Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 7656 Plough Quarterly • Summer 2015 Dale, a man in my church, showed up one day to a Bible study I was leading on the Sermon on the Mount. Within minutes, he raised objections to my take on Jesus’ teaching. When I tried to respond, he appeared satisfied, and the next week he showed up again, this time with a couple of his buddies. But almost before we began, the arguments started flying. Soon Dale was accusing me of teaching a false, socialistic gospel. I ended the session earlier than usual, and afterward suggested to Dale that he find some other Bible study to attend. He stormed out. A few days later Dale asked to meet me for lunch. Was this a setup? I hated conflict. Would the ranting continue? But our meeting began in a surprising way. Dale apologized for his behav- ior – he felt bad for being a disturbance, though it was clear he still thought I was off-base. Then he went on to talk about his past: how his father had been blown to bits in Vietnam, how his mother drank herself to death, how he managed to put himself through college on an ROTC scholarship, and how he proudly served in the Army for four years. At one point in the conver- sation, his eyes welled up and he looked at me with a helpless, boyish expression. He told me that I didn’t have to worry about him coming around anymore and abruptly said he had to go. I never saw Dale again. A couple of years later I decided to move to Denver’s inner city with some friends from seminary. We started working with a nearby church ministry that provided people on the street a kind of living room that served free coffee day and night. Joe, the pastor of the church, didn’t appreciate our growing presence. It didn’t take long before we were accused of stealing sheep. In the face-to-face confronta- tion that followed, Joe wouldn’t budge, and Charles E. Moore is a member of the Bruderhof community in Esopus, New York, and editor of ­ Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt’s Everyone Belongs to God, a new book from Plough (see page 70). The Blessings of Conflict P E A C E M A K I N G W I T H I N C O M M U N I T Y C H A R L E S E . M O O R E Photograph by Varun Iyer