Ultimately I believe in healing and reconciliation, but that requires truth and justice. When people call for “healing” ask what it is they mean? Does “healing” just mean silencing the anger of the oppressed? Does “healing” mean protecting the status quo and monopolies on power?

The “path to healing” requires a true diagnosis of the disease. It may require the removal of that which can’t be healed. It requires the application of medicines and therapies that rewire and retrain the body. It requires dismantling old ways of living and developing new ones.

In scripture God often calls people to remember the past and where they’ve been and what it is God has brought them through; but God never asks people to “go back”. God always leads them forward. Even if they are returning to a former place, they are to return a changed people.

So healing cannot be a return to the status quo. The status quo is precisely what we need to heal from.