The integrating vision of Christ the King for our life together, our ministry and our mission is Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. Faith-based reconciliation as a concept and methodology is based on the teachings and work of Canon Brian Cox. Publications are available on www.faith-basedreconciliation.com

4. MORAL VISION
“Anything people can conceive, and believe,
they can achieve.”
Moral visions--
 Unify communities & societies
 Carry social aspirations
 Inspire self-sacrifice
 Shape the interpretation of events
 Guide action
 Form the basis of a social contract
 Reflect the very soul of a community

5. Relationships are Organisms
 Relationships and Communities
behave like living things—they
grow, multiply, get wounded, and
can heal.
 The web of relationships we live in
give us life and identity.
 These webs form social ecosystems.
 Faith Based Reconciliation provides
a framework for understanding and
working with these systems.

6. Relationship is of the Essence
“… Leave your gift before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your
brother; then come and offer your gift.” --Mat 5:24

7. Reconciliation is Not Compromise
or “Splitting the Difference.”
“No problem can be solved on the same level of consciousness at
which it was created”—Albert Einstein
 Reconciliation is an experiential,
not an intellectual, process.
 Under the right conditions,
dialogue between people in
conflict can produce a
transformation of consciousness.
 When consciousness is
transformed, nothing is changed.
But everything is different.

8. Faith-Based Reconciliation:
A Moral Vision Based on
8 Key Principles
“Truth and Mercy have met together; Justice and Peace have kissed.”
--Psalm 85:10
These principles give us a language
and a conceptual framework to
 avigate the moral dimensions of
n
relationships and conflict;
 nderstand how relationships are
u
nurtured, get wounded, and how
they heal;
 ntangle and transform stubborn
u
conflicts.

9. These Principles Describe the Physiology
of Healthy Living Social Systems
They can be thought of in these terms:
 Pluralism
 Inclusivity
 Peacemaking
 Justice
 Healing Relationships
 Healing Collective Wounds
 Surrendering to God
 Intimacy with God
The rest of this presentation briefly discusses each.

10. 1. PLURALISM
"My humanity Is bound up in yours, for we can only
be human together.“ --Desmond Tutu
 Pluralism not just diversity. Diversity is
inevitable. Pluralism is an achievement. Tree farm  Rain forest 
 Pluralism is not mere tolerance. It’s the
active pursuit of understanding across lines
of difference.
 Pluralism is not relativism. It doesn’t
weaken our distinctive identities or moral
commitments.
 Pluralism demands listening and
dialogue. And a commitment to stay in
dialogue—with one’s commitments intact.

11. 2. INCLUSION
“I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.”
--Abraham Lincoln
 The principle of inclusion reflects our
need to constructively engage one
another.
 Inclusion is about unity, not
uniformity.
 Inclusion confronts our emotional
barriers to “the other” and our
natural impulse to reject those who
are different.
 Inclusion demolishes walls of
hostility, and replaces them with
agreed boundaries. “Chancing the arm”

12. 3. PEACEMAKING:
Non-violent Conflict Resolution
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
-- Mat. 5:9
 When we engage with those who
are different, we quickly discover
the need for peaceful conflict
resolution.
 Peacemaking is the alternative to
the law of the jungle.
 Peacemaking prefers to resolve
conflict without violence; even
without coercion.
 Peacemaking ultimately aims to
resolve conflict cooperatively.

13. 4. SOCIAL JUSTICE:
Pursuing the Common Good
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 The process of peacemaking leads us
to ask what injustices or inequities have
produced the conflict.
 Past and present injustice or inequity
may require a balancing of accounts.
 To prevent future conflict, we must
work to balance relationships.
 Thus, true social justice cannot be
achieved competitively. It must be a
joint search for the common good.

14. 5. HEALING RELATIONSHIPS:
Forgiveness, Repentance & Redemption
”Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."
--Paul Broesser
 To establish social justice we must
address injury and offence. Hardness
of heart becomes an obstacle.
 Hardness of heart impairs the
relationship between people, and
also their relationship with God.
 Forgiveness and repentance soften
the heart, and permit healing.
 Healing includes sharing the burden
of injury, and redeeming that which
cannot be changed.
The Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

15.  Unhealed collective wounds tie
the community to the past.
 They burden the soul of the
community, and produce further
wounding.
 To create a new future, wounds
of the past must be healed:
- Acknowledgment of the truth;
- Repudiation of the wrong;
- Sharing of the burden.
 We seek not to bury the past,
but to redeem and transform it.

16. 7. SURRENDER TO GOD:
Living Out the Belief in a Higher Power,
and a Deeper Unity
“In God We Trust” --U.S. Currency
 The reign of God includes and
embraces all. Recognition of
this fact is transformative.
 Surrender to God liberates us
from the need—and the right—
to dominate or oppress one
another.
 Surrender to God liberates us
to serve one another.
Celtic Trefoil

17. 8. FINDING INTIMACY WITH GOD
”God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference.” --Reinhold Neibuhr
 The pluralistic society—or any
idealized community—is not an
end in itself.
 A pluralistic society respects the
free exercise of conscience.
 God influences human affairs
through individuals, by means of
conscience.
 Each person must work out their
own salvation.
Detail of Pieta, Michelangelo

18. FAITH-BASED RECONCILIATION
is an idea whose time has come.
”Nothing is quite so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
--Victor Hugo
 The goal of reconciliation is not just to
change conditions.
 It’s not just to help people in conflict to
be reconciled.
 It’s about helping people to become
reconciling; to relate to the world in a
new way.
 The goal of reconciliation is to transform
the human heart.

19. This presentation is based on the book,
Faith Based Reconciliation
By The Rev. Brian Cox
Text, layout and graphic editing by Michael Witmer