When a small conflict escalates, it can turn violent. When we heard about the tragedy of the shootings at Columbine High School last spring, we learned that the young people who committed this horrible act were part of a group that felt so hurt by their peers that they prepared a plan to kill some of them. It is hard to accept what happened that day. In the past year the news about the results of the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians was horrible. Yet we have been told that the hatred between these groups goes back centuries.
Conflict is inevitable, and if handled well, can be a constructive part of our lives.
Our denomination is in conflict today over deeply held values such as different understandings of what the Bible teaches and different understandings of the freedom of the local church to order its own affairs. Baptists are notorious for splitting over differences. In the 19th century, churches in the South split from those in the North to form the Southern Baptist Convention because of a dispute that included a decision by the Foreign Mission Board that slave holders could not become overseas missionaries. In this century, the General Association of Regular Baptists and the Conservative Baptist Association were begun when churches broke away from what is the American Baptist Churches USA because of theological differences. Most us will probably not be able to do much to stop the hatred in the Balkans, but we can seek to follow Christ by working for understanding among people and working for justice and peace wherever we have influence.