How might Christians apply their views on forgiveness and reconciliation to conflict today?
How might Christians apply their views on forgiveness and reconciliation to conflict today?
Peace is not merely the nonattendance of war as has been in Northern Ireland shown over 30 years of conflict. There have been many attempts to reconcile the two communities. But there has been no peace as either of the side's felt they were not getting Justice. The latish attempt at reconciliation was the Good Friday agreement. As we can see all the violence and lives taken have done little to change the situation in Northern Ireland.
If both populations feel that they are not receiving justice then they will lose faith in peace and therefore the conflict will increase. Many injustices that have happened to both sides an injustice felt by both sides was the releasing of political prisoners. Such people like Michael Stone and Johnny Adair are seen as murders by the Catholic community and the liberated IRA leaders are seen the same by the Loyalists Community. The populations of the two sides feel that Justice has not been served and particularly the families of the victims feel they are not receiving Righteousness. Since the prisoners have been set free violence has escalated. Many prisoners realised have re-offended an example is Johnny Adair and at the present time we do not have tranquillity in Northern Ireland. Jesus himself taught that ' if someone hits you on the right cheek turn the left one.' This teaches us that violence is never the answer. This is the slant many of the bereaved families take if we take the example of Michael Gallaeghar (whose son was killed in the Omagh bomb) we can see how he has forgave the killers of his son.
