VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 3/8/11)—The Bible Study Manual on Conflict Transformation authored by Dan Buttry, IM’s global consultant for Peace and Justice, is now available in eight languages: English, Cantonese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Burmese and Italian. Additional translations are in process.
The Bible Study Manual is a leader’s guidebook (70 pages) and is comprised of 17 sessions that deal with four basic areas of conflict between people: Analysis of Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Mainstreams and Margins, and Nonviolent Transforming Initiatives. The sessions are participatory using activities and role-playing to illustrate concepts. Leaders also receive guidance on this style of teaching in the Introduction.
The manuals are available in various formats. The electronic files and permissions for use are available for $5 for the English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Arabic versions. Printed copies of the Burmese and Cantonese versions in notebooks are available for $10, including shipping. Checks should be made payable to “Dan Buttry” and sent to him at 2300 Neibel St., Hamtramck, MI 48212.
As IM’s global consultant for peace and justice, Buttry works with missionaries and national church partners around the world to deal constructively with conflict situations. These conflicts may be social and political conflicts within a country, or they may be conflicts within the national church bodies that negatively impact Christian witness.
Buttry provides the following commentary on this Bible Study Manual:
“All my conflict transformation training is rooted in Biblical teaching, and many times the Bible comes front-and-center in the training program. I’ve taught from Exodus 3 about conflict being ‘holy ground.’ I’ve turned to stories in Joshua 22, 1 Samuel 25 and Acts 15 to learn about finding win/win solutions to our conflicts. As we explore the dynamics of dealing with differences between group mainstreams and margins, we learn from the positive actions from the mainstream and the margins in the conflict in Acts 6 as well as how the margins raised their voices in Esther 4 and 2 Samuel 21. Then we turn to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 to explore nonviolent ways of confronting oppressive expressions of power.”
“After years of teaching from the Bible about conflict transformation, friends in Burma asked me to write a Bible study manual so they could carry on the teaching in their own churches. So the study was translated and the first of three Burmese editions was released. The first edition was carefully bound in duct tape, a copy of which I will always treasure!”
“As I continued training around the world, many of our partners translated the Bible Study Manual on Conflict Transformation into their own languages. Editions were published in Cantonese, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. An Italian version was prepared in time for the 2009 Global Baptist Peace Conference in Rome. In Bolivia a special bound Spanish edition was produced, En Busca de Paz, with an introductory essay on the Bolivian context by Bolivian theologian Mario Rivas and IM missionary Mario Morales. Later IM missionary Ruth Mooney produced a revised Spanish edition. Discussions continue about translating the resource into many other languages as people have found it so useful in their settings, including many of my IM missionary colleagues.”
American Baptist Churches is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with 5,500 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world