The Northeast Asia Reconciliation Initiative is an emerging community of Christian leaders from Northeast Asia and the U.S. seeking to embody God’s vision of reconciliation. The initiative is a theological fueling station to inspire, form, and support practitioners, church leaders, and educators and scholars from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and the U.S. Through spaces of community and learning shaped by biblically-inspired content and methodologies, the goal is to nourish the Christian witness of peace and reconciliation across historical divides and current tensions in the region.

Whitney Wilkinson Arreche
Mariko Yakiyama at this year's Forum spoke of the Christian need for lament-laden healing, naming that 'Japanese society was built of a false peace.' In America, this false peace is paid for still by incarcerated people of color and the victims of police brutality, and strengthened by white Christians determined to speak only of reconciliation as relevant to the cross of Christ, and not the crosses still borne by so many today.
Whitney Wilkinson Arreche, Th.D candidate
NARI participants

The Christian Forum for Reconciliation in Northeast Asia

For Christian Leaders Who Are Passionate About Reconciliation

The core program of the Northeast Asia Initiative is the Christian Forum for Reconciliation in Northeast Asia, held annually. The forum is an intensive leadership institute based on the same model as the African Great Lakes Initiative and the Duke Summer Institute for Reconciliation. Through the program, participants engage in worship, relationship-building, learning, seminars, and engaging contextual challenges with fellow Christian leaders across many of the conflicts and divides of Northeast Asia. The forum’s pedagogical model is guided by a biblical framework of reconciliation featuring distinguished teachers, both practitioners and scholars.

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about The Christian Forum for Reconciliation in Northeast Asia
Strategic Partnerships

The Northeast Asia Initiative would not be possible without mutually transformative engagement with partner organizations and leaders who provide various gifts and resources to the initiative. Current partners with Duke Divinity School include:

  • Mennonite Central Committee
  • Representatives from the United Church of Christ in Japan, InterVarsity Korea, Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), and a number of universities and seminaries in Northeast Asia (including Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian)