Failed Reconcilation: One Theo-Political Reading

The presentation articulates different religious understandings of the concept of reconciliation and its failures. Christian notions of reconciliation, which had a profound influence not only on reconciliation processes around the world but also on scholarly conceptualizations thereof operate with two contrasting notions: reconciliation-in-history and reconciliation-outside-history. While the first one represents practical processes of rapprochement between individuals and groups, always limited and imperfect, the second concept represents an eschatological ideal (vision) of a unified humanity. This is illustrated by the fact that religious communities which preach reconciliation as a transcendent reality nevertheless remain in a situation of internal divisions and schisms. Based on selected interviews with religious leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is suggested that those two notions do not have to be mutually excluding. Using the concept of ‘placeholders of reconciliation’ the author discusses the possibility of concrete reconciliatory works even in the periods of ongoing conflicts.