Wallis inspires peacemakers at conference

Nineteen hours is a long time for seven people and their luggage to be together in a minivan, but EMU students did just that to get to Bethel College in Kansas, the site of this year's Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship (ICPF) conference.

Jim Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, was the featured speaker at the annual event. His most recent book, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It," focuses partly on issues of peace and justice, and he made references to the book frequently during his sessions.

"Many of us feel that our faith has been stolen, and it's time to take it back," he said during his first convocation called Peacemaking in Hard Times. "How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American?"

He suggested that peacemakers need not be caught up with which party they support. "The religious and political Right gets the public meaning of religion mostly wrong- preferring to focus only on sexual and cultural issues while ignoring the weightier matters of justice," he said. "And the secular Left doesn't seem to get the meaning and promise of faith for politics at all - mistakenly dismissing spirituality as irrelevant to social change."

Wallis said progressive religion is the fuel for successful social movements and it is in this way that the issues of social justice can be brought into the arena. We have the power to do that. "We are the people we've been waiting for," he said.

The conference was about more than Jim Wallis. On the second day of activities, keeping in line with the topic of "Reaching Across Boundaries Through Dialogue," four sessions were offered focusing on dialogue with other Christians, with people from other faiths, with people from other cultures, and with people in the military. The activities included a movie with facilitated discussion, a faculty workshop, and a forum theatre.

"The conference pushed us as peacemakers to look beyond protests and complaints to viable solutions for injustices," said sophomore Galen Wenger. "[It] challenged us to create safe spaces for dialogue both on campus and in our world."

The highlights of the conference for many were the informal discussions that happened during the coffee breaks, meals, and free time outside of the sessions. While there was some fun to be had bringing up stereotypes about the different Mennonite colleges that students represented, the interaction had a very unifying effect. At the end, many students were interested in finding ways to stay connected and keep the flow of ideas between colleges open. Some committed to staying in contact via the Yahoo online group and message board "Menno Progressives."

Schools represented at the conference were Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Ind.), Bethany College (Kan.), Bluffton (Ohio) University, Canadian Mennonite University (MB), Eastern Mennonite University (Va.), Goshen (Ind.) College, Hesston (Kan.) College, Sterling (Kan.) College, Tabor College (Kan.), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The ICPF conference in 2006 will most likely be hosted by Goshen College.