CSNY FALL 2006 CONFERENCE ON URBAN MINISTRY:
"THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION"
The first City Seminary of New York Fall Conference on Urban Ministry will be held on Saturday, December 2, 2006 at New Song Community Church in Harlem. The concern of the conference, "the ministry of reconciliation,"
flows from our experience in the church and world. We learn from the Apostle Paul’s in 2 Corinthians 5 that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself," and that Christ is "entrusting the message of reconciliation to us." In a time marked by destructive and violent divisions between persons, communities, and nations, this conference is intended to help participants think afresh about the vital Christian call to be reconcilers. Just as the Apostle Paul was seeking to persuade others to join him in crossing borders on behalf of healing broken relationships, we must seek to hold onto this ministry today. The emphasis of the conference is on a theological, practical and social vision for reconciliation in our world today.
Leading
the conference will be our two keynote speakers, Emmanuel Katongole from Duke Divinity School and Miroslav Volf from Yale Divinity School.
Speakers
Emmanuel Katongole
Emmanuel Katongole is Co-Director of the Center for Reconciliation and Associate Professor of Theology & World Christianity at the Duke Divinity School. Katongole holds a Ph.D. from Catholic University, Louvain, and both a B.Div. and B.Ph. from Pontifical University, Rome. His most recent publication is A Future for Africa: Critical Essays in Christian Social Imagination, (Scranton. University of Scranton Press, 2005). In his writings, Katongole emphasizes the resources of the church and the Christian social imagination for reconciliation and healing.
Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf serves as Director of Yale Center for Faith & Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School. A native of Croatia, he has forged a theology of reconciliation in the face of the horrendous violence experienced in Croatia and Serbia in the 1990s. His award winning book Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation engages the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of alienation of peoples. Free of
Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace is Volf’s most recent book.
Registration
To register, please send your name, mailing address, and name of your home church to conference@cityseminaryny.org. The registration fee of $10 covers the cost of lunch and will be collected at the conference. Pre- conference registration is required, and registration is limited.
Tentative Schedule
8:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
Registration and Coffee
9:30 a.m.
Emmanuel Katongole
11:00 a.m.
Discussion with Emmanuel Katongole
12:00 p.m.
Working Lunch in Small Groups Discussion Questions on Reconciliation in the Church, City and World
2:00 p.m.
Miroslav Volf
3:30 p.m.
Discussion with Miroslav Volf and Emmanuel Katongole
4:00 p.m.
Closing Prayers