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Dear Friends:
Welcome to a new calendar year in service to Christ
and Christ's Church! I pray that even this 'ordinary
time' will be a time of faithfulness in our various
ministries and one in which significant strides are
made towards enacting God's will for just and
sustainable peace in our troubled world.
We have covenented with God and one another to
sustain this fellowship through our prayers,
financial stewardship, and common friendship in
Christ. I hope that this brief monthly newsletter
helps us to be mindful of God, of one another, and
of our commitment to the EP.
John McFadden, editor
Brimlow on Hitler
Robert Brimlow’s new book, What About Hitler?
Wrestling with Jesus’ Call to Nonviolence in an Evil
World (Brazos
Press), is a much needed treatment of one of the
challenges most often put to defenders of pacifism,
Christian or otherwise. Through critical
engagements with just-warriors old and new, probing
analysis of the character and motivations behind
recent terrorist activity, a creative display of
Hitler’s humanity, and biblical interrogations of
Bonhoeffer, Orwell and Ghandi on “successful”
resistance to violence, Brimlow provides timely
resources for all seeking to live peaceably in a
violent world. Perhaps most importantly, What
About Hitler?’s critical and constructive
proposals are set within the context of biblical
meditations and personal narratives that make this
book, and the “answer” it provides, an atypical
display of rigorously prayerful and thus vibrant
theology.
Stanley Hauerwas has said Brimlow answers the Hitler
question in the only possible honest way, and for
those of us committed to Christian nonviolence in
this dark time, Brimlow has indeed helped us see a
way forward. But challenges, both intellectual and
practical, of course remain. Discussion about the
adequacy of Brimlow’s treatment of the Hitler
question, and his encouragement for Christians to
“grow stronger in our faith” and become peacemakers
in all aspects of all our lives, is now underway.
Join in the conversation at the book discussion forum of EP’s website.
Scott Prather, Aberdeen, U.K.
(The idea for this book originated with extensive
email conversations among early EP endorsers about
this question which pacifists are always asked.)
Meet the EP
Clark and Miriam Hock have been in pastoral
work for
nearly 50 years. Presently Clark is serving a
United Church of Christ congregation in Mercersburg
(Franklin County) Pennsylvania. They have been
working within the UCC since 1965. Before beginning
pastoral work in Mercersburg, they spent twenty
years in Annapolis, Maryland and fourteen years in
Olivet, Michigan.
Clark and Miriam learned about EP through the
writings of Stanley Hauerwas, then looked up the EP
website. Both Miriam and Clark grew up in
congregations of the Brethren in Christ and did
pastoral work with that denomination for about ten
years. Clark received his seminary education at
Lancaster Theological Seminary. Miriam has been a
mother, teacher, nurse and nurse practitioner. They
are the parents of four children and grandparents to
eight. Last March, Clark made a presentation to the
local group of United Church of Christ clergy
entitled, “Becoming Church in a Perverted
Generation: A Visit to the Ekklesia Project.” The
presentation focused on Hauerwas’ call to the
‘called out people’, the 1999 Ekklesia Declaration,
churchly practices and Christian formation, and “Oh,
What Friends We Have in Jesus.”
Gathering News
Mark your calendars
now for this year’s Summer Gathering,
July 16-18 in Chicago. The focus of our
gathering this summer will be congregational
formation, and more specifically, what it means
for congregations to think of themselves as
communities of formation and some of the challenges
of living that out day to day. One way we will
address these matters is by being in conversation
with many of those who are currently part of EP’s
Congregational Formation Initiative,
discerning together what wisdom they have to offer
us about these important matters.
The planning team for this year’s gathering
is: Sharon Huey, Jim McCoy, Sally Johnson, David
Butzu, Brent Laytham, and Phil Kenneson
Please keep these folks in your prayers, and please
plan on being a part of this summer’s gathering.
You’ll be hearing plenty about the gathering in the
coming months in this newsletter, and the planning
team will also be soliciting your input. Stay tuned!
EP Finances
Where does the money go?? After crunching
the final numbers, we hope to make
available to EP endorsers a full financial report for the
2006 fiscal year.
In the meantime, we would like to draw your
attention to a new page on our website. Listed in
the main menu, you'll see a link labeled "Participate." Click and it will
take you to a page describing numerous ways to
participate in the work of The Ekklesia Project.
Thank
you for your continued involvement and
support.
Upload Your Picture!
At the end of December, the EP website was
breached by an unauthorized third party (i.e.,
hacked). Thanks to the quick work of our
webmaster, Kevin Poorman, no major damage was
done. But unfortunately, we lost all the pictures
endorsers had uploaded into their profiles.
We hope those of you who had previously posted
your pictures will upload them again -- and we hope
those of you who never did, to take this opportunity
to do so!
Uploading your picture is easy:
- On the website,
click on "User Details" in
the main menu (visible after you have logged on).
- Click "Edit" at the top of the page.
- Click "Update Your Image."
- "Browse" to the place on your computer
where you have your favorite picture of yourself.
- Click on it.
- Click "Upload."
That should do it! We look forward to "seeing" you
on the website.
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As always, we welcome your feedback and, more
importantly, your participation. If you have ideas,
time, or a willingness to serve, email us.
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