Ward Consultation, Year 2  Being Agents of Reconciliation September 27-28, 2002

Summary Notes from Brenda Salter McNeil’s presentation   

DAY ONE

 Two typical approaches for entering a new culture or context are Openness or Personal Preservation/Protection. When cultures clash it is inevitable that there will be frustration, confusion, embarrassment, misunderstanding, tension, aggression, and so on.  Our decisions or responses will often include: 1) observe, inquire, listen, initiate  OR  2) criticize, rationalize, isolate self.  The results of our responses will include 1) rapport and understanding; deepening relationships OR 2) Alienation and withdrawal; broken relationships.

We go through this all the time when we enter into new situations. We can take people through this and actually raise the tension level as we deal with racial reconcilation.  M. Scott Peck’s comments about “Pseudo-community” are relevant at this point: everybody loves Jesus and we’re all okay; but the next step from there is chaos, when people hit those inevitables. However, only when chaos flares can change take place.

For those entering new cultures, a mentor from that culture can be of help. Such a mentor is someone who allows you to mess up, who doesn’t expect you to know everything/anything.

Christians are not clear in what they’re trying to achieve when they enter new cultures.  In our ministry, we seek to create and work with models to help people clarify what they are trying to achieve.

 At this point, Brenda took us through the models that she uses in her work with churches, colleges and other organizations.  At this point, the Consultation participants undertook the task of assisting Brenda to clarify and refine her models.  The following questions guided the work group interaction and critique. Much of this work was incorporated into her newly structured ministry.  (see www.saltermcneil.com) 

 WORKGROUP INTERACTION

 1.      How do the models relate to or match the experiences you have already had in reconciliation efforts?

2.      Examine the process reflected in these models. What dynamics are essential to reconciliation efforts? What is your assessment of the ways in which the models present the interaction of these dynamics?

3.      What critical terms need to be defined? How would you define these terms or describe the process implicit in these terms?

4.      Deal with the ‘so what’ question raised yesterday. What are the various factors, or stimuli, or motivations that compel individuals or groups to want to be agents of reconciliation?

5.      What do you perceive as the strengths of these models? What is the work that is yet to be done in your judgment? What recommendations do you have for continued development of a visual way to help people grasp the “complex processes of reconciliation?”

6.      From the perspective of your various organizational contexts and responsibilities, what do these models – and your discussion of these models – suggest concerning strategies or interventions for beginning or continuing reconciliation efforts in your organization.

 What follows are notes from one of the workgroups.  You will be able to pick up on some of the major points as your scroll through the notes. 

·        A little confusion as to what to do concretely. The models seems abstract. The question is where does it become specific to me?

·        The models yesterday seemed to be more individually-based. How can you deal with things on a systemic/institutional level?

·        Reiteration of yesterday, that we need to be transformed individually for it to work on a larger social level.

·        Problem of friendliness but not of awareness between cultures. Need to be more than an awareness builder than simply an awareness experience.

·        Sharing personal stories and experiences together can be a way of “curricularizing” the building of awareness.

·        Question of reconciliation to what? when dealing with conflict between groups. Harder for immigrants to relate to the concept of reconciliation. For blacks, reconciliation means going back to what was there before? To slavery or pre-civil rights? What are we trying to restore? “Reconciliation” suggests former state of conciliation, which never existed.

·        We need a goal. Reconciliation is only a means to that end.

·        We tend to extrapolate from the black-white communities to all other ethnic minority communities. The question of “what are you” or “where are you from?” Where do you have your identity. A “Hispanic” is not from Mexico but from Chiapas, or Mexico City, and so on. The issue of reconciliation is not as precise as with black/white relationships.

·        How reconciled is reconciled? Is it the removal of hostility? Having “ethnic” friends or a certain “percentage” in your church?

·        Start with issues of justice. In a systemic way, with a church that has Anglo and ethnic pastors, where salaries differ in favor of the Anglo. Not an issue of equality but of justice. Issues of identity, let me be who I am. Not multicultural because divides by groups. Intercultural allows us to mix as we are and brings everybody together without asking us to lose who we are.

·        Begin from differences rather then from similarities. Begin there and build into the similarities.

·        Synchronic vs. diachronic perspectives on time management. Hispanics are not “late” or “lazy”. We simply do not understand their worldview or their culture.

·        We are categorizing by skin color/features but misunderstanding histories and cultures. We all have differences and we are all hurting. The need is to move together.

·        Not good to say that we are more comfortable working with people who are alike. The Scripture does not seem to point that way in the idea of the Body and its parts.

·        All we see is the behavior. Stereotyping. We don’t see the cultural value behind it. Need to get behind the surface differences. And see the value of different values. To come together.

·        Begin with the similarities on the surface and think that we are the same rather than realizing that what is beneath which informs the surface are so fundamentally different that there is nothing really the same except what is seen on the surface.

·        Danger of these models being so Western-based that even as we try to reconcile we are still coming from an ethnocentric, imperialistic basis.

·        Missed in yesterday’s model is that it is uni-directional and not involved those with whom we are trying to be reconciled to. Freire says that unless reconciliation comes from the ones oppressed first then it will not happen. They have to want it and to be part of the process. It must be “our” reconciliation, not “my” reconciliation TO you, what YOU need. The model needs to bi-directional and mutual. The oppressor and the oppressed must be brought together.

·        Need a praxis approach, less intellectual. From the very beginning, this about authentic relationships. Otherwise, we are posturing and intellectualizing.

·        Friere’s model. There were no oppressors coming and saying, “let’s raise our awareness together.” There needs to be a catalyst for one to begin the raising of awareness.

·        What’s our real goal here? Relational wholeness, which is not seeking uniformity but unity, diversity without division. How do we say what we want? Biblical diversity.

·        Reconciliation speaks of hostility or a fence that needs to be involved. Somewhere though we need to deal with surrender of personal rights, the oppressed the right to be hurt, the oppressor to their power. History needs to be dealt with somewhere, somehow.

·        Peacemaking. Theologically applies, even if we have never had something against each other.  We need to look to what we’re building, what we want to construct rather than what we want to eliminate.

·        There may not be hostility but there may not be shalom either. We need to go beyond.

·        What am I trying to actualize? It’s strange that we can’t even put our finger on what we want?

·        We can look at the same scripture but have different takes yet still lose out on what is the bigger picture, the greater kingdom of God. Wanting to know more of the kingdom by its people, gaining awareness and loving them. Really having relationships, otherwise, it stays cognitive. How do we live together?

·        Galatians 3:28, there are no identities that are held in priority but a kingdom mentality.

·        The fallen world, the effects of sin, have divided us. The restoring of what God’s original intention was but our relationship in a fallen world still needs restoring because our relationships are still not exactly where they need to be. The problem may only be ignorance but ignorance still needs restoration.

·        We need to overcome the condition of the Fall, not simply undoing a real/perceived wrong. The gap that already exists because of sin must be dealt with in order for the shalom to be achieved. Even if you don’t think you have hostilities, it’s overcoming the effects of the Fall and we need to be reconciled. Achieving the shalom. 2 Cor. 5 Even if we don’t sense a need for reconciliation, we still suffer from the effects of the Fall, so we ourselves are still need of reconciliation to the shalom that God desired in the first place.  We obligated to be reconcilers (see above) because reconciliation is a universal human need.

·        What does reconciliation mean? What is the picture of what we are looking for going to look like? What authority does an unreconciled body like the church have to bring about reconciliation in the world?

·        Jesus was not weak because He died but the cross itself is the symbol of reconciliation. I myself must be ‘crossed’, crucified. The posture of weakness is the way in which to approach the ministry of peacemaking and building bridges.

·        In a multi-cultural team, the community can perceive that the white guy is charge even if the team doesn’t perceive it to be so.