This Flashes of Insight conversation looks at the sexual abuse crisis from the perspective of restorative justice.
It asks whether the experience for Church ministers is an opportunity for the theology of reconciliation to grow into change?
It considers whether restorative justice a matter of putting things back together as they were, as it were by plastering Humpty Dumpty back together? Or is it actually a way of going forward to something new?
Key issues in the discussion include
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- is whether ‘putting Humpty Dumpty back together again is actually desirable?’
- how to go about restorative justice
- how well do we do restorative justice when as ministers, we may not have the capacity to reconcile
- how as ministers do ‘we do wrong’
- ministers and a capacity for empathy
- whether the theology of reconciliation is up to the task of facing restorative justice