Source: (2001) Paper presented at the Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World conference. Bienenberg Theological Seminary, Switzerland, 25-29 June.
With conflict between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria as background, Holland reflects on religion, peace, and violence. The large question he deals with is how to reconcile the gospel of peace with the violence of the world, and in particular with the violence of God (a hiddenness and holiness of God which goes beyond tendencies to domesticate God into merely human conceptions of pacifism – in this sense the God beyond our domestications is both revealed and hidden, both loving and terrifying). Three ancillary issues considered are the importance of strangers in Judaism and Christianity, the problem of movements seeking some kind of “cleansing” or “purity” (ethnic, theological, or ideological), and the problem of totalitarianism.
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