The Blog
In March 2007, a group of young peace activists from Living Water Community Church in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago and Reba Place Church in nearby Evanston, Illinois, traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. They walked several miles in freezing rain from Washington National Cathedral to a vigil outside the White House, then retired to a church where they slept for the night.
The demonstration felt like an empty ritual.
The following morning, they gathered to hear one last speaker. Peter Dula, who had been the Mennonite Central Committee coordinator for Iraq from 2004 to 2006, captured their discouragement and suggested new directions in a talk titled “Cynicism and Hope.”
During their journey home, the group discovered that each of them had been electrified by what Peter had to say. They wanted to continue the conversation, so they organized a conference that they called “Cynicism and Hope: Reclaiming Discipleship in a Postdemocratic Society,” and invited their elders in activism and the faith to speak to them. The conference, held at Reba Place Church in November 2007, attracted 200 participants.
Many of the addresses at the conference were recorded; you can listen to them here. Nine of them were collected into a book with the same name as the conference. Edited by Meg E. Cox and published by Cascade in 2009, the book is available for purchase here.
And here on the Cynicism and Hope blog, the conversation continues.