Contested peace and Christian praxis: Leos u nate for ecclesial reconciliation

Abstract

Peace language can sustain Christian reconciliation, but it can also conceal unresolved injury when churches equate harmony with silence. This article examines how leos u nate, a Minahasan-Tombulu moral vocabulary of peace in the heart and communal well-being, is interpreted and contested as a resource for ecclesial reconciliation in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. This study analyses how selected Christian actors mobilise leos u nate in relation to institutional rhetoric, local mediation, memory, truth-telling, accountability and solidarity. The research situates the analysis in a regional ecclesial-cultural field in North Sulawesi, with one observed congregational site in Tomohon and interviews with adult church, cultural and community actors. A qualitative empirical practical-theological design was used. The dataset comprised 25 adult interviews, 3 non-intrusive observations, and 5 church-related documents and analytical memos. Reflexive thematic analysis was interpreted through critical inculturation and postcolonial hermeneutics. The analysis constructs four themes: instrumentalised harmony and structural silencing, authentic restoration through local space and time, collective memory and the refusal of theological amnesia, and organic solidarity as embodied peace praxis. The article concludes that leos u nate deepens Christian reflection on shalom when communities link it to truth, memory and justice, but harms reconciliation when institutional power captures it.
Contribution: The article contributes to empirical practical theology by showing how a North Sulawesi moral grammar of peace functions ambivalently within Christian praxis: as restorative reconciliation when linked to memory, truth and solidarity, and as structural silencing when captured by institutional power.