I was 16 years old and surrounded by about 1,000 girls. This is a tough life, I thought, but someone’s got to do it.I’ve lived in over 30 houses in my short life on earth. And I’ve had so many jobs, inside and outisde of journalism, that I’ve lost count. Some of them I’ve been happy to forget. But I’ve always kept coming back to journalism in some form or other, whether its writing, editing, design, photography or spin doctoring.I’ve tried to be serious about making money, but discovered I’m more interested in experiencing life in all its fullness. LIfe’s too important to waste with work that has no meaning.You can get in touch with me at [e-mail] most of the time

Book preview

Human beings are social creatures; we thrive when our social conditions are conducive to wholesome relationships. The 16th century philosopher, metaphysical poet and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral London, John Donne famously wrote,

no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,

a reference to common needs and aspirations. We are born for one another. Death or diminishment of one member of society is a loss to us all. As modern communications bring far-flung corners of the world closer to home, Donne’s words are a timely reminder of the fragile nature of global coexistence

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee (1).

The last century has brought more than its fair share of death and diminishment, and, with weapons of mass destruction readily available, (2) the prospects for the next century are no better. Human society is still in desperate need of learning how to live together, how to negotiate conflict, how to be healed and reconciled. Reconciliation studies should be renamed ‘studies in the survival of the human race’ to focus the attention.

At the heart of our relationships is a need to belong, to secure the locus of our identity, to discover the boundaries that define our group (3). This is a fluid objective, the goal posts are forever changing, as individuals mature at different rates and the societies with which we are engaged are transformed around us. The unpredictable nature of change, and the simple fact of being different, guarantees conflict, and therefore the ability to forgive, to repent, and to be reconciled is essential for personal wholeness and harmonious co-existence with others.

Chapter 2

Forgiveness and repentance

This book begins with an exploration of contemporary issues in forgiveness and repentance. These are complex multi-dimensional processes and I am conscious that none of the issues raised are explored in enough depth. I hope, however, that they are exposed in enough detail to provide a sufficiently convincing theoretical foundation to support the exposition of a dynamic relational model of reconciliation in chapter three. The research unearthed one interesting anomaly in both academic and religious literature about forgiveness and repentance. The literature on forgiveness is expansive and substantially greater than the literature about repentance—even discussions about reconciliation focus more on forgiveness than repentance. I suspect that the reason for this is the uncomfortably religious notion of repentance, which is discussed more fully later.

Forgiveness is of paramount importance for human society. Its importance, according to theologian Moroslav Volf, lies in its ability to bring to a halt the ‘spiral of vengeance’ by embracing the violence, pain and injustice of the remembered past and transcending the immediate demand for justice (4).

Volf’s ‘theological reflection on social agents’ provides a significant insight to the moral complexity of our world. Writing as a native Croatian he argues convincingly that issues of identity and difference are central to peaceful co-existence, and reconciliation lies at the heart of the ability of human beings to live alongside one another. If understanding the role of forgiveness in human relationship dynamics is essential, then equal consideration must be given to the role repentance plays in the process. Forgiveness and repentance are conjoined; they are two sides of the coin of broken relationship—independent but interconnected, complementary dynamics that energize the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation requires both.

Most of the confusion surrounding reconciliation and its relationship with forgiveness and repentance arises because it is a broad and fertile concept that readily germinates fresh ideas, but the words used to express those ideas are imprecise, vague and ambiguous. Part of the problem is that words are an expression of individual experience, as theologian Rodney L. Petersen rightly states:

The terms of forgiveness [repentance and reconciliation] are shaped by our perception of the past and the future and given form in our language (5)

Unfortunately, Petersen then proceeds to prove the point by confusing forgiveness and reconciliation, suggesting that forgiveness is the end result of reconciliation, which I hope this thesis will demonstrate cannot be the case. Forgiveness must come first in order that restored relationship can lead to reconciliation (6). Addressing some of these areas of misunderstanding is of vital importance to understanding the process of reconciliation; it not simply an argument about semantics. Most of the intellectual confusion surrounding forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation arises over the careless use of words. Language is the highway to a clearer narrative, or a cul-de-sac to obscurity (7).

Chapter 3

A relational model for reconciliation

Reconciliation becomes possible when forgiveness and repentance meet. Chapter three proposes a three-dimensional model for the process of reconciliation that demonstrates how the dynamics of forgiveness and repentance are its life source. It highlights the key social mechanism that facilitates or hinders reconciliation.

The importance of reconciliation can be seen at micro and macro levels of relationship, in inter-personal relationships and in political systems. This breadth of application should come as no surprise if mindful of Volf’s statement that the sinful structures in which we find ourselves are responsible for our formation (8) These systems, in which we are socialised and shaped as we ‘live, move and have [our] being’, (9) can be evil and instrumental in perverting our thinking to make it wrong and twisted (10). How much community violence has its origin in longstanding social memories (11)?

The innate bond between individual and society means that demolishing malign influences and attitudes in the personal realm, through inter-personal reconciliation, does not break the power of unjust socio-economic and political systems. In order for reconciliation to leaven the unleavened bread at a macro level, there is a need for social structures to be redeemed. This begs the question whether political systems or social structures can realistically repent and forgive, and the nature of the mechanisms that would facilitate reconciliation at a macro level.

If, as biblical scholar Walter Wink argues, ‘violence is the ethos of our times’(12) and its antithesis is reconciliation, then forgiveness and repentance are crucial factors in breaking its hold in the world. They make it possible for those answerable for socio-economic and political systems in their current manifestation to accept responsibility and seek forgiveness for the sins of the past, and make a commitment to initiate change—the myth of redemptive reconciliation breaking the bondage of the myth of redemptive violence (13). None of these structural changes can take place, however, until the diverse groups that constitute society, and the individuals that make up groups, grapple with the problem of reconciliation at a personal and interpersonal level.

This suggests a socio-political reading of the words ‘forgive us our sins as