Can Churches Contribute to Post-Violence Reconciliation and Reconstruction? Insights and Applications from Northern Ireland

Abstract

In Northern Ireland, the churches could be judged to be hopelessly implicated in a violent, sectarian system. However, some have argued that religiously informed reconciliation could or should be part of Northern Ireland’s uneasy — and sporadically still violent — post-conflict transition.² Their arguments are based on the assumption that while the conflict in Northern Ireland cannot be considered strictly religious, it has had religious dimensions.³ Accordingly, this chapter focuses on the Northern Ireland case while asking how its churches might contribute to post-violence reconciliation and reconstruction.

The research on which this chapter is based has been supported by the Irish Research Council through the Irish School of Ecumenics’ ‘Visioning 21st Century Ecumenism’ project (2009–2011). It has benefited from comments by participants at the Political Studies Association Conference in Belfast, 3–5 April 2012, and by David Tombs.