Developing Your Business: Are Politics and Peacemaking Mutually Exclusive?

It is easy to assume that all politics and peacemaking can be mutually exclusive. The truth is that there are many situations in which to maintain the peace, politics can be involved or even hinder. Where there is a dispute of unusual interests, whether to gain control, power or leadership, that is politics. God teaches us how we “must be” if we are to be his children. As human beings created by God, we are asked to be images of the Father. By doing so, we bring peace to ourselves and to others.

In many organizations, there are internal conflicts, and even key leaders begin to make their case and use politics in what they hope will bring peace or end what they believe is disturbing their peace. Vice presidents will threaten other departments by flexing their control if those departments don’t do what they’re told. When we talk about politics, we talk about the policies and processes that are raised for debate. These same policies dictate the path towards the establishment of peace as a social whole. But it is also important to remember that this is also an additional conflict within the groups and thus provides another opportunity for peacemaking. Take a look at what happened in Ireland in 1997.

“In August 1997, less than a month after the second ceasefire was established in Northern Ireland, thousands of Presbyterian pastors and lay leaders gathered in Belfast to make a historic public commitment to the establishment of peace among Protestants. and Roman Catholics.

Michael Cassidy, an influential South African evangelical in producing open elections and the end of apartheid in South Africa, challenged them to a new level of personal responsibility to achieve reconciliation and tolerance. At his invitation, nearly two-thirds of the 3,000 in the audience stood up to signal their commitment to peacemaking. Earlier this year, the Anglican Church of Ireland took similar steps when its general synod voted to condemn the presence of sectarian views within its denomination and to conduct an investigation to determine how serious the problem is “(Morgan, 1997) .

Without politics, they would not have taken the additional steps to really determine what the problem was and rededicate themselves to peace. But there are other examples where politics and peacemaking are not mutually exclusive. Take the military, for example. Our leaders wage war on other countries that have political opinions different from ours. We are sent to war using force. And only as victors will we be able to define what we believe to be peace. Whose war were we fighting? What definition of peace were we getting? Bear, people, other nations?