International Conference to Explore Christian Contributions to Build Peaceful Society

An international conference will take place in Boston, USA from 27-29 October 2005, which will focus on the root causes and the core character of violence. In addition the conference will hope to address aspects of Christian spiritual life that can contribute towards the building of a more peaceful culture in today’s society.

|TOP|The conference will be entitled “Violence and Christian Spirituality”, and is being sponsored by the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in cooperation with the World Council of Churches (WCC), as well as the Boston Theological Institute.

The conference will consider violence from a number of different perspectives including human rights, development, social change, inter-religious relations, Christian anthropology, and gender.

Following this the conference will look to raise up resources for peace from Christian spiritual life, and look more closely at the history of non-violence, forgiveness and reconciliation and the role of prayer and worship, as well as justice and peace.

The gathering will be hosted by an Orthodox theological institute, and is being promoted as a direct contribution by the International Orthodox Christian community to the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence, running from 2001 till 2010.

A diverse interdisciplinary and critical approach will be brought to the proceedings with social scientists, theologians, religious and community leaders from various Christian backgrounds offering their input and knowledge.

Ecumenical perspectives on violence will also be heard at the conference as speakers from the Orthodox and other church traditions join.

Scheduled speakers will include:

Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, who will give the keynote speech;

Dr Marc Gopin, director of the Centre for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, who will speak on "Religion, violence and peace-making";

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, WCC general secretary, who will discuss the ecumenical challenge to the churches to participate in overcoming violence;

Dr John Witte, Jr, director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University, who will offer ecumenical perspectives on religious freedom and human rights.