Radical ecclesiology: The church as an arena for reconciliation through cultivating alternative community. Issue 1 (January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hunter, Danny
• Is Part Of: Missiology. Volume 48:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 75
• Page End: 82
• Publication Date: 2020-01
• Subjects: conflict -- reconciliation -- Anabaptism -- ecclesiology -- alternative community; Missions -- Periodicals; 266.005
• DOI: 10.1177/0091829619887391
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0091-8296

Abstract

Rising tensions in communities around the world have created contexts of conflict to which the church has been challenged to respond with a theology of reconciliation. This, however, raises the question: What kind of communities do we need in order to create such a theology amid so much conflict? Drawing on an Anabaptist vision of the church as an "alternative community, " this article demonstrates how dislocation amid conflict allows the church to become an arena for reconciliation by creating neutral social space, crafting new social narratives, and exercising creative freedom.