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Center for Reconciliation Leaders Spearhead African Gathering on Social Conflicts

Partners pursue peace-building within a theological context

November 8, 2006

Four representatives of the Duke Center for Reconciliation travel to central Africa this month to develop strategies with African partners for strengthening the church’s work and witness in addressing a variety of destructive social conflicts.

The Duke contingent includes center co-directors Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice as well as Nancy Rich, chair of the center’s board, and Ph.D. student John Kiess. They will join about 40 African Christian leaders in Kampala, Uganda, from Nov. 15-17, including participants from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, eastern Congo and southern Sudan.

These countries, with a population that is 70 percent Christian, have experienced great social turmoil and political conflict in recent years, with the most pressing problems including genocide, civil war, and the rampant spread of AIDS.

“Those gathering in Kampala are remarkable signs of hope -- Christian witnesses working in very difficult places of struggle and violence,” says Katongole, a native of Uganda and associate research professor of theology and world Christianity at Duke Divinity School. “Our purpose is to build community by hearing one another’s stories and to think more deeply about how to strengthen the church’s work for peace and reconciliation in a geography that has suffered so much.”

The center hopes to collaborate with Christian leaders and practitioners in Africa to strengthen work in three key areas:

  • Promoting a vision and practices for reconciliation and peace-building within a biblical and theological framework.
  • Providing resources and serving local leadership, especially Christian leaders, pastors, institutions and congregations.
  • Understanding the historical context of conflicts to promote healing and justice.

The center, a program of Duke Divinity School, is working with the Mennonite Central Committee, World Vision International, African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries, and the Global Network for Reconciliation.

Rooted in a Christian vision of God’s mission, the Center for Reconciliation inspires, forms, and supports leaders, communities and congregations to live as ambassadors of reconciliation.