Documentation

(Paper presented to the Mission Council of EMS, Stuttgart, 3. July 2001)

In the introduction of a recent book on "`Reconciliation´ as Theme of Theology" I read the following remark about the current prominence of the word "reconciliation": "Since about thirty years we can observe that the term reconciliation has been exceedingly, almost explosion-like, drawn into public language, in ever new associations and applications. This interest in the term reconciliation is nourished from a yearning for peace, increasingly felt in a widely divided world, may it be in Europe or in other regions of the world."

Interesting is that this statement comes almost along with a sense of resentment. Resented is that the wide-spread and sometimes vague talk on reconciliation threatens, according to the author, to blur the Christian perception of reconciliation focusing on the relation of God and human beings. This book then, with its collection of classical theological texts on the Christian doctrine of reconciliation, seeks to function as a reminder of the truly Christian notion of reconciliation. The whole book, however, does not venture at all to creatively connect the Christian vision of reconciliation with the burning issues of a fragmented world.

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