Social injustice is constantly at play in conflicts around the globe. So confounding are the problems that they can leave scholars and activists with more questions than answers. Reconciliation is a central concern. Reconciliation, however, has many meanings. It can emerge in response to singular violent events (like civil wars) or in response to much longer-term systemic violence against marginalized populations. This capstone explores how reconciliation emerges for varying national contexts, spaces, and approaches. This includes Rwanda's post-genocide context where Gacaca tribunals provided space for reconciliation to emerge; Australia's Indigenous context where education and other institutional spaces provide for a different approach to reconciliation; and finally, the United States’ systemic racial injustice context with a focus on the role of the church as a space for reconciliatory processes to evolve.  As a  comparative case study of reconciliation, this capstone offers important insights about how reconciliation efforts develop in response to short and long-term violence that fractures communities. 

My capstone offers original synthesis of works that I produced throughout the Social Justice and Human Rights master’s program at ASU and brings diverse areas of scholarship together to better understand the promise of reconciliation. Throughout the SJHR master's program, I developed a focus on reconciliation as social justice; one that is grounded in hope, healing and action. Placing comparisons at the heart of how I identify reconciliation processes and types of transformation that they can lead to allows for a strategic approach to reconciliation work and a starting point for collaborative efforts.

How this came to be...

Many issues of injustice drew me to become a student of social justice and human rights, and choosing this program is something that, looking back, makes sense from when I was very young. More recently though I have been particularly focused on the deep divide within the church with regard to social justice to understand why some groups progressively lean into activism and movements, while others pull back and oppose change to the status quo. It was in my 30s that I began to push back on the doctrine of subordination of women that I had been immersed in during childhood, realizing it is not in fact biblical. Rather, it is a cultural (versus contextual) misapplication of particular teachings. As I pursued this further through books, commentaries and discussion groups, it had very real implications on my understanding of myself, my relationships with people, and my standing in the world. For me, it changed everything.

Very real implications on my understanding of the standing of everyone else also began to surface during this process. This experience, together with a vision of the church in full representation (1), led me to interrogate other exclusive cultural practices in the church, such as the infiltration of segregation and racism. We have all heard the adage that Sunday is the most segregated day of the week. I began to realize that although I have attended diverse and multicultural churches, I was still missing out on many potential relationships, and in large part on the richness and fullness of life that my BIPOC sisters and brothers bring to our faith. There remains an invisible but stubborn divide. 

As race relations continue to intensify in the U.S. with the emergence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, partially in response to high-profile incidents of police violence, questions surface about how the church should respond. In a 2016 poll conducted by evangelical Christian research firm Barna, 13% of evangelicals felt that racism was a problem of the past but not of the present, compared to only 3% of those claiming no religious faith and 7% of all adult respondents. Likewise, when asked if people of color experience social disadvantage because of their race, 56% of evangelicals agreed or strongly agreed, compared to 67% of all adults interviewed (Barna, 2016). The present racial divide does not seem to be felt as strongly among evangelicals as it does among the general population. Yet, the evangelical church is experiencing deep divisions and loss of membership centered around the influence of and involvement with the political right, internal scandals, and contentious race relations again highlighted most starkly by the murder of George Floyd (Brooks, 2022). These figures represent only a portion of the greater Christian church in the United States, but they raise questions about why there might be a divide over the need to address racial justice, and more importantly, how it is being addressed. The church is charged to be exemplary in equality and unity, where we wonder together at our similarities in the midst of our celebrated differences. Sometimes, however, it is a place of hierarchy and segregation. This project is the result of not simply my understanding of how crucial reconciliation is, but also an examination of how I can step aside and amplify others, yet simultaneously be involved in reconciling people too long separated from, and missing out on, one another.

In the study of social justice and human rights, scholars confront situations that impact the freedoms and flourishing of people all over the world. At times it can feel discouraging or overwhelming, but I have felt invigorated by discussions around ways to move forward: to approach issues from a position of humility and empathy, and to focus on changing the normative perspective of those in power to center on listening to and empowering the disenfranchised.  

(1) 9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7:9-10