Abstract:
The Marcan account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, cursing the fig tree and
overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple provides a classic scriptural
reference point for a Christian discussion of conflict. Drawing on psychological type theory
and on the reader perspective proposed by the SIFT (sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking)
approach to biblical hermeneutics and liturgical preaching, this study tests the theory that
different psychological types will interpret this classic passage differently. Data collected in
two residential programmes concerned with Christianity and conflict from type-aware
participants confirmed characteristic differences between the approaches of sensing types and
intuitive types and between the approaches of thinking types and feeling types.