Date of Award

4-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2023.

Degree Name

Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL)

Director

James Nati

Abstract

In places globally and locally, people will likely find some sense of division, and/or violence in the world they live. There might be conflict in their homes, workplaces, schools, and places of worship but not limited to those areas. In the 1960’s, psychologist Marshall Rosenberg first developed Nonviolent Communication (NVC) amid the United States of America, starting the work with youth and then spreading to include school integration. NVC has found success in places with histories of violence – among families, prisons, warring tribes, and ethnic/racial groups. As NVC has been witnessed bring greater peace, understanding, and reconciliation to these relationships, its founder and participants have attested to NVC as a spirituality that has crossed across multiple faith backgrounds. This thesis studies NVC’s intention, mindset, and method, as a spirituality. More specifically, this thesis reflects on NVC as a Christian lived experience - finding its theological foundations in the systematic categories of hermeneutics, paterology, Christology, pneumatology, theological anthropology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. As the Christian lived experience of NVC transforms the individual and effects other aspects of the spiritual life, this thesis concludes how NVC may be an additive hermeneutic to the field of biblical scholarship in nonviolently reading Scripture that contains violence. In this regard, NVC holistically provides a way for humankind to answer Christ’s call to the ministry of reconciliation.

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