Toward a Nonviolent Koinonia An Ecumenical Enquiry into Being the Church from a Historic Peace Church Perspective

While many churches now affirm the importance of nonviolence as a missional strategy, it is not clear that this has yet affected their ecclesial self-understanding. What have the ecumenical churches said about the church and nonviolence? Have they developed enough of a nonviolent ecclesiology? In this study, I contend that it is essential that the Christian churches be a nonviolent koinonia. The true church is the nonviolent church. Drawing upon major ecumenical documents, and listening to the voices of three theologians who have endorsed nonviolent theology, I outline a vision of the nonviolent church as a koinonia which participates in the life of the Triune God. As the community which is centred on the eucharist, I argue that the nonviolent koinonia is a community of anamnesis, of prolepsis, and of philoxenia.