Today found me at the weekly meeting of Interfaith Communities United for Peace & Justice. This is an organization that was founding following 9/11 here in Los Angeles to be a voice for peace. I've been watching from a distance for a while and today I finally went. It was a really uplifting experience. Here were 40 men and women, most Christian, but some Muslim and Jews, who weren't just talking about peace and justice, they were working to advance peace as a way of being in the world.
I had a chance to share with some of those I met today that the Adventist Church is, historically speaking, one of the peace churches, though you would hardly know it anymore.
The picture here shows the speaker (right), Dan Wakefield, who just published the book, The Hijacking of Jesus. Haven't read it but he was a well-informed speaker. To his right is George Regas, who was for many years the pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA. You may recall that church was on the IRS radar some time ago and I wrote about it on this blog - here.
Also at this meeting was the Rev. James Lawson (click on his name to read his short bio on Wikipedia), who worked along side Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and has been active in the civil rights movment ever since. Lawson was a student at the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University where my friend Sherman Haywood Cox II is a student, and has just been invited to return to Vanderbilt as a professor (good news for you, Sherman!). You can read a short piece about his history with Vanderbilt here. It's a story of redemption.
This event sounded fun!
Remnant & Republic by Charles Teel has for me been _the_ book on Adventists and civic debate.
Great blog. Keep it up!
Posted by: Johnny | July 08, 2006 at 07:03 AM
Yes, They just added a course that Rev Lawson will teach. I wish I could take it, but I can't fit it into my schedule...I will let you know what I find out about the course though...
Posted by: Sherman Haywood Cox II | July 10, 2006 at 07:51 AM