The Marketplace Magazine July/August 2023

Reflections on the value of trying to work things out

Stuck Together. The Hope of Christian Witness in a Polarized World

by J. Nelson Kraybill (Herald Press, 2023, 240pp, $18.99 US)

Bringing people together to work through their differences in our increasingly fractured society seems perilous. Yet in times such as these, peacemakers are needed more than ever.

With Stuck Together, Kraybill offers a valuable tonic for our tumultuous era.

The author, minister, and former seminary president writes with curiosity and hope, plumbing the depths of difficult disputes many would prefer to avoid.

He draws on a rich well of spiritual and life experience to help readers find ways to navigate our religious, cultural, political, racial, and other differences.

He examines a variety of fault lines that have run through church and secular history and explains how differing moral foundations can bring people to deeply held, opposing beliefs about hot-button issues.

Kraybill’s careful meditations on Old and New Testament scripture examine biblical polarities on such issues as how people of faith should treat outsiders.

His stories about “modern ambassadors of reconciliation” include an Indigenous Peace Chief in Oklahoma, an inner-city worker in Indiana, and a Presbyterian minister in Ireland who secretly brought Catholic and Protestant militants together to explore and build on their shared humanity during decades of religious-based conflict.

Each chapter in the book ends with questions for reflection and discussion, making it a good resource for small group conversation.

As Kraybill writes in the introduction: “Humanity needs Christians — millions of us — to live into God’s promise to heal and restore what is broken.”

This book and its closing options for action provide helpful suggestions for this journey.