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How to remember war so as to invest in peace

Simon Barrow

Abstract

In effect the whole of 2014 has been a year of remembrance, with the focus on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. It is important that 2015 is not a year of forgetting, of “war business as usual”. In this paper, Simon Barrow recapitulates some of the key points from Ekklesia's Re-imagining Remembrance report, locating them within the changes that have taken place since that was originally published in 2009, relating them to the commemorations that took place in 2014, looking at the particular challenge to post-Christendom Christianity, and setting out a commitment to continue on the path towards a New Remembrance in both theological and general terms.

This paper recapitulates some of the key points from Ekklesia's Re-imagining Remembrance report (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/research/reimagining_remembrance), locating them within the changes that have taken place since that was originally published in 2009, relating them to the commemorations that took place in 2014, looking at the particular challenge to post-Christendom Christianity, and setting out a commitment to continue on the path towards a New Remembrance in both theological and general terms.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction: what our remembrance forgets – page 1
2. The challenge of peace to established Christianity – page 2
3. Learning to remember all over again – page 3
4. Confronting signs of contradiction – page 4
5. Principles and practices for a New Remembrance – page 5
6. Remembering the theological struggle with violence – page 6
7. The task that lies ahead: making ‘Christmas Truce’ permanent – page 8
8. Concluding reflection: good and bad remembering – page 9
9. Endnotes and references – page 10-12

* Read and download the full paper here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/sites/ekklesia.co.uk/files/remembering_war_to_...