At the end of May, the Duke Divinity School will host a week-long institute featuring several friends of Come to the Table. Writers/scholars Norman Wirzba and Fred Bahnson will lead a seminar entitled “Making Peace with the Land: God’s Call to Reconcile with Creation”. The institute announcement and seminar’s description are below. Visit the Summer Institute’s webpage for registration information.
The Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation is now accepting applications for the 2012 Summer Institute, “The Ministry of Reconciliation in a Divided World,” to be held May 28 – June 2 on the campus of Duke University. The Summer Institute is designed to nourish, renew, and deepen the capacities of Christian leaders in the ministry of reconciliation, justice, and peace. Participants will experience in-depth teaching by world-class theologians and ministry practitioners, prayer and worship, shared meals, vibrant conversations, and opportunities to reflect on their own vocation and setting. In depth seminars are designed for participants with a range of expertise and experience, and include specific seminars for leaders in congregations, denominations, and academic institutions.
Among the seminars offered will be “Making Peace with the Land: God’s Call to Reconcile with Creation,” taught by Norman Wirzba and Fred Bahnson. Wirzba serves as Research Professor of Theology, Ecology and Rural Life at Duke Divinity School, while Bahnson is a North Carolina-based writer and scholar of church-based agricultural ministry. Wirzba and Bahnson believe that reconciliation with the land is fundamental to the biblical vision of Christ’s redemption of the cosmos. Members of their seminar will explore God’s role in scripture as a gardener and how our reconciliation with God is inextricably linked to the soil upon which our lives depend. The seminar will reflect on how the practice of gardening teaches us to be creatures and to participate in God’s ongoing redemption of creation, why recent Christian and Jewish projects in sustainable agriculture are becoming front-runners of reconciliation, and how good eucharistic table manners can redeem the problems of hunger, climate change, and the ill health of land and creatures.
Applications for the Summer Institute will be accepted for rolling admission through April 1, 2012 at dukesummerinstitute.com.