Conflict arises from many sources, yet its genesis is always in the mind. It begins as a perception, such as a need unmet, an injustice endured, an imbalance that demands correction. But perception is a double-edged sword. Just as the human mind possesses the boundless capacity to innovate and shape reality with creativity and vision, it can just as powerfully distort, turning its extraordinary potential toward destruction.
Within this duality lies the heart of the human struggle: the same mind that dreams of peace can conjure discord, the same intellect that builds bridges can burn them. Conflict, then, is not merely an external reality, but an internal battle — a reflection of the stories we tell ourselves and the meanings we assign to the world.
My prayer is that we begin to show each other the love of Christ and “love your neighbour as yourself”.
I am a former director of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s dispute-resolution program (DRP). The DRP was part of the City Attorney’s community-justice initiative, and focused on promoting equitable resolutions to disputes, and fostering community trust across the city of Los Angeles. I worked closely with the LAPD, elected officials, faith leaders, activists, and community members.
A key aspect of my work involved bridging gaps between law enforcement and the communities they serve. This included designing and facilitating dialogue that addressed racial inequity in policing, building trust, and improving relationships between stakeholders. I also worked on disputes ranging from neighbour-to-neighbour conflicts to larger-scale issues of public concern and racial inequity, such as homelessness, and the city’s response to protest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
I was blessed to see the programme garner recognition for its transformative impact, and I continue to advise municipalities across the country on community relations and police-reform strategies.
I currently serve as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, where I have the privilege of sharing my expertise in dispute resolution and organisational leadership. I teach both online and on-campus courses through the Caruso School of Law and the School of Public Policy, offering classes such as Cross-Cultural Negotiation, Restorative Justice, and Basic Mediation Theory and Practice.
In my courses, I emphasise the critical importance of cultural awareness, restorative practices, and the nuanced skills required to mediate and resolve complex disputes.
Beyond the classroom, I contribute to expanding Pepperdine’s reach and impact as the senior director of Strategic Development and Global Expansion. In this role, I lead initiatives to enhance the university’s accessibility and influence, including the development of online programmes that connect students from around the world.
This dual focus — teaching and strategic development — reflects my commitment to empowering the next generation of leaders in law, policy, and dispute resolution.
The skills I teach are accessible, and grounded in the everyday ways we navigate conflict. My goal is to provide a language and framework for these skills so that individuals can deploy them effectively, with greater awareness of timing and context.
I also serve on the board of the Western Justice Center, an organisation that empowers youth by training them to become peer mediators in their schools, fostering conflict-resolution from an early age.
Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to train mediators to address. One of the most impactful experiences was co-facilitating listening sessions for California’s State Water Resources Control Boards, engaging over 370 employees to address racial equity and create actionable strategies.
These experiences reflect my commitment to equipping individuals and organisations with the tools to approach conflict with empathy, clarity, and effectiveness, helping to foster a more just and harmonious society.
Many different theories inform conflict resolution: everything from human need and social identity to Game theory and others. They all seek to explain human dynamics, and some of the reasons that we find ourselves stuck in one way or another. I believe forgiveness and reconciliation can come out of conflict-resolution, but that is not a necessary condition for dialogue to be successful.
Oftentimes, what emerges is a deeper understanding of the other, along with a healthy respect for our differences. The result is that we can better understand how we can be in community with each other, while still respecting our differences.
The conflict that most concerns me isn’t in the news. It concerns the tension between our proposed selves as a global community and our current reality of being locked in power-based systems. As I see it, the higher version of ourselves, the version that is Christlike, calls us to love our neighbour. However, our reality is quite different. We are engaged in wars, directly and via proxy, driven by economics that set us up for win-lose outcomes.
The research I conducted for my dissertation focused on large-scale civil unrest and its impact on community hope, trust, and perceptions of police. Through that work, I’m developing a framework called hierarchical resonance theory (HRT) to explore how societal dynamics contribute to unrest.
HRT envisions society as a series of concentric loops of validation. At the outer rings, marginalised groups often experience systemic invalidation: their grievances are dismissed, and their voices unheard. Over time, this builds collective trauma and frustration. When a triggering event arises that validates these grievances and fosters collective efficacy, a shared belief in the power of unified action, it can lead to unrest.
Interestingly, societal reactions to tension are not uniform. Many feel deeply unsettled, while others remain steadfast, holding to the belief that democracy, for all its imperfections, is still functional.
Partial validation through media discourse, institutional responses, or perceived procedural fairness, can diffuse tensions, offering groups on different sides a measure of hope or satisfaction. This prevents collective energy from converging into a single, explosive tipping point. Instead, emotional grievances are often dispersed across rhetorical clashes, reducing the likelihood of widespread violence.
Fragmented hope and the resilience of procedural mechanisms also play a role in mitigating societal pressure. While systemic issues remain unresolved, these mechanisms can channel frustration into dialogue rather than destruction. It’s a delicate balance — enough validation to ease tensions, yet not enough structural change to fully address the root causes.
From a spiritual perspective, this underscores a deeper truth: no matter how turbulent the world may feel, God is on the throne. Leadership changes, conflicts rise and fall, yet we are called to remain faithful. Scripture reminds us to pray for our leaders, no matter their political party, because their authority is ultimately under God’s plan. My belief is that, even when society feels fractured, God’s presence holds everything together. In that assurance, I find hope — not just for today, but for the future of our communities and the world.
Forgiveness has the potential to resolve disputes across faiths and cultures when approached with sensitivity to differing values and relational dynamics. Many traditions like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism see forgiveness as a pathway to healing and spiritual growth; but its meaning and application can vary across belief systems. In honour-based cultures, forgiveness might be framed as a way to restore collective dignity, supported by public acknowledgment or rituals that preserve individual honour and standing in the community. Similarly, in cultures that view forgiveness as weakness, it can be reframed as a strength or an act of courage and moral superiority that elevates rather than diminishes the forgiver.
From a spiritual perspective, forgiveness transcends cultural boundaries when it is seen as an act of faith in something greater. This can be divine grace, shared humanity, or the power of reconciliation.
Ultimately, forgiveness is not weakness, but a transformative force that humanises the other, breaks cycles of retribution, and creates opportunities for renewed relationships. As we look to align forgiveness with both justice and strength, it can become a universal bridge for healing and unity.
Forgiveness, at its core, is deeply personal, and can be seen as a profound act of release and renewal that often stems from an individual’s decision to let go of pain, anger, or resentment. Spiritually, it can be an acknowledgment of our shared human fallibility and a step toward alignment with higher principles, such as grace, compassion, and love. From this perspective, forgiveness can be seen as a path to inner peace, a way to free oneself from the burdens of the past while stepping into the possibility of renewal and transformation.
However, when forgiveness moves beyond the individual and into the structural or national realm, it becomes a collective ethos, a moral and spiritual stance adopted by a community or society. This kind of forgiveness is less about absolving specific wrongdoers and more about creating a framework for reconciliation and healing. So, nations emerging from conflict, such as South Africa, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, have shown that structural forgiveness can become a tool for rebuilding trust, fostering unity, and addressing systemic injustices.
This approach does not erase wrongdoing but acknowledges it in a way that allows communities to move forward together, grounded in shared humanity and a vision for collective restoration.
Spiritually, structural forgiveness calls on the same principles as individual forgiveness but amplifies them. It requires a collective humility; a recognition that no one person or group holds the ultimate claim to righteousness and a collective hope, rooted in the belief that healing is possible even in the face of profound brokenness. This type of forgiveness challenges the societal soul to prioritise restoration over retribution, unity over division, and hope over despair.
Yet structural forgiveness cannot thrive unless and until individuals within the system also commit to the transformative power of grace. It is the fusion of individual and collective efforts that makes forgiveness sustainable on a larger scale. In this way, forgiveness becomes not just an act, but a culture; one that recognises the sacredness of every life and the interconnectedness of all people, ultimately reflecting divine love and justice in its most profound form.
So, forgiveness begins in the heart of the individual, but has the power to ripple outward, becoming a societal stance when enough hearts are aligned with the same vision of hope and renewal.
Forgiveness is not exclusively for the recipient of forgiveness, although they do benefit. But unless and until we can forgive, there is a piece of us that’s in misalignment to God’s will for our lives. There are levels to resolution, starting with separating the parties and stopping the harm, to identifying the issues and sorting that out, to dealing with the emotions underlying the issues, all the way through to opening the heart.
To non-believers, I would discuss this more generally. If you can’t open your heart, you’re not operating at your fullest potential, and that is in disservice to you and the world. So, forgiveness allows us to reclaim the energy that we spend in a close-hearted position. It allows us to be fully available for what God is sending our way.
To believers, I would add deeper context, because we are the beneficiaries of unmerited forgiveness. So, how, on the one hand, can we receive something for which we are not entitled, and, on the other, withhold it when we are empowered to grant it? I believe that withholding the gift we are empowered to give negates the grace of the one we are not entitled to receive. “To the sower, seed will be given.” We are to allow God’s goodness to flow through us . . . like life-giving waters. If we can get people to understand that, we may be on our way to heaven on earth.
I believe God’s truth is universal, existing before and transcending any theology, and speaks directly to the core of our shared humanity. Every person has a spirit, whether they believe in God or not, and that spirit is inherently attuned to the principles God has established.
On a practical level, it’s as simple as recognising a truth we all know: at some point, each of us has needed forgiveness. We’ve all fallen short, hurt someone we care about, and stood in the uncomfortable place of guilt.
If we can acknowledge that, then the capacity for empathy becomes undeniable. We’ve been there — knowing what it feels like to long for grace. And in that recognition lies the understanding not only of our own need to be forgiven, but also of the profound need to extend forgiveness to others. It’s a cycle of grace we’re all invited to participate in, both receiving and giving, as part of our shared journey.
I had the opportunity to spend time with the retired Chief Justice of Rwanda, Sam Rugege, when he visited Pepperdine. Justice Rugege played a pivotal role in the reunification of Rwanda following the devastation of the genocide. During our conversation, I asked him a question that had been on my mind: “How do people who have experienced such profound trauma find the strength to forgive those who caused it?”
His response was profound. He explained that Rwanda’s healing process hinged on a shift in identity — from being Tutsi or Hutu to simply being Rwandan. The message was clear: there was one Rwanda. That unity became the foundation for reconciliation.
There were, of course, the issues of defining justice and navigating fair and just outcomes. But Justice Rugege’s wisdom illuminated something deeply human. In conflict, we often see ourselves as fundamentally separate from the person we are at odds with. Worse, we dehumanise them to justify our actions, stripping away their personhood to protect our own perspective. But I’ve come to understand that an insult or injury isn’t truly about us — it’s about the other person. People act from their own scripts, shaped by their needs, fears, and pain. When they lash out, they often don’t see us as we truly are. Instead, we become a symbol in their narrative — an obstacle to overcome or a resource to exploit.
There is a quote in the Murambi Genocide Memorial by Felicien Ntabengwa that reads: “I yo uza kwimenya nanje ukamenya ntuba waranyishe.” In translation: “If you knew me, and if you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me.” The key, he shared, is recognising that separation is an illusion. When we truly see ourselves in the other, we understand that harm done to another ultimately harms us, too. This realisation transforms both apology and forgiveness. If my actions against you are also actions against myself, then my apology carries greater sincerity, and my forgiveness becomes more possible, even necessary.
Justice Rugege managed to inspire this profound perspective shift on a national scale. He helped people see their shared humanity, to understand that unity is the only path forward. And in that understanding, forgiveness gained traction — not as a weakness, but as a powerful tool for healing and rebuilding. When we embrace the truth that we are interconnected, the barriers to forgiveness begin to fall, and reconciliation becomes not just possible, but essential.
When I was a child, my father often brought my brother and me to the job sites where he worked. One of these places was a serene monastery called Serra Retreat, perched along the coast right against the Pacific Coast Highway, overlooking the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. I must have been about eight years old, and my brother and I would practically fight over who got to accompany our dad to that particular job. There was something special about Serra Retreat. The monks there were always gracious and kind, offering meals — breakfast, lunch, and sometimes even dinner, if the work ran late.
I vividly remember one visit when I was too young to be much help. My father, perhaps sensing I was getting a bit restless, gently said: “Why don’t you take a walk? I’ve got this.” And so I wandered off. As I walked the grounds, the beauty of the place captivated me. The day was perfect — clear blue skies, warm sunlight, and a gentle breeze. I came upon a garden, alive with colour and motion. A hummingbird buzzed about nearby, its wings a blur, while a butterfly floated lazily, its movements almost in slow motion.
Standing there, gazing across the ocean, I felt an overwhelming sense of awe. Everything seemed so vivid and so radiant as if the world itself was breathing. At that moment, I thought: “This must be what heaven is like.” And then, I knew, without a doubt, that God was with me. His presence was unmistakable, surrounding me, and filling that moment with peace and wonder.
I would now tell my eight-year-old self: Greatness is within you; fear nothing, and love the Lord.
Now, years later, I find myself working at Pepperdine University, just down the road from Serra Retreat. The views from campus are strikingly similar, and they often take me back to that childhood moment in the garden. Even today, I experience those same moments of closeness to God — those quiet yet powerful reminders of his greatness and his presence in my life. I’m deeply thankful for those moments, then and now, because they anchor me in his grace, and remind me just how profoundly God is at work in my life.
There are so many moments that I’m just humbled that I get to experience his presence, favour, grace, and mercy.
Injustice and exploitation of the weak or less powerful makes me angry. Being with family and seeing them smile makes me happiest.
My mother would always leave me with this blessing before we parted ways: “The Lord goes before you, making safe and prosperous your way.” She passed in 2021, but I still carry it with me.
My hope is and always remains in Christ.
I will celebrate Christmas with my family, in pyjamas in front of the fire with an eggnog latte.
I ask God for continued protection of my family and those that I’m in community with. I also thank God for his wisdom, and for him to continue to mould me into a perfect reflection of his idea of me.
If I were locked in a place of worship for a few hours, I would choose Daniel from the Bible as a companion. God spoke to him in many ways, and it just feels like he has a direct line to God’s heart. He also prayed so hard that he was visited by the Angel Gabriel. I’d love to experience worship with him.
Professor Shaphan Roberts was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.