A Peacemaking Vision: Risks and Realities in a Post-Christian Context
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The London Mennonite Centre is dedicated to embodying Mennonite and Anabaptist ideas and insights within the wider church and cultivating Christian discipleship as a whole way of life.
The London Mennonite Centre works with institutions, congregations, groups and individuals to explore ways to:
- know and follow Jesus in all areas of life
- use the Bible as a guide for faith and practice
- learn from Mennonite and wider Believers' Church traditions
- shape congregations into communities of worship and hope
Visit the London Mennonite Centre site at
www.menno.org.uk
Upcoming Seminar at the London Mennonite Centre:
Peacemaking is an inherent part of the Christian life. Gene Stoltzfus was involved in the founding of Christian Peacemaker Teams and was the director for 16 years until his retirement. Peacemaking as worked out by CPT includes serious training in the arts of nonviolence, negotiations, human rights work, media, and the integration of Christian spirituality on a day to day basis. CPT also works hard at developing team work and appreciates the importance of diversity within team life including gender equality. Through their work peacemakers come to fresh and deep understandings of who God is. Peacemakers who engage in risk also develop new appreciation for Jesus ministry in the villages of first century Palestine and a witness that leads to conditions where their own death is a possible outcome.
This seminar will attempt to answer some of the following questions. How do peacemaker teams work as a practical process in the field? Is it possible to think about a global army of Christian peacemakers? How does Christian activism affect our faith? How does Christian peacemaking link into our post Christian culture, the individualism of the human rights culture? What might a Christian peacemaking vision look like in Europe? What is worship like in the context of peacemaking?
Saturday 24 January 2009, at the LMC
9:30 a.m. - 4.00 p.m.
Fee: £30 (£15 unwaged)
Fee includes VAT and meal
C-C seminar No 320
RSVP to hosts at menno.org.uk
Recommended reading: Christian Peacemaker Teams web site and Gene Stoltzfus blog: http://peaceprobe.wordpress.com.
Books:In Harms' Way: A History of Christian Peacemaker Teams by Kathleen Kern by Kathleen Kern, 118 Days: Christian Peacemaker Team Held Hostage in Iraq by Tricia Gates Brown, Getting in the Way: Stories From Christian Peacemaker Teams by Tricia Gates Brown (Ed.), At-Tuwani Journal: Hope and Nonviolent Action in a Palestinian Village by Arthur G Gish, Iraq: A Journey of Hope and Peace by Peggy Gish, Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking by Arthur G Gish, Hostage in Iraq by Norman Kember
Gene Stoltzfus has been involved in Christian peacemaking efforts since before that word was used in the modern peace vocabulary, beginning with five years as a civilian worker in Viet Nam in the 1960s, continuing with several years in the Philippines and elsewhere in South East Asia with Mennonite Central Committee in the 1970s. He lived in Chicago IL for 25 years where CPT began in the 1980s. He now lives in Canada with his wife Dorothy Friesen.