Reconciliation is a journey of relational restoration toward wholeness. As the body of Christ, the church plays a major role in this journey toward making all that is wrong right again. This journey is long and difficult and cannot be taken without being paired with justice. Reconciliation without justice lacks integrity and does not acknowledge the complexities and history through which an individual’s or group’s sense of identity has become connected to past injustices.
Although we have not all experienced a large-scale trauma or suffered the pain of institutional bias against our group’s racial or ethnic heritage, we all know brokenness and division at some level because we live in a broken world. In the process of reconciliation we need to learn to lament. It is not until you recognize and validate someone else’s pain and injustice that true reconciliation can take place. Lamenting from the perspective of those who have been wronged or treated unjustly is how we truly understand and realize the brokenness that has been caused.
When we fully realize the extent of the brokenness, the journey of reconciliation can begin. Dive deeper with what reconciliation means with pastor Kevin Riggs. Learn more about what repairing brokenness looks like as well as what can restore.