Peace Among the Peoples: Overcoming the Spirit, Logic, and Practice of Violence

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Peace Among the Peoples: Overcoming the Spirit, Logic, and Practice of Violence

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Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary will host an ecumenical peace conference July 28-31, 2010, focusing on contemporary North American responses to war. Christian peacemakers of all traditions and disciplines are invited to attend this event.

Peace Among the Peoples is a preparatory meeting for the World Council of Churches’ 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation. This gathering will seek to reinvigorate conversation on war and peace by building on the recent work of the U.S. Decade to Overcome Violence Committee and peace dialogues facilitated by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA in the 1990s under the title “The Apostolic Character of the Church’s Peace Witness.” In large and small group settings, participants will dream, discern and strategize next steps for creating a more unified peace witness in North America as well as encouraging our churches to become peace churches. Results of the meeting will be presented at the NCCCUSA General Assembly in November 2010 and the 2011 Peace Convocation.

The event will include presentations from leading thinkers, such as Stanley Hauerwas, Rita Nakashima Brock and Brian McLaren. Discussions on the contemporary issues of just policing, responsibility to protect, nuclear weapons, and chaplaincy will include dynamic exchanges between presenters and listeners. There will also be deliberative working sessions on current ecumenical

efforts, like the Truth Commission on Conscience in War, the status of conciliar peace dialogue, and the formation of a North American Ecumenical Peace Center. Morning prayer and evening confessional worship will frame the beginning and the ending of each day. Preachers include Vincent Harding, Mary Jo Leddy, Leonid Kishkovsky and John Perkins.

The character of the participant body will be ecumenical and interdisciplinary. Some academics, activists, clergy, peace fellowships and peacemaking organizations are currently involved in the work of Christian Peace Witness, while many are unfamiliar with this group’s work. Because Christian Peace Witness will not hold an annual gathering this summer, Peace Among the Peoples can be seen as an alternative setting for this group to assemble. Disciplinary groups - academics, activists, clergy and peace fellowships - as well as interdisciplinary groups will be given opportunities to meet during meal times. These conversations will seek to promote collaboration among disciplines by assessing the interests and needs of each group.

Conference registration is now available. The event schedule and detailed program information are also posted on the conference website at: www.peace2010.net.