God Remembers: Towards a Theology of Remembrance as a Basis of Reconciliation in Communal Conflict

A search for a theological basis of remembrance in communal conflict, this book argues that history’s traumatic wounds are healed by a transformative remembrance of the past rather than by forgetting or ignoring what has gone wrong. Beginning with a case study of a real conflict within the Batak Christian Protestant Church in Indonesia from 1992 to 1998, it relates a biblical understanding of remembrance to the work of three theologians—Johann Baptist Metz, Alexander Schmemann, and Miroslav Volf—who have made significant contributions in their own respective Christian traditions. This didactic work demonstrates why the act of remembrance in the liturgy of the Eucharist is a highly appropriate place for the actual healing of memory.