An Inside Look at The (Re)union
Previews and excerpts of our virtual conference
After months of planning, The (Re)union is finally taking place this week! Beginning on Wednesday afternoon, Christian peacemakers from around the country will gather for inspiration, training, insight, and community building. We would love for you to join us, but we recognize that everyone is busy, and time allocation is probably our most precious commodity!
So, we want to give you a more detailed look at each conference day and what to expect. As a reminder, all registrants will gain access to recordings for teaching sessions, but you can register to PARTICIPATE in the live workshops and get those recordings as well. (Added bonus, Seminary Now is offering a free course with Dr. David Fitch to all registrants!)
You can register for the conference via this link. Use the code Podcast20 to get a discount. Also, we have free registrations available for educators and students, contact us for more details!
Wednesday, February 26
12 pm (PST) - Opening Session
In this session, Ideos President Christy Vines and Vice President Greg Arthur will share the vision for The (Re)union Project, what we are learning from conversations with Christian leaders, and our hopes for the project moving forward.
We will also introduce the Ideos’ empathic intelligence framework and discuss the war against empathy, which is complicating the cultural antagonisms ripping apart our country and the church.
1 pm (PST) - Live Workshop - Peacemaking and Empathic Intelligence
In this session, the Ideos team will lay out the empathic intelligence framework from a psychological, theological, and biblical perspective.
We will offer training in empathic intelligence through a live empathy mapping exercise and provide resources and tools for participants to utilize in their own peacemaking context.
3 pm (PST) - Peacemaking through Film
Dr. Kutter Callaway, from Fuller Seminary’s Brehm Center, sits down with filmmaker Nicholas Ma and Michael Gulker of The Colossian Forum to discuss their new film Leap of Faith.
Watch the trailer for the film!
5 pm (PST) - Hope for the Church?
In this live and interactive session, we will interview three Christian leaders working in different peacemaking spaces.
Dr. Drew G. I. Hart is an Associate Professor of Theology at Messiah University, where he also serves as Program Director for Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice. As a scholar rooted in Christian ethics, Black theology, and Anabaptism, Dr. Hart’s work studies white supremacy, liberation and peacemaking, and discipleship in the way of Jesus, with a focus on how the church can embody a radical and prophetic counter-witness against all death-dealing forces at work in our world.
Tim Whitaker is the founder of The New Evangelicals, a movement committed to building a caring community that emulates the ways of Jesus by reclaiming the evangelical tradition and embracing values that build a better way forward. This growing community has gathered tens of thousands of followers and participants who believe in and are being ministered to by this movement.
Dave Davis, COO of The Telos Group - Telos does incredible global peacemaking work, forming communities of American peacemakers across lines of difference and equipping them to help reconcile seemingly intractable conflicts at home and abroad.
Thursday, February 27
10 am (PST) - Is the Bible the Issue? How our reading of scripture is dividing the church.
This power-packed teaching session features three world-class biblical scholars: Dr. Pete Enns, Dr. Ingrid Farro, and Dr. Nijay Gupta.
Check out a couple of appetizers from the conversation to whet your appetite.
12 pm (PST) - One Anothering: Choosing One Another in a Politically Divided World
This live and interactive workshop is being led by our fabulous friends at The Colossian Forum. Join the workshop for an in-depth look at how we can engage in political conversions without harming one another and striving towards unity.
2 pm (PST) - Beyond the Political Divide: Reframing the Abortion Conversation
This live and interactive workshop is being led by the incredible team at ProGrace.
Join ProGrace for an experiential workshop that transcends political divisions and breaks systemic cycles of judgment. Discover how Christians can create safe spaces where both women and children are valued equally, and learn practical ways to engage in grace-filled conversations about unintended pregnancy and abortion. This workshop equips you with transformative tools to be a catalyst for change in your community.
5 pm (PST) - Navigating the In-Between: Race, Reconciliation and The Future of Evangelicalism (Hosted by CACE at Wheaton College)
This live and interactive conversation will feature Dr. Vince Bacote, Theology Professor and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College and Dr. Joy Moore, President of Northern Seminary.
They will discuss the newly released documentary Black + Evangelical, and help us apply the wisdom gained from Black Evangelical leaders through the decades to our current cultural moment.
Friday, February 28
10 am (PST) - Attaching to God and Emotional Health
This teaching session with Dr. Geoff Holsclaw explores Attachment Theory and its connection to empathy, peacemaking, and emotional health. Check out a snippet of the session.
12 pm (PST) - God’s Restorative Justice and the Healing of Our Sin-Sickness
This live and interactive workshop is being led by Mako Nagasawa of the Anastasis Center. It will explore our understandings of divine justice and how what we believe in affects how we portray God to non-Christians, how we parent, and how we think about what “justice” should look like in the public sphere.
Mako argues that God’s justice is restorative, not retributive. Mako will re-explain the biblical story to show how “an eye for an eye” is restorative, not retributive, for example. He will re-explain God’s actions in the Old Testament, and Jesus’ death in the New. And he will explore Christian restorative justice in the areas of parenting, schooling, criminal justice, housing, and ecology.
2 pm (PST) - Peace for LGBTQ+ Communities and the Church: Is it possible?
Few conflicts are dividing the church more than conversations about sexual identity, the inclusion of LGBTQ+ communities in the church, and the politicization of gender identity. How do we find a path forward?
In this panel discussion, we hear from Sally Gary, founder of CenterPeace, Dr. Tom Oord, and Bill Henson, founder of Posture Shift, about their different views on these issues and their approach to peacemaking. Here are some clips from a very detailed and generative conversation.
We hope to see you and to interact with you this week at The (Re)union!
If you have any questions about registrations, recordings, or particular workshops, don’t hesitate to contact our team.