218 Chapter 6 all, Wolterstorff’s (2004) shalom idea had struck her. She was not familiar with it before, but she found it a very beautiful concept ‘to pass along for Christian education in the pluralistic society’ because ‘it puts peace and social justice at the centre and urges students to be agents of shalom’. With the latter, she meant that the shalom idea motivates Christian students and teachers to do good and to seek what is necessary to do good, not to walk away when things get complicated, especially in contexts of high diversity and complexity. The shalom idea helped the conversational community to define the central telos or goal of Christian citizenship formation as a quest for ‘shalom-seeking citizenship’. Wolterstorff’s (2004) shalom idea resembles the Biblical calling of the Christian teacher that appeals to his or her individual and personal responsibility. The criterion for shalom-seeking citizenship is that it seeks peace and the establishment or restoration of connections—with God (as a foundational relation), with others and with the whole of creation. Because of this, shalomseeking citizenship is subjectifying by nature. 6.2.4 The voice of normative theology The fact that the shalom idea motivated the members of the conversational community to strive for a WCD approach from a Biblical perspective and with a Biblical telos becomes even clearer when discerning the voice of normative theology in the meetings. This voice of normative theology was brought in by every member of the conversational community due to each meeting starting and closing with a devotion (Bible study and prayer) in which all of the members participated. The members were free to relate topics from the meetings to what was, for them, normative—above all, the Bible. In the fifth, sixth and 16th meetings, this led to choices immediately connected to the shalom idea: Jeremiah 29: 1–7, Isaiah 32: 1–8, Isaiah 35. All three passages belong to the Old Testament prophets and highlight the need to do good, even in unfortunate circumstances and times of hardship. In Jeremiah, the unfortunate circumstance is the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people. The call to pray for the city and strive for its wellbeing, which the Jews knew from Psalm 122, where it was applied to Jerusalem, is applied by Jeremiah to the hostile Babylonian empire, which must have been shocking for the receivers of his letter. Isaiah 32 concerns the hardship of injustices and poverty on Earth. It presents a vision of the messianic kingdom in which all of these injustices will be rectified. Isaiah 35 elaborates on this vision. It succeeds in Chapter 34, in which bad leadership leaves the world a desert. Educational systems can foster injustices, as a member of the conversational community explained, which may cause a ‘desert feeling’. Christian teachers, however, have to raise their heads and long for the vision. Their practicing of the gospel may seem
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