ORIGINAL RESEARCH

 

The reconciliatory role of Holy Communion in the Methodist tradition

 

 

Wessel Bentley

Department of Philosophy and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, South Africa

Correspondence

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Violence is an instrument of segregation, whether it manifests physically, emotionally, verbally or by any other means. Can the church be an instrument of reconciliation where people have been divided through violence? This article explores the reconciliatory role of the Sacrament of Holy Communion in the Methodist tradition, which has as a Christian denomination, experienced many threats of division in its history. Holy Communion, it is argued, is the one place where people, who may find every reason not to be together, are invited to share in an event which unites them.

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Full text available only in PDF format.

 

 

Acknowledgements

Competing interests

The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.

 

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Correspondence:
Wessel Bentley
PO Box 905-1304
Garsfontein 0042
South Africa
Email: wbentley@telkomsa.net

Received: 26 Jan. 2011
Accepted: 02 Aug. 2011
Published: 18 Oct. 2011

 

 

Note: Dr Wessel Bentley is a part-time lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa.