Protestant Justice Action gathers
progressive groups for conference in St. Louis "celebrating
insights from yesterday, the spirit of today, and action for
tomorrow."
Special report from Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon Issues
Analyst
[4-8-02]
Protestant Justice Action, also known as Oxbow, held
its first open-invitation conference in St. Louis on April 5 and 6. PJA
brings together the non-official advocacy organizations in the mainline
Protestant denominations; it includes the Disciples Justice Action
Network, the Baptist Peace Fellowship (with members from the American
Baptists, the Alliance, the Cooperative Fellowship, and the Southern
Baptists), the Lutheran Human Relations Association, the Methodist
Federation for Social Action, Christians for Justice Action (UCC), the
Witherspoon Society, and Peace and Justice Episcopalians.
Described as "a renewal event for justice
activists celebrating insights from yesterday, the spirit of today, and
action for tomorrow," the purpose of the conference was to explore
the relation between the gospel and social witness. At least 75 were in
attendance, mostly from Missouri and Illinois.
Meetings were held in the Union Avenue Christian
Church and the Pilgrim Congregational UCC Church, historic congregations
that are carrying on their tradition of witness and service in a midtown
neighborhood that has seen many changes. The Master of Ceremonies was
the Rev. Michael Vosler, pastor of Epiphany UCC. Music was provided and
led by the Revs. Susan Drake and Julie Jennings, both UCC ministers.
The keynote address was by the Rev. Joseph Ellwanger,
who just retired after thirty-some years as pastor of the interracial
Cross Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. (Before that, he was a pastor in
Birmingham, where he was the only white minister who openly supported
the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.) Commenting on the transitions made
by Cross Lutheran, Ellwanger said that the congregation lost members at
every stage but gained more. Its advocacy was seen as testimony to
Christ, its service as not merely "doing for" but welcoming
others as recipients of grace and participants in Christian community.
Bible study was led by the Rev. Deborah Krause, a
Presbyterian and a professor at Eden Theological Seminary. She discussed
the Gospel according to Mark in terms of traveling "the way,"
and she took special note of the voyages across the Sea of Galilee to
Gentile territory, the "other." There are two storm
narratives, but Jesus calms the storms; the disciples find their
resources stretched thin, but the two feeding narratives bring
abundance; in the parable of the sower some seeds do not survive, but
those that do endure have an extraordinary yield. And the Syro-Phoenician
woman in Mark 7:24-30, the epitome of "the other," points out
that even the dogs eat crumbs from the children's table, echoing back to
Jesus his own teachings and actions.
The conference was participatory, breaking down into
groups that discussed issues earlier identified by PJA as priorities
(listed here in alphabetical order):
In keeping with a PJA tradition the conference also
dealt directly with current events. On Saturday noon the participants
joined a demonstration sponsored by the Arab-American
Anti-Discrimination League to protest the Israeli invasion of
Palestinian towns and call for peace with justice between Israel and
Palestine.
Plans were made for a larger-scale conference in St.
Louis next year, on Friday and Saturday, March 28-29. (Significant
leadership in the St. Louis area emerged in a number of denominations,
and the planning group will be broadened even further.) It was
recognized that the date chosen is during Lent, but there were
convincing reasons not to pick a later date, and the conference will be
planned as a Lenten journey. Major speakers will be invited, and each
denominational group is urged to plan its own activities during part of
the schedule. As usual there will be attention to a number of specific
issues. But participants were also urged to remember the century-long
heritage of justice advocacy in the churches, and to engage in
theological reflection about the basis for making social witness part of
our proclamation of the gospel.
