Mission

  

PROGRAM

Prayer Vigils are promoted throughout the year.

Conferences are held during the North American Convention in June. Some PF Conferences have been cosponsored by the Commission on Social Concerns, Board of Christian Education, or Women of the Church of God. A list of noted Conference leaders includes John Howard Yoder, Tom Sine, Samuel G. and Dalineta Hines, David S. Burgess (UNICEF), Myron Augsburger, Ronald J. Sider, Curtiss DeYoung, and Doug Hostetter.

The quarterly PF Newsletter is a vital link between all PF members, libraries on five college campuses, Religious Peace Fellowships, and interested persons. Recent issues featured Opposition to War Against Iraq, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Creation Care, Racial Reconciliation, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Abolition of the Death Penalty, Gun Control, the UN Decade for Nonviolence, Habitat for Humanity, and Anderson University Peacemakers in Northern Ireland and Colombia.

Fulfilling the dream of a Peace Studies Program at Anderson University, PF members made initial contributions for an endowment in April 1997. Conversations with AU President James Edwards and Vice President Carl Caldwell led to the establishment of the “Mack and Irene Caldwell Peacemaking Fund” in honor of lifelong peacemakers who taught at Anderson and on other campuses. Dr. Ken Brown, Director of Manchester College Peace Studies, provided invaluable counsel in setting up the endowment. By December 2002, according to Senior Vice President Ron Moore, the total amount received surpassed $305,000. The goal for 2003 is to reach $400,000. An exciting new incentive is the matching of gifts this year by the Lilly Foundation!

Professors Sharon Collins and then Willi Kant were the first coordinators of AU’s PACT (Peace and Conflict Transformation) program. Now in its fourth year, the program is being directed by Dr. Shane Kirkpatrick, who is teaching “Biblical Perspectives on War and Peace.” The first course offered in the PACT program was “Living Peacefully in a Violent World.” Chapel speakers, seminars, prayer vigils, and special events are planned each semester.

SPI (Student Peace Initiative) meets weekly, and networks with groups on other campuses, such as Manchester College, Earlham, and Ball State University.

VISION

According to Jesus, peacemaking is the family business of the children of God. He calls us to radical acts of reconciliation and peacemaking. We must begin in our own hearts, homes, and neighborhoods. Will we hear the wake up call to the reality of the violence that assaults us from without and from within? Instead of “God Bless America,” let’s pray, “God, bless your world through us!”