When did peace become a peripheral issue? How can ministers read the Gospels and think peace is an optional topic? When Jesus preached, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he included preachers... When ministers are afraid to speak prophetically about peace they fail to be a voice for the Prince of Peace.
Read MoreOn Sunday, September 15, 3013 in Walnut Creek, California, a handmade peace pole was dedicated at Shell Ridge Community Church, a long-time Partner Congregation of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA). The peace pole was a project for Matthew Adams to acquire his Eagle Scout Award.
Read MoreThe Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America’s (BPFNA) board of directors met at Myers Park Baptist Church from September 19-21, 2013 in Charlotte to orient new board members and set the organizational tone for the upcoming year.
Read MoreWe can end hunger. What we lack is the political will. Children and adults go hungry in the world, not because we don’t have enough food, but because alleviating world hunger has not ranked high among the list of priorities of the rich nations of the world. This is not a human problem that we can’t figure out; it is not a disease that would require a revolution in agriculture or science. Those revolutions have already occurred. What is needed, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so accurately expressed 50 years ago, is a “revolution of values.”
Read MoreI’m feeling confused in general these days, especially about the threatened attack on Syria. We have a President who was elected in part because of his criticism of the war in Iraq, and a Secretary of State who had a hard time, originally, getting elected to the US Senate because earlier in his life he was an outspoken critic of the war in Vietnam. These two public figures are dual drum majors in the march to war with Syria, while many Republican war hawks are saying “hold on, not so fast.”
Read MoreAs “white” parents of “black” children through transracial adoption, we have become quite aware of our skin privilege. We US Americans live in a country where browner bodies have less value than paler bodies, where a dark-skinned Marissa Alexander can be sentenced in Florida to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot in front of her abusive ex-husband; while a lighter-skinned George Zimmerman can pursue an unarmed dark-skinned teenager, provoke a confrontation, and shoot him to death and be found “not guilty”. This is the world into which we send our boys.
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What does it mean to be “friends” with someone? How many friends do we have? Who are these people that we consider our friends and why do we consider them “friends” and not just “people we know” or “acquaintances”? In today’s world, with Facebook and other social media, people seem to have thousands of friends but really very few connections.
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¿Qué significa ser “amigo o amiga” de alguien? ¿Cuántos amigos o amigas tú tienes? ¿Quiénes son estas personas que consideramos amistades, pero amistades de verdad, de las buenas? No hablo de personas que conocemos o de compañeros y compañeras de trabajo; sino de AMISTADES; personas en las que podemos confiar y que confían en ti. Hoy día, con facebook y todas esas plataformas de conexión virtual, parece que las personas tenemos miles de “amigos”, pero en realidad hay muy poca conexión personal.
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Read MorePerhaps this is the radical hospitality I have to learn to practice – to welcome both the wheat and the tares into my heart -- to embrace and tell the lovely stories of grace along with the wrenching stories of unredeemed grief and the stories that I don’t yet know how to define or understand. I think this is also a practice of peace-making – both because I have to – we have to – make peace with the fact that this is the world in which we live – and because, if we are to act, it can only be by keeping our hearts open to both the deep, deep pain of this world and its deep, deep joy and beauty.
Read MoreFrom May 13-24, 2013 Lee McKenna and Evelyn Hanneman led a two-week Conflict Transformation Training of Trainers near Asheville, North Carolina. Over the course of this training, 13 people from Canada, the United States and Mexico shared a unique experience of training, learning, Bible Study and prayer that for many was indeed a transformative experience.
Read MoreBaptist peacemaking, like all peacemaking, is a scary thing, but it’s not fearful. A good part of that is because we know there are people like you and those you are having breakfast with today who understand that this way of life is the way of Jesus.
Read MoreLekil Kuxlejal. Abundant Life. When Dr. Amaury Tañón-Santos had the students at the Mayan Intercultural Seminary (SIM) in Chiapas, Mexico discuss different meanings of the word peace, this term emerged from the students and stood out from the rest.
Read MoreWhat has changed in a year? As I move about in the Tong Ping neighbourhoods of this town, the capital of this toddler country, three things stand out. The potholes are deeper. The gated, concertina wire-topped walls of the politicos’ compounds are higher and far more numerous. The smouldering heaps of street garbage more pervasive. And they impart a common message.
Read MoreI was elated when I received the invitation from the academic coordinator of SIM, The Rev. Dr. Doris García, to teach a course about biblical peace as found in Pauline literature. The course was going to be taught in a land I’ve only read about – a land I knew at a distance. These teaching ministry partnerships were essential for this experience that, in the end, ended up teaching me more than what I expect was learned in the classroom.
Read MoreOn a bright September Sunday, Harry, his sister Penny Reid and I arrived in the 9th ward for worship with Emmanuel’s partner church, Miracle Faith Healing and Deliverance Temple. Its location is a mere 15 minute drive from our lodging in the French Quarter, but a world apart.
Read MoreTens of thousands of people have been killed in the Philippines’ civil war. In tonight’s dinner conversation with a former leader of the New People’s Army, I hear some things I did not know before. I think I’m from a part of the world that, when People Power got rid of Marcos and his well-shod wife and the much-loved, sainted Cory took over, all was well. And we quit paying attention for awhile. My dinner companions cite one statistic after another to make their point: Cory was in many ways as obedient a puppet of U.S. interests as her predecessor ever was.
Read MoreI awaken to the early morning sounds of garbage removal workers outside my window. From the sitting room of the CPU hostel, I look out the window to see men in overalls tipping the week’s rubbish into large open containers on wheels, expecting to see amongst the driveway détritus the emaciated and bloodied corpse of one of the gang of felines engaged in the caterwauling Malthusian struggle of the early evening hours.
Read MoreThe site of the training is a short tuk-tuk ride from the pension house. It becomes clear as we begin that there is a diversity of languages in the room. We spend some time trying to figure out which – Tagalog, Ilonggo, Cebuano or Subanon – is common to all. Even the young Subanon women can get by with Cebuano, so that’s what we go with. Faustino, a veteran of our 2009 training and a Subanon pastor, is pressed into translating.
Read MoreThe rain is pouring down, obscuring the passing landscape. Our minibus roars its way first along the coastal road, where sunshine earlier displayed the waters of the Sulu Sea and the modest Nipa leaf-thatch-and-bamboo-slat huts of fisher families. I think of their Sri Lankan neighbours whose homes, of undoubtedly similar construction, and livelihoods and, for tens of thousands, their lives, were washed away with the tsunami of Christmas 2004.
Read MoreIn the centre of the large room, there is a small table, draped in the colourful weaves of the east Pacific. A Bible is open and a candle is lit. Amidst the folds of the cloth is the image of a woman, carved of dark brown Acacia from here, the Philippine Island of Panay.
Read MoreThis summer, I had the blessing of being part of the faculty of the Hispanic Summer Program (HSP). This “seminary without walls” takes place every year and moves throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
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