|
|
|
|
IN THIS ISSUE....
*Haiti
*The Hope of All the World
*Gathering 2010
*The Prophetic Imagination
*Early Christianity in North Africa
*Immigration Witness
|
|
|
| Haiti's Soil & Soul
 As far as I know,
the most direct
connection EP has to Haiti is Louis Telcy, a Haitian minister of music in Naples, Florida, who came to our 2005 Gathering.
You don't need The Ekklesia Project to remind you to pray for the Haitian
church and people. We are already doing that, and I'm confident we are praying, as Debra Dean Murphy exhorts in her eloquent blog, "with our hands and feet, our sweat and tears, our time and money."
Our prayers for Haiti need to be more than just triage after a sudden crisis. As the Prichard's article (in the Evangelicals for Social Action newsletter) shows, the problem with Haiti is not its soul but its soil. Things didn't first go wrong when the earth shook last week, but in the last few decades as the soil slid down the mountains after deforestation and as the best arable land was expropriated to service foreign debt. For now the earthquake is the crisis of the week, and we must pray and care with immediacy and focus. But Haiti's crisis has become perpetual, so let our praying and caring have enough perspective to see the larger ecological and economic problems in Haiti, and enough patience to stay engaged long after the Red Cross has moved to the next emergency. | |
 "The Hope of All The World": The EP Responds
Our blog on President Obama's Nobel Prize speech and related issues of peace and war continues to draw contributions and responses. See new contributions from Rob Arner, Debra Dean Murphy, Danny Fong and Jeremiah Gibbs.
We invite you to join in this conversation by
contributing sermons, blogs, newsletter columns and other pieces you have already written in
the course of your teaching and preaching. Or
comment on one of the posted reflections.
|
"'And God Said...': Language, Wordcare and Radical Discipleship"
Gathering 2010 continues to develop. In addition to plenary speakers Steve Long, Therese Lysaught and Barry Harvey, we will have a Gathering writer, Debra Dean Murphy. We are still imagining all that this might mean, but we do know that Deb will help us prepare for the Gathering by framing language, wordcare and discipleship in writing. Sharon Huey and Grace Fellowship will lead one of our worship services. Workshops on worship words and language in politics are confirmed. We may even have a cake to celebrate Stanley Hauerwas' 70th birthday during the pizza party (but don't tell Hauerwas; it might scare him away).
We will meet on the campus of DePaul University in Chicago July 6-8 (Tuesday to Thursday). We hope to have registration instructions next month. |
Nuturing the Prophetic Imagination
Point Loma Nazarene University
The Center for Justice and Reconciliation at Point Loma Nazarene University invites you to attend their upcoming conference, Nurturing the Prophetic Imagination, March 24-26 2010. Speakers include Bill McKibben, Kathleen Norris, Michael Eric Dyson, Emmanuel Katongole and Bill Cavanaugh.
The conference will explore various dimensions of the prophetic imagination, especially around the three key movements or stages of encounter with the prophetic imagination:
* dissatisfaction with and critique of dominant culture;
* taking responsibility for and learning to lament the extent to which we have been complicit with the sinful and destructive forces of the dominant culture;
* creatively and hopefully envisaging new modes of being the church in the world and new ways of embodying God's will for the world.
For more information, visit their website.
|
 Book Review: Early Christianity in North Africa
If you enjoy reading early church history, then I would recommend the
recently translated Early Christianity in North Africa by Francois
Decret (Cascade, 2009). Decret is one of the foremost authorities on North
African Christianity and this volume is a very accessible overview of an
oft-neglected region of early Christianity. The book is a quick read but offers
nuanced presentations of North African Church origins, Tertullian, and Cyprian
and the third-century persecutions. I especially found his presentation of the
Donatist controversy balanced and enlightening.
reviewed by Jon Stock
|
Immigration Witness
Our friend Craig Wong, who is a board member of the Christian Community Development Association, invites EPers to a day of education, witness and action around immigration reform in Pheonix on January 26, 2010. The day will include biblical teaching with Danny Carroll, shared meal and stories with immigrant families, and public witness at a temporary detention facility. For more information or to indicate that you will be joining them, please e-mail Allison Johnson at ajohnson@sojo.net.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
