The Peacemaker
69. Ken Sande, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, 3rd ed.
This book is exactly what its title suggests: Sande explores the nature of conflict through Christian teachings and the Bible. There is indeed a substantial section on how to resolve conflicts, including practical steps to take and real-life examples of how they might work. But this book also discusses why people have conflicts in the first place, how each person can minimize his own role in a conflict, and how Christian virtues (particularly humility and patience) can help to produce mutually beneficial resolutions.
I’ll admit that I approached this book with a certain amount of contempt; I thought it wouldn’t have much to say other than “Be nice to people and treat them respectfully.” In a nutshell, this is the message of the book. However, I was surprised by how much I still learned from it, especially regarding my own weaknesses. The best chapter in the book, in my opinion, was the one about “idols,” which can be anything that a person desires more than God (or, if you prefer, anything that a person desires to a disordered degree). I would recommend reading this book, provided of course that you don’t mind explicit statements of Christian values.
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Also, a random side note: the book title I mentioned in a previous post, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, is actually from the Bible: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV). I love titles that are allusions to other works of literature. It always gives me a little thrill of satisfaction when I find out where a particular title is from. :)