Summer Institute for Reconciliation

Continued conversation with plenary speakers from Wednesday morning.

Presenters: Dr. Ryan Juskus, Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame & Rev. Donna Banks, Senior Pastor, Epworth United Methodist Church

This seminar describes and critiques issues and realities in the American criminal justice system. Models of restorative justice, prison ministry, and the role of faith communities in forming such ministries are explored.

Presenter: Rev. Dr. Louis Threatt, Senior Pastor, Cities of Refuge Christian Church

Drawing from scripture and contemporary creation justice work, this workshop will examine how traditional interpretations of power have influenced our relationship with the earth and discover how Jesus' model of self-giving love offers a revolutionary framework for ecological justice. 

Presenter: Avery Davis Lamb, Executive Director, Creation Justice Ministries

This session will engage forgiveness with a framework of accountability that welcomes relational responsibility to God and other people. This session will draw on 25 years of research on the psychology of forgiveness (granting and seeking) -- addressing ways to respond internally to the humans involved in the harm. We will address the emotional and physical side-effects of strategies that can help us toggle out of rumination and into mindsets that help us tell more of the truth (not less) with accountability, forgiveness, and hope.

Presenter: Dr. Charlotte VanOyen Witvliet, Professor of Psychology, Hope College

Many attitudes, preferences, and stereotypes affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These evaluations, based on associative learning, are activated involuntarily and cause us to have feelings and attitudes about others based on characteristics such as race, gender, age, and appearance. Because we rely on our default thinking to move through the world, uncovering our biases and understanding their effects on others are critical in seeking transformation and reconciliation in our world. This session will define and uncover different types of narratives that we carry about others, examine their structural and systemic impact, and seek ways to help our intentions and outcomes align to increase justice and equity.

Presenter: Rev. Dr. Yvette Pressley

This session will focus on naming the stories we tell about hunger in our local communities, uncovering hidden narratives about the root causes of hunger, and using scripture, personal narrative, and other sacred stories to create new stories about food access.

Presenters: Come to the Table Staff at RAFI, Justine Post, Director, David Allen, Program Manager, and Jarred White, Project Manager, Farm and Faith Partnerships

Continued conversation with plenary speakers.

Presenters: Dr. Alma Tinoco Ruiz, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Homiletics and Evangelism, Director of the Hispanic House of Studies, Duke Divinity School & Rev. Douglas Day Kaufman, Executive Director, Anabaptist Climate Collaborative

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the biblical basis for “blessing” Abraham’s seed. Looking to the interpretive traditions of both Judaism and Christianity, we will consider whether alternative readings of these key texts might support a more faithful and fruitful quest for justpeace in the Holy Land.

Presenters: Dr. Nina Balmaceda, Director for the Center for Reconciliation, Duke Divinity School & Dr. Ross Wagner, Associate Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School

Communal Christian worship practices--public prayer, Bible reading, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, singing, and more--can inspire, fortify, and embolden practices of peacemaking and reconciliation. They can also inspire, fortify, and embolden complicit resistance to them. In this session we will reflect together on the different experiences we each have of worship's role in faithful Christian witness, and also engage in exercises that help us see the shalom-shaping potential for those called to shape public worship for God's people and for those called to prepare God's people for their participation in worship.

Presenter: Dr. John D. Witvliet, Director, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship

The lives of marginalized women testify to the current state of our medical, economic and social systems. Taking the issue of maternal health as a case study, we will explore how health, spirituality, ethnicity/race, and gender are important considerations in health disparities. In this session we will attend to stories of women and communities who experience health, religious, and economic institutions from the “underside” (from a point of marginalization, disadvantage). Focusing on maternal health, we will illustrate how addressing the health and social challenges of women who suffer disproportionately from the burdens of health disparities can help us imagine and create environments where the lives of all women and their communities can flourish.

Presenter: Dr. Wylin Wilson, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School
 

We will explore the complex emotions that make it easier for so many people to be apathetic about creation care and climate justice, though some of us are also anxious. Then we will consider some spiritual, theological and communal resources congregations can offer to move people into active engagement.

Presenter: Rev. Douglas Day Kaufman, Executive Director, Anabaptist Climate Collaborative

Resources will be available for those who wish to engage in some self-guided spiritual practices of contemplation. Example activities include:

• Prayer labyrinth
• Duke Gardens meditation
• Visio Divina activity

Continued conversation with plenary speakers.

Presenters: Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., Inaugural Environmental Justice and Racial Equity Fellow, Duke University & Dr. Rebecca Vidra, Senior Lecturer, Marine Conservation and Ethics, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is considered one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. Like all of us, Bonhoeffer had many sides: as a son, friend, lover, pastor, prisoner, and theologian. Can we discern some of these different faces? The many perspectives show the depth of his thought and help us see the complex, multidimensional person behind his writings. We can appreciate this diversity and learn from the various facets of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that we discover in studying his life and thought. After all, aren’t we all people with many sides, seen differently by those we meet?

Presenter: Dr. Wojciech Szczerba, Rector, Evangelical School of Theology, Poland

Spadework is the arduous, patient, hopeful work of preparing the soil for seeds and ultimately a harvest. Spadework is what Ella Baker called her work. Ms. Baker (1903-1986) was a grass-roots organizer from North Carolina, who criticized top-down, charismatic leadership. Instead, she listened to students and local people and helped them find their own voices and build lasting, nonviolent movements of shared power. She called that work of listening spadework. At RAWtools South, we make spades from gun parts, and we support people who are cultivating peace in their communities. In this session we will explore the challenges of gun violence, and we will listen to one another as we identify and call out the work we are given to do to cultivate the Beloved Community.  

Presenters: Stan Wilson, Co-pastor of Circles of Mercy, staff at RAWtools

In this session, we will watch the short film “Faith in Blackness: An Exploration of Afro-Latine Spirituality” by the AfroLatine Theology Project. This film will frame our conversation as we explore how an intersectional approach to history, spirituality, theology, and our own life can allow us to lead towards hope more effectively. During the session, we will engage in activities that will invite you to self-assess and see how your own positionality and intersectionalities influence your perspective and how the awareness of this can positively impact your work towards reconciliation.  

Presenter: Yolanda Santiago Correa, Program Coordinator, Hispanic House of Studies, Duke Divinity School

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church became aware of the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN) around 1974 and has been an active participant in this reconciliation community since then. Based on her role as staff to Pullen’s social justice ministry, Rev. Cathy Tamsberg will share the story of her congregation’s engagement with CCN, how it understands its ministry to be part of the global CCN ministry of reconciliation, and ways other congregations might consider becoming partners in this life-giving work.

Presenter: Rev. Cathy Tamsberg, Retired Associate Pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

In this session, we will discuss the biblical teachings around welcoming the foreigner, explore the prevailing myths about refugees and immigrants in our country, discuss how to address the concerns that well-meaning parishioners may have about these new arrivals, and then look at ways the Church in its various incarnations can serve and advocate for these newcomers. 

Presenter: Garry Crites, Church and Community Engagement Manager, World Relief