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Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing (Resources for Reconciliation)

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Katongole and Rice begin by stating: "Reconciling All Things. It's a pretty preposterous title for a book. Especially one as short as this." My thoughts precisely, as I picked up the slim volume with a generic cover. Candidly, I was a little skeptical about the contents. Thankfully, I was wrong. Whether you are new to the idea of reconciliation or a veteran or somewhere in between you will find Reconciling All Things an outstanding read. It lays the foundation for a life given to reconciliation with concrete examples and practical guidelines.

After establishing that reconciliation is God's gift to a broken world, a gift we are to receive and live on our journey with God and others, there comes a wonderful chapter titled "The Discipline of Lament." It is simply excellent and profound. We are encouraged to "see" the world in all its brokenness and asked to join the reconciliation journey. In order to do this well Katongole and Rice state that we must unlearn speed (history matters and there are no quick fixes), distance ("Like real estate, lament is about location, location, location"), and innocence (we are complicit and frequently resist our own transformation). This chapter offers a framework and terminology I can use to help me better understand my life experiences in my lower-income neighborhood and why reconciliation is so costly. And it gives me a chapter I can have students read, helping them slow down as they desire to make a big impact on the world. Subsequent chapters highlight the role of the church. The book ends with a "Reader's Digest" summary of the book, identifying ten theses of reconciliation, each accompanied by an explanatory paragraph.

Pick up this book. Let its contents sink deep within you. You will be the better for having done so. Then offer to facilitate a discussion on the book at your church.

I tend to read a 1-2 books a month as am curious about many topics, not limited to religion. "Reconciling All Things" turned out to be a top five favorite over a period of 2 years and I still refer back to it. The timeless Christian principles in this book do not come from isolated academic, theological points of view, but from those who have actually rolled up their sleeves and toiled where it matters most - in hard relationships with those who have been marginalized, suffered hate and abuse from others, or who are simply not like "us". Though small - do not under estimate the enormous value of this hidden gem. In a day of Christian glitz, quest for power and recognition, and hard core sanctimonious attitudes, the arduous and painful journey of reconciliation is not a path that is widely chosen or easily understood by the basic tenants of religion or human nature. The principles of reconciliation will become more sought after and developed as global tensions mount and other efforts (including a majority of Christian efforts) fail to produce enduring and good fruit for relationships, groups, communities and nations.

This book was written by a Christian so it can only be interpreted from a Christian viewpoint. Non-believers may find some hooks to hang their social justice hat on but this book is so flawed in it's thinking that I don't know where to begin. The first place to start when discussing true Biblical reconciliation is that God has been reconciling man to himself since the Adam and Eve's fall in the garden. Man reconciling to man from a Christian's perspective is an attempt to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. If the Gospel is rejected we are to live in peace but 'move on to the next village and shake the dust off of our sandals before we leave the place the rejected the Gospel'. For a Christian to attempt reconciliation with the Jew and the Muslim so we can all feel good about ourselves is pointless if Christ is rejected. Other concepts in the book such as social justice (I stongly dislike that this term has permeated the Church because it is charged with political overtones), redistribution, and wishy washy solutions to problems that only have geo-political solutions. Some of the paragraphs had me completely baffled as to what the author was trying to say. If you want the true solutions to the world's problems, read the original instruction manual - the Bible.

This is one of those books that really make you think. It challenges us to faithfully living out the challenge put forth in Micah eight.