April 2012
Ekklesia Project News
In This Issue
  • Poetry and Art
  • Gathering 2012 Registration
  • New on bLOGOS 
  • Meet the EP: Aaron Weldon

 

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Ekklesia Project Website   

 

the Ekklesia Project
 
A Blessed
Holy Week
and a Joyous
Feast
of the
Resurrection
to our
EP friends
 
  

Ecce Homo
Andrew Hudgins

 

Christ bends, protects his groin. Thorns gouge

his forehead, and his legs
are stippled with dried blood. The part of us
that's Pilate says, Behold the man.
We glare at that bound, lashed,
and bloody part of us that's Christ. We laugh, we howl,
we shout. Give us Barabbas,
not knowing who Barabbas is, not caring.
A thief? We'll take him anyway. A drunk?
A murderer? Who cares? It's better him
Than this pale ravaged thing, this god. Bosch knows.
His humans waver, laugh, then change to demons
as if they're seized by epilepsy. It spreads
from eye to eye, from laugh to laugh until,
incited by the ease of going mad,
they go. How easy evil is! Dark voices sing,
You can be evil or you can be good,
but good is dull, my darling, good is dull.
And we're convinced: How lovely evil is!
How lovely hell must be! Give us Barabbas!

 

Lord Pilate clears his throat and tries again:
I find no fault in this just man.
It's more than we can bear. In gothic script
our answer floats above our upturned eyes.
O crucify, we sing. O crucify him!

myth of violence

Hieronymus Bosch, Ecce Homo, 15th c.

 

Gathering 2012 - July 5-7 - Chicago

Slow Church: Abiding Together in the Patient Work of God 

 

Register Now using our registration page! You can choose to pay when you register using a credit card, or to pay later by sending a check or bringing one to the Gathering. As always, financial assistance circulates through EP. Persons with need should contact Brent Laytham for details. Persons who want to contribute may do so at the registration page.

 

Plenaries:

  •  Jonathan Wilson roots 'slow church' in divine patience
  • A  public conversation about slow church between Kyle Childress and Stanley Hauerwas
  • Phil Kenneson explores 'slow church' in congregational practices

Worship leaders this year include friends from Redeemer, Grace, and Sojourner (San Francisco) for the opening service, Englewood (Indianapolis) for the closing session, with Stan Wilson planning the footwashing and Monica Laytham as accompanist.

New on bLOGOS

 

Risen Indeed

By Joel Shuman

 
We in the Ekklesia Project talk a great deal about the Kingdom of God: about participating in the building of that Kingdom, about the establishment of
justice and peace that are the hallmarks of the Kingdom. I believe we are 
right in doing so. We would also do well, I believe, to heed Barth's admonition Resurrectionnot to forget that the real enemy of that Kingdom is death. It is death - and especially the fear of death - that keeps us from resisting injustice and violence. 
 
The late Pope John Paul II maintained that our world is dominated by a culture of death. He pointed to our frivolous attitude toward life, our cheapening of the gift of life, and our easy embrace of medicalized killing as evidence that we have forgotten that death is an enemy. In fact, our disposition toward death is paradoxical: even as we rush into death or push others headlong into it, we spend an inordinate amount of time and money struggling against it. Either way, we betray in our actions and attitude a failure to acknowledge that only God has the power to defeat death, and that God has indeed already done so by raising Jesus from the dead. 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Back by popular demand on bLOGOS are "Signs of the Times": timely, theological engagements with the powers and principalities, with the contingincies and events that all too easily masquerade as the true makers of history.Look for new, varied content weekly.

Meet the EP: Aaron Weldon

 

I grew up in Lubbock, TX, and my family lives in the West Texas/Panhandle area.
I graduated from Texas A&M with a BS, married my wife Lindsay, and moved to Pasadena, CA. We lived there for three years while I studied for the M Div at Fuller Theological Seminary. While there, we belonged to Pasadena Mennonite Church My studies focused in part on ecclesiology and Anabaptist theology. We were deeply touched by Anabaptist theology, particularly as articulated amv

by John Howard Yoder, and the Mennonite Church continues to be a source of inspiration for our family. While my wife studied for her MA in higher education administration atBoston College, we were received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Currently, we live with our 10 month old son Elijah Thomas in Washington, DC, where I am studying for the PhD in systematic theology at the Catholic University of America and my wife works at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. We belong to the Shrine of the Sacred Heart parish, which is a wonderful Christian community.

 

In terms of significant influences, I would name Stanley Hauerwas - reading him and Yoder made a big impact on how I understand church; Joseph Ratzinger - he's primarily a theological influence, but I also admire his patience and sobriety; Alasdair MacIntyre - an intellectual influence whose accounts of virtue and community have also been helped me in ordering my own life; St. Thomas Aquinas - of course, he's the patron saint of theologians and perhaps the greatest of theologians, but I find myself drawn to the single-minded devotion to God with which he pursued the intellectual/contemplative life; St. Teresa of Avila - while not a mystic myself, I admire her perseverance in prayer.

 

Hauerwas mentions the EP at the end of A Better Hope, so I learned about it by reading him. Every summer since I became an endorser, I have hoped to attend the yearly Gathering, but something always came up. Even so, just knowing that there are people who would be involved with the EP has been a source of strength for me and my family.
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The Ekklesia Project is a network of Christians from across the Christian tradition who rejoice in a peculiar kind of friendship rooted in our common love of God and the Church. We are convinced that to call ourselves Christian means that following Jesus Christ must shape all areas of life.