Time:
3:00pm Central Europe & Western Africa (4:00pm Central Africa and Eastern Europe, 5:00pm Eastern Africa Time and Jordan, 2:00pm UK, 9:00am USA Eastern, 6:30pm India Time)
Meeting Theme:
We will be joined by Bishop Zac Niringiye—Ugandan Bishop (Church of Uganda, a member of the Anglican Communion) and long-time justice scholar-activist—whose life and work have consistently challenged dominant assumptions about faith, power, and what it means to pursue peace.
Zac invites us into a critical and uncomfortable question:
Who does the peacebuilding paradigm actually serve?
While “peacebuilding” has become a widely embraced framework—especially within international, NGO, and even faith-based spaces—Zac presses us to ask whether it tends to reflect and reinforce the priorities of empire more than the lived realities of those on the margins. Drawing from his experience in East Africa and global theological conversations, he challenges us to consider whether our language, models, and interventions unintentionally center control, stability, and external expertise over what he believes is the gospel imperative of love, justice, dignity, and the flourishing of all.
He proposes that Gospel shalom impels a shift in imagination:
What if, instead of “peacebuilding,” we sought the common good?
This reframing invites us to move beyond technical solutions and toward a more relational, grounded, and justice-oriented vision—one shaped not from the center outward, but from the margins inward.
Zac’s voice is both deeply pastoral and sharply prophetic. He resists easy answers, invites honest questioning, and reminds us that faith is not about maintaining certainty or control, but about learning to live truthfully and attentively in a broken world—especially learning from those who suffer most within it.
Reflection questions:
As you prepare for our conversation, you might reflect on:
Where has the language or practice of peacebuilding shaped your work or imagination? What has been life-giving—and what might be limiting?
In what ways might our current peacebuilding frameworks unintentionally reflect the interests or assumptions of those at “the center” who exercise greater power and control?
What would it mean in your context to pursue the common good rather than “peacebuilding”? What shifts in posture, relationships, or goals might that require?
How do voices from the margins currently shape (or challenge) your understanding of peace, justice, and faith?
Zac often emphasizes asking honest, even unsettling questions as central to faith. What questions feel risky—but necessary—for you to name in this season?
Facilitators:
