Every Church a Peace Church Conference April 2-4 (D.C. area)

[seventhson]

Friends (Quakers), Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren are usually counted as the three "historic peace churches" ... but shouldn't every Christian church be a "peace church?"

We think so, and April 2-4, we will be meeting to plan how to reclaim gospel nonviolence for every church.

Dr. Carol Hunter, historian at Earlham College, points out (in the March/April 2004 issue of Fellowship) that just as slavery in antebellum U.S.A. depended upon the active support of many Southern churches and the passive tolerance of most Northern churches, so militarism and the war system now depends on the support of the churches.

Please ... help us plan how best to remove that support ... to come up with strategies and tactics that can de-legitimize war and violence in mainstream Christianity.

How did we choose this weekend? April 4, 1967 was the date of one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most powerful speeches, his "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech at Riverside Church, NYC. Also, April 4, 1968 was the date of King's assassination.

Since it is partly the heritage of King and the nonviolent Black Freedom movement (largely church-based) that we wish to build upon in the Every Church a Peace Church movement, we chose this weekend as a time for our establishing closer contacts, building friendships, prayerful reflection, and especially for hard-headed strategizing.

It is our bold belief that the Church could turn the world toward peace if every church (or Meeting) lived and taught as Jesus lived and taught! We hope you can join us in this effort, and, given the late notice, we especially hope you will spread the word in the Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Metro Washington D.C. areas.

Sincerely,
Michael L. Westmoreland-White
Outreach Coordinator

Every Church a Peace Church
http://www.ecapc.org/
[e-mail]

"A church which cannot take a firm stand against war is not a church which deserves to be believed." -- Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School.

"There is no time left for anything but to make peacework a dimension of our every waking activity." -- Elise Boulding, Economist, Author, and Quaker Peace Activist.

As Jesus Lived And Taught --
Developing a Christian Spirituality of Nonviolence

An ECAPC Welcome Table Gathering
Featured Guest: C. T. Vivian, 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 - 10:30 continuing individual sharing from Fri. eve

10:30-11:00 Forming Peacemaker Groups in Local Churches--Transformation from Within Michael Westmoreland-White

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

SEVERAL POSSIBILITIES FOR PALM SUNDAY

We have scheduled the DAYSPRING WELLSPRING portion of the PALMSUNDAY WEEKEND GATHERING to end with Sunday Breakfast at 8:30, for the convenience of those of us called to participate in the PALM SUNDAY SERVICE in our home churches -- i.e. those of us within easy driving distance -- or another DC area church of your own choosing.

On PALM SUNDAY morning some PALM SUNDAY WEEKEND PARTICIPANTS will be going with John Stoner and C. T. Vivian to an 11 am Palm Sunday Service at the Plymouth United Congregational Church of Christ (5301 North Capitol St., Washington, DC) where C.T. will be preaching. Others of us will be worshipping at one of seven worship service taking place throughout The Church of the Savior Diaspora chosen to fit your travel plans and particular interests.

PALM SUNDAY afternoon provides the opportunity for groups from local congregations to 'Live and Teach as Jesus Lived and Taught' by going into Washington DC, yoked to Jesus , weeping for our nation -- for.both our churches and our political leadership with JESUS' words, "If you in your turn had only understood on this day the message of peace" (The Jerusalem Bible, Luke 19: 42). For example a group from a congregation -- no permit required as long as the group stays below 25 persons -- could go to either Layfayette Park or the Ellipse carrying a banner or posters, designed to hold up a plumbline (check Amos 7: 8)

Another option is to join Black Voices for Peace:

http://www.BVFP.org

...starting at at the Ambassador Baptist Church, 1412 Minnesota Ave. SE, WDC2-3 pm Palm, followed by a procession of remembrance down Martin Luther King Blvd.

PALM SUNDAY WEEKEND GATHERING, ECAPC, 2004
Focus and Purposes

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.

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