Nancy Heisey

The Bible is not a textbook about conflict resolution. Yet when conflict has simmered or erupted among believers, whether in congre-gations, families, or communities, they have often tried to apply biblical principles to dealing with disagreements large and small. Traditionally, Mennonite Christians in conflict may have been most attracted to such biblical statements as these: “A soft answer turns away wrath,” or “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” or “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Making Peace with Conflict is a good book for everyone who has lived with conflict or has lacked time for lengthy courses or academic reading related to conflict. It is also a book for those of us who have been enlivened and renewed by the biblical story of God‘s love affair with the universe and the contentious humans God placed on a tiny planet at the edge of one galaxy. As that big picture has taken shape in our understanding, we have also been able to learn new things from the Bible’s many small stories of human beings—created in God’s image, fallen into fighting, yet reaching out for renewed relationship with our Creator, human companions, and the world.

This book does not set out to offer a systematic study of biblical theology or conflict doctrine. Rather, in slim, readable, and carefully grouped chapters it offers the information needed by anyone seeking skills for living through the next conflict in more hopeful and healthy ways. Throughout the book, a host of biblical images and stories are called into the conversation. These underline the importance of that collection of holy stories for the writers in this volume, who seek to transform their own deep experiences with conflict through responses reflecting the divine image present in human beings.

The writers of the opening section point out approaches that challenge much common wisdom surrounding what it means to clash with others. Conflict is natural, claims Carolyn Schrock-Shenk. Almost imperceptibly she weaves in the first biblical story, the creation account given in the first chapter of Genesis. Before describing humanity’s fall out of relationship with God and each other, this great liturgy proclaims as good God’s bringing forth difference—day and night, water and land, sun and moon, fish and birds, wild and domestic animals, and human beings as male and female.

Important to being truly human and truly Christian, adds Larry Dunn, is claiming our identity as part of the new creation by dealing wholesomely with differences and resulting conflicts. Here too biblical stories provide color. For Dunn, the tale of Cain and Abel exemplifies wrong ways to deal with difference. Regina Shands Stoltzfus reflects on the meaning of the cultural matrix in which all humans exist. She addresses the New Testament account of Peter finally “getting it” that he could share the good news with the Gentile Cornelius. Here she sees a case study of right ways to work through conflicts growing out of diversity.

Kori Leaman-Miller tells of a child who said after a waitress had encouraged him to give his own order, “She thinks I’m real.” In her chapter emphasizing the central principle of listening amid conflict, Leaman-Miller later quotes the advice of James about being quick to listen and slow to speak. Meanwhile, Valerie Weaver-Zercher sees speaking as playing a powerful and creative role in conflict transformation. In making her case Weaver-Zercher returns to the beginning biblical account portraying God’s word as the source of all that has been created.

Dalton Reimer calls for developing the skills of dialogue. These begin by acknowledging the existence of the Other and, when practiced well, lead to new understandings for both parties. Both Jesus and the Samaritan woman found such new understandings when Jesus risked entering the gap between them by requesting a drink. The power of stories to stir both profound teaching and learning, a power felt throughout the book, evokes the claims of Stanley Hauerwas that stories are necessary not because of their point but because they offer insights into truth not available by other means. (Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983, 26. See also Don E. Eberly, ed., The Content of America’s Character: Recovering Civic Virtue, Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1995, 171, who suggests using stories rather than “moral dilemma” case studies to build a meaningful moral tradition.)

In the section that proposes practical problem-solving strategies amid conflict, biblical wisdom enhances the counsel presented. Jesus’ warning to get rid of the big piece of wood in one’s own eye before trying to deal with the splinter in another’s eye assists Dean Peachey’s discussion about willingness to allow self-transformation through conflict.

Lawrence Ressler points out that Solomon, the biblical figure most noted for wisdom, is portrayed not as independently wise but as feeling in need of divine insight. John Powell underlines that the call to forgiveness even by one deeply wronged is founded in the Christian mandate for reconciliation expressed by the Apostle Paul. The fear which often pushes conflict over the edge into violence, advises Ann Shenk Wenger, finds an antidote in love. This principle is clearly articulated in John’s first letter: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Thorny matters of power and of how differing levels of power promote conflict are addressed in three chapters. That from the earliest re-cords the Bible understands and judges the human quest for power is highlighted by Iris de Leon-Hartshorn. She cites the temptation of Eve and Adam to be like God and the intercepted drive of the Babel Tower builders to reach the heavens. Angel Rafael Ocasio and Tobin Miller Shearer use that foundation to talk of how unequal power pushes prejudice into racism. Going beyond the stark understanding of human fai-lure which the Bible does not ignore, Elaine Enns and Ched Myers insist on the underlying biblical theme of commitment to equality.

In a final section on applications of conflict transformation principles, Lorraine and Jim Stutzman Amstutz use the story of the brothers Esau and Jacob to launch their reflections on conflict in the family. The New Testament difference between Hebrew- and Greek-speaking believers, and the Jerusalem Conference that dealt with the question of whether and how the Jewish Law applied to Gentile Christians, help to shape chapters on conflict in the congregation written by Richard Blackburn, David Brubaker, and Alistair McKay.

In a concluding reflection on bringing conflict transformation commitment and strategy into international settings, Gerald Shenk notes that the commitment to biblical peacemaking shaped leaders of the sixteenth-century Anabaptist movement such as Menno Simons. In this way the Bible set a direction that has continued to motivate descendants of that movement as they enter the twenty-first century.

Making Peace with Conflict will provide fruitful reading for individuals ready to learn new skills for changing how they live and perceive their world. Its format, including end-of-chapter discussion questions, further points toward small group use. As the above survey suggests, church Bible study groups and Sunday school classes will find value in using this book as the basis for their own further reflection and practice.

Leaders of such groups might wonder whether biblical materials throughout the chapters are cited as proof texts or whether their use reflects a foundational understanding of the authors. Thus it is note-worthy that, in the biblical understanding, both diversity and goodness lie at the heart of God’s creation and are most frequently called as witness throughout the book. The teachings of and stories about Jesus are also often cited, especially Jesus’ specific instructions in Matthew 18 for confronting one who has wronged another in the faith community.

The beauty of the biblical record, however, sustains the perspectives and approaches of Making Peace with Conflict in an even more foundational way, whether or not the contemporary writers are always aware of it. The text of the Bible itself is a witness to the process of transforming conflict, as its writers continue to confront and wrestle with understanding God’s purpose through the centuries of its writing. Take the wars of King David, which in the earlier record of 1 Kings kept him too busy to build God’s temple. These are understood by the later record of 1 Chronicles as an impediment to temple building because of their very bloodshed. Yet even before that historical corrective, Isaiah had broken into the debate to proclaim the divine vision for God’s place of worship: the temple was to be a place where many peoples “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”

Conflict among earliest followers of Jesus is openly portrayed in the New Testament. Indeed, the Bible includes both the record of a mutually satisfactory conference (Jerusalem Council, noted above and told of in Acts 15) to deal with rules for Gentile believers and Paul’s more personal and less comfortable reaction to the ruling of the church’s first leaders in Galatians 2. Despite sharp differences suggested by such texts, under-lying both seems to be the memory of Jesus’ words when he quoted another Isaiah text on God’s vision for a world full of difference: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

The clashing and interweaving in the biblical record thus itself embodies transformed conflict. The goal of this process is that the under-lying Word of God’s love continually be proclaimed until all people, in all their diversity, know that love and thus truly belong to God’s realm.

Nancy R. Heisey
Instructor in Biblical Studies and Church History
Eastern Mennonite University
Harrisonburg, Virginia

	To Pandora U.S. Main Page
	To Making Peace Contents