A Christian Response to Global Conflict: Realism and Reconciliation

Abstract

Abstract This article considers avenues for fruitful engagement between international relations and public theology in order to ask what an ethical Christian response to global conflict should entail. The process of mediating principles of biblical justice into a contemporary international context requires interpretation in a reality of territorial bounded states, with rules and norms governing international interactions that are unique to the present day. This article draws on two theologically oriented contributions to international relations, Christian realism and political reconciliation to probe the question as to how we conceptualise justice as a pursuit in international relations from a Christian worldview. It reflects on the contingencies of the present-day context of global conflict, and the implications for praxis from a public theology standpoint.