Posts in the ‘For Churches’ Category

Filmmaker Jeb Stuart and historian Tim Tyson are both preacher’s kids, now in their 50s, who grew up in North Carolina at a time when attempts at racial integration still sparked tensions that could lead to violence and murder.

Scriptural principles in the New Testament have much to say not only about the value of settling disputes outside of court, but also about the spiritual ramifications that are inherent in how we respond to wrongs.

Join churches throughout the United States on February 7th as they spend part or all of their prayer time during their worship service by praying for a fair criminal justice system based on restorative principles.

If we believe that God is the creator of all life, then we cannot assume that some lives have more value than others. We cannot therefore assert with honesty that God has more love for some people than for others or that God would support violence against some members of creation in order to protect others.

Dr. Howard Zehr, professor of Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University’s graduate Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, outlines 10 ways to live restoratively.

Internal conflict rattled Christianity during its early years of rapid expansion. Three pioneer leaders — Paul, Peter, and Barnabas–lived at the center of that conflict (ACTS 15). What can we learn from those disagreements?

359.1.a)   Restorative Justice—A goal for all complaint procedures is Biblical justice or restorative justice, which is a justice  that seeks to repair the harm to people and communities that is created by the breach of trust, to achieve real accountability by making things right insofar as possible, and to bring healing to all that have [...]

After thirty years of teaching Christian ethics I felt a deep need to build a communion table for my seminary’s chapel. The words of ethics had to find expression in the wood of a table. For many years we ethicists had assumed that people could work off of a spiritual capital derived from worship, but [...]

Covenants are mutual agreements that bind people together. They involve honoring other parties and require mutual accountability and responsibility. They define the significant relationships in the Bible, where there were basically two kinds of covenants, those between people and those between people and God.

I asked myself many times; can’t there be a better way to work through these issues? What does conflict mean to Christians? Why can’t we all “fight fairly?” Should someone have intervened prior to this disruptive time?