Gathering for Peace Strategies

[seventhson]

We are increasingly feeling the calling to attend and participate at this important gathering, which could help determine the future direction of the Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice.

Can you come? Particularly if you yourself have a faith orientation and resulting agenda about peace and justice issues that you can bring to the table ...

The event is the weekend of April 2-4 at Dayspring/Wellspring Conference Center in Germantown, Maryland.

Would you please be so kind as to get word of this gathering out to others who might be interested, or possibly be able to take part?

Thank you!

Kendra Holtzman <[e-mail]>
First Presbyterian Church
Lawrence, KS

John Wilmerding <[e-mail]>
Putney (VT) Friends Meeting
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Contact:

John Stoner <[e-mail]>
Every Church A Peace Church
http://www.ECAPC.org
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Event description and details:

http://www.ECAPC.org/palmsunday.asp

"Repentance is the first step, reparations must make repentance real, and reconciliation is possible. Racism, militarism and economic injustice are an “an axis of evil” which the church must address or die. It is gross folly to think that these three evils, or the evil of terrorism, will be overcome by war, the prince of evils. Nonviolent struggle is a force more powerful, and the church, the synagogue and the mosque should lead the way in the embrace and practice of nonviolence."

“As Jesus Lived and Taught”
Developing a Christian Spirituality of Nonviolence

An
'Every Church A Peace Church'
Welcome Table Gathering
Featured Guest:
Civil Rights Pioneer C. T. Vivian of Atlanta, Georgia
April 2-4, 2004 (Palm Sunday Weekend)
Dayspring/Wellspring Conference Center
Germantown, Maryland

Friday, 7:00 -9:00 PM

7:00 Dinner
8:00 Individual sharing on the theme ...
“A window on my life through the lens of the ECAPC slogan, “The church could turn the world toward peace if every church lived and taught as Jesus lived and taught.”

Saturday

8:30 Breakfast
9:30 - 11:00 continuing individual sharing from Fri. eve

11:00 Panel Discussion
"Toward a Spirituality of Christian Nonviolence." Panel Members: Ruby Sales, C.T. Vivian, Miguel De La Torre and Jean Martenson. John Stoner, Moderator.

12:30 Lunch

1:00-3:00 Time for Solitude, Rest, Walking

3:00 Discerning ECAPC Nonviolent Action Strategy

5:00 Dinner

7:00 Further Discerning ECAPC Nonviolent Action Strategy

Sunday

8:30 Breakfast Learning from the confessing Church Movement, Germany, South Africa, etc. Some depart for DC Worship Services
9:30 Worship at Dayspring
10:30 Concluding Strategy Session and Prayers
11:45 Dismissal, leave for home or DC witness
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Palm Sunday Weekend Gathering, ECAPC, 2004

A gathering of the Every Church A Peace Church Welcoming Table, this is a retreat and conference to strengthen the movement of churches today into the way of nonviolent struggle marked out by Jesus, the black freedom movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this historical moment the world needs leadership by example in the ways of peace. April is a month to observe the legacy of Dr. King, particularly his Riverside Church speech in 1967 condemning the Vietnam war and calling for radical nonviolence as the form of power by which the soul of America could be redeemed. That Dr. King was martyred on April 4 one year later for his courageous call for a different way will not be lost on those who today, on a Palm Sunday weekend, meet to consider the demands of nonviolent discipleship.

Every Church A Peace Church is a movement energized by the belief that the church could turn the world toward peace if every church lived and taught as Jesus lived and taught. Jesus taught that evil can be overcome only by good, and that love of neighbor must include love of the enemy too. This radical proposition, so widely ignored and set aside by Christendom, is in fact the hope of the world. The choice before us, as Dr. King said, is no longer between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. This is the realism of the spiritual power which Jesus lived and taught.

The call to discern the form of true power faces every world religion today. Christianity and churches cannot do it all, but we say they must do their part. Repentance is the first step, reparations must make repentance real, and reconciliation is possible. Racism, militarism and economic injustice are an “an axis of evil” which the church must address or die. It is gross folly to think that these three evils, or the evil of terrorism, will be overcome by war, the prince of evils. Nonviolent struggle is a force more powerful, and the church, the synagogue and the mosque should lead the way in the embrace and practice of nonviolence.

The purpose of this meeting is to gather for prayer, for building vision through prophetic teaching, and to build relationships between people for the work in the days ahead. C. T. Vivian will be a special guest. Others participating include Ruby Sales, Graylan Hagler and John Stoner.

For on-line travel directions to Dayspring, see:

http://www.ecapc.org/palmsunday.asp

Further Information:

http://www.ecapc.org
/or/
John Stoner <[e-mail]>
717 859-1958
_ _ _

Bishop Desmond Tutu -- A South African minister in the Anglican Church, Desmond M. Tutu was one of the organizers and was the leading facilitator of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

"The world needs peace and the world needs peace churches. And so each church a peace church is what the church needs. That is my endorsement."

God bless you,
Desmond M. Tutu
_ _ _

C. T. Vivian
(Civil rights hero and co-worker with Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"I'm enthusiastic about Every Church A Peace Church.

"The past century has proven forever the power of nonviolence over violence. Given the nature of world society today, we have no other alternative.

"This is the New Testament strategy that Martin Luther King understood as the way to solve one of the most emotionally charged, socially difficult and politically challenging problems of our time.

"As a result of what we have done and what we now know, this must be the century when every church becomes a peace church ... for the triumph of the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount."
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Walter Wink
(Quaker, Christian scholar, and author of 'Engaging the Powers')

"With the exception of the historic peace churches, the churches of America have never repudiated violence or domination. Every Church A Peace Church is a prophetic attempt to bend the churches toward the spirit of Jesus, and say 'Yes' to a vocation of peacemaking."
_ _ _

Marcus Borg
(Author of 'Jesus, A New Vision')

"One of the most certain results of historical scholarship is that Jesus and the early Christian movement of the first three centuries practiced non-violence. One of the most encouraging developments in our time is that an increasing number of Christians are willing to take seriously the non-violent stance of Jesus and early Christianity. Every Church A Peace Church builds on that willingness even as it seeks to encourage it. It is an idea and movement whose time has come. Best wishes in this important endeavor."
_ _ _

John Dominic Crossan
(Author, 'The Historical Jesus')

"I have learned from a lifetime of research, first, that the historical Jesus would have worn a T-shirt with WWJD on the front and 'What Would Justice Demand?' on the back; second, that peace is the necessary result of justice, of structural, systemic, distributive justice in a world that belongs to God and not to us; third, that peace without justice is the quiet of the desert or the grave; and fourth, that non-violence is never enough since non-violent resistance to evil, injustice, and violence was the way of Jesus ... "
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Lowell O. Erdahl
(Retired Lutheran bishop (St. Paul synod), Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, national Board member of the Lutheran Peace Fellowship)

"Jesus wept over Jerusalem, saying 'Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!' He certainly must weep now over our violent, war-ravaged world. We Christians are quick to pray 'Lord, Lord' but are often exceedingly slow in following the clear teaching and example of Jesus. How essential and urgent for both church and world is the witness of those whom Jesus called the 'Blessed Peacemakers.' All this underscores the validity and necessity of the Every Church A Peace Church movement. I thank, encourage and strongly affirm all who are working to move ECAPC from vision to reality. Power to you all!"
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Janet Chisholm and Richard Deats
Fellowship of Reconciliation activists

"We at the Fellowship of Reconciliation are deeply grateful for the challenge of Every Church a Peace Church. May your gathering be blessed, may the work go far and wide to awaken passive congregations to the peacemaking calling of Jesus."
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Brenda Hardt
Peace With Justice Coordiinator
United Methodist Church -- Texas Conference

"The charge to Christians is clear. We are called to transform the world, not be conformed to it. We live in the assurance of such transformation in final victory. We participate in that victory when we order our lives and our institutions around the principles of Christian nonviolence. The scriptures give us visions of victorious nonviolence, of love's power over the forces of sin and violence. Every Church A Peace Church is a concrete expression of that scriptural vision. That is why I endorse it and pray for the widest possible participation of our churches in its work."
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Jean Martensen
(Director of the Women's Commission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, national board member of Lutheran Peace Fellowship)

"The word 'every' in Every Church A Peace Church provides an open invitation that is engaging and dynamic. Every church which has at the heart of its self-understanding this commitment to radical nonviolence is a potential friend ... whether one is Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, or just wondering about it all."
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Ched Myers
(Biblical scholar, Director of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, author of Binding the Strong Man)

Daniel Berrigan wrote years ago that "Because we Christians pursue peacemaking with half a heart, the war-making continues. The church's witness against the injustice and violence of militarism has for too long been carried on by only a faithful few. The time has come to move this witness from the margins to the center of the church's life, where it truly belongs."
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[e-mail] [e-mail]
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John Wilmerding, Convener and List Manager
Coalition for Equity-Restorative Justice (CERJ)
217 High Street, Brattleboro, VT, USA
ZIP: 05301-6073 Phone: [phone]
CERJ was founded in New York in May, 1997.
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"Work together to reinvent justice using methods
that are fair; that conserve, restore, and even
create harmony, equity and good will in society."
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To join (or leave) the CERJ email list, kindly send
me an email message at [e-mail]
or at [e-mail]. I'll need your first & last name,
your email address, and your state, province or
country of residence. Thank you! -- John W.
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