Download Just Reconciliation: The Church`s Response to Ethno

Just Reconciliation:
The Church’s Response to Ethno-political Violence in Kenya
Establishing a sustainable peace in the post-conflict society of Kenya is of great importance.
In this study I draw a close attention to how the Church needs to integrate and balance justice
and reconciliation as the response to ethno-political violence in Kenya. This study is an
investigation of how the Church responds to ethno-political violence, through the combination
of empirical and theoretical perspectives. According to the findings, ethno-political violence
remains a challenge due to social-political and economic injustices in Kenya.
The interviews I conducted for the study revealed that these injustices have resulted in ethnic
hatred, leading to ethnic and political violence in the name of fighting for equality. Such
ethnic and political violence resulted in extensive loss of life and property. According to the
informants, no one has been punished for such gratuitous killings and destruction. Such lack
of accountability has resulted in a culture of impunity where those who maimed, killed and
destroyed for political ends have not been brought to justice.
In this study I have found that lack of inclusive justice has made reconciliation difficult
among the conflicting ethnic communities. The empirical material in this study argues that
there is a need for justice to address the losses, experiences, and inequalities emanating from
these conflicts, and for reconciliation of individuals and communities in post-conflict Kenya.
Further, the Church needs to embark on integrating justice and reconciliation as a holistic
process of establishing a just society based on ideals, equality and peaceful co-existence.
My work on integrating justice with reconciliation has resulted in a principle of ‘just
reconciliation’ as the balanced approach the Church should take to respond to ethno-political
violence. The discourse of just reconciliation focuses on the ability of the Church to rise
above ethnic and political divisions in maintaining its political moral values and prophetic
voice. This means therefore that political inequality, social inequality, and economic
injustices must be addressed in order to promote peace and stability in post-conflict Kenya.
Just reconciliation is the heart of God’s mission to the world. The mission of Jesus Christ was
about reconciliation. Reconciliation is restoring what God intended from the beginning. I
view the work of the Church in the concept of just reconciliation to work within a broader
milieu of theo-political context. Using all the approaches and dimensions within the Church
for a just reconciled society, we need to understand such practices theologically and perform
them in an ecclesiological manner such that they become formational performances that shape
the Church’s mission of just reconciliation.
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