The times they are a changin’. Or are they? Bob Dylan’s popular 60’s song plays well as we grapple to find the lines with regard to moral and social change. No doubt these questions have divided and will continue to divide churches, families and friends. This conference featured a diverse panel representing all sides of the debate on the complex issues of same sex marriage. Sessions were provided to offer an Evangelical perspective on the subject of same sex marriage and how to live as salt and light in today’s changing culture.
Volume 1, No. 1: Winter 2004
Evangelical Environmentalism: Oxymoron or Opportunity?
Too often, Evangelicals do not see the Gospel as having any constructive bearing on the environment.This conference sought to help people come to a deeper understanding of God’s concern for the environment, especially as it relates to the Gospel of Christ’s kingdom. Can Evangelicals and environmentalism go together? Why are non-Christians so often more concerned about God’s creation than we are as Christians? Shouldn’t we take our rightful place alongside others as God’s stewards of creation? On the environmental continuum where one extreme is “Why save it when you can pave it” and the other extreme is made up of radicals ready to blow up lumber mills, where do Evangelicals fit? Are there other options available to us beyond these extremes? What is the biblical mandate for global stewardship? What is each person’s responsibility, and how does one fulfill that task? These questions and others were addressed within the theological framework of the Bible. Conference speakers included theologians, an ecologist, an environmental lawyer, and a Christian environmental activist. These participants shared their expertise from their respective fields in order to help us understand the issues and take the opportunity to become the stewards God called us to be.
Blue-Eyed: For the Visually Impaired
This seminar helped people experience the emotional impact of discrimination and come to a deeper understanding of racism’s effects through the film, Blue-Eyed, featuring Jane Elliott. Ms. Elliott is one of America’s leading educators on racial perceptions. Her work has been featured on PBS’ Frontline, the Tonight Show, Today, Donahue, ABC News, and Oprah. Through the film, viewers observed one of Elliott’s highly regarded workshops in which she helped participants experience first-hand the emotional trauma of racism, thus becoming more sensitive to racial discrimination.
Racially charged speech as well as discrimination based on physical attributes, even eye color, can have a devastating effect on people of another hue. In a country divided along black and white lines, and in which black people are forced to live in a white man’s world, Elliott helped us to experience first-hand the shoe being placed on the other foot—the white one, for a change. However, this video has something to say to everyone, for people of all color experience discrimination to some extent and even propagate it.
Pastor Emmett Wheatfall, Remember the Hope Christian Fellowship, served as moderator and facilitator for the evening. Following the video, Rev. Wheatfall facilitated a discussion processing the material viewed, while challenging us to live according to God’s biblical mandate.