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2008 Greetings from Preaching Peace!
(If you are unfamiliar to this site and want to know how best to use it click here
After five years as a growing website, now reaching an average of 10,000 folks a month, Preaching Peace is pleased to announce that we are now a recognized nonprofit in the State of Pennsylvania and working toward federal recognition. We are also pleased to say that iMiTatio, Inc (IMI), has awarded us an annual grant to grow the work of Preaching Peace. This is a fund administered by Rene Girard and Robert Hamerton-Kelly for the benefit of promoting the mimetic theory.
You can also help out. Your donations help us to underwrite our seminars and conferences. Our goal is to have the least costly fees possible, so that no one is hindered (at least financially) from coming to Preaching Peace events. As always our motto is “no one turned away for lack of funds.” Your generous gifts are deeply appreciated.
The fall 2007 Regional Conferences and NVA’s in OH, TN, MN, and OR were empowering weeks for many. Next year’s schedule already has over a dozen NVA’s scheduled, our Making Peace Conference, three Regional Conferences and two extraordinary not to be missed events: the Conference on Compassionate Eschatology Sept 26-27 in San Francisco with Rene Girard, Jurgen Moltmann, Ted Grimsrud, Barbara Rossing, Tony Bartlett and Sharon Baker and the August 12-14 conference “On Being a Peace Church in a Constantinian world” with keynote addresses by Brian McLaren, Craig Carter and Sharon Baker held at Messiah College in PA. We may be coming to your area in 2008! If you would like to explore bringing Preaching Peace to your area write us at preachingpeaceorg AT yahoo.com (or write us Preaching Peace, 21 Cambridge Village Lancaster, PA 17602). Come experience the tangible difference that Preaching Peace can bring to your life and your community.
(What follows has been on this page since 2002 when we first began – it still holds true):
PreachingPeace.org is a website dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For almost 2,000 years clergy have sought to bear witness to the revelation of God in Christ, sensing therein, something distinctive, something different, something good. At the beginning of the twenty first century, the world is in need of this something different, something good. It is in need of Jesus.
The twentieth century has seen enormous advance in all manner of technology and science. The same is true of the science of theology. It is almost impossible to stand back from the trees to see the forest. The sheer mass of information, data, theses, hypotheses and theories in biblical studies, theology, church history, dogma, liturgy, philosophy as well as other important areas overwhelms us at times. It is often difficult to know which direction to turn or down which road to go. We have had the opportunity to travel broadly and widely and wish to share our insights with you. PreachingPeace.org is our 'travel guidebook.'
Preaching Peace is not primarily an exegetical website, but a hermeneutical one. For exegetical insights we refer you to www.girardianlectionary.net run by our friend Paul Nuechterlein in Wisconsin. Used in tandem, preachers should find what they need as they read Scripture in the light of mimetic theory.
Our Vision
We believe that it is a time for stock-taking, evaluating and sifting for Christian theology and the church. We also believe that the good gospel of God in Jesus Christ has been obscured and often times completely covered over, hidden away by the very Church given the task of sharing it.
Our writing has been informed by many different writers of many different places and times. All in all, we see certain threads being woven throughout the history of Christian thought and life and those threads when viewed together form a tapestry of thought. It is this tapestry or portrait of Jesus that we wish to share here. This site has been informed by the theory of mimetic scapegoating proposed by Rene Girard and worked out in an inter-disciplinary manner by members and friends of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. Girard's hypothesis is an anthropological one, so in this sense it is no threat to Christian theology, but it is an anthropological theory that has profound consequences for Christian theology.
Like you, we too are on a journey to discern the will of God for us in our world today. We are seeking to discern that will on both a macro and a micro level, on both an objective and a subjective plane. In short, we seek wholeness (shalom), the peace that is ours in the gospel of the God of Peace revealed in the Prince of Peace.
If you are coming to our website for the first time, we offer you some hints on how to use it to discern the theses we are developing (click on the How To Use This Site Button).
If you are not familiar with the work of Rene Girard you may wish to read some of the Introductory Articles. If you are familiar with Girard and wish to see how Girardian theory can be applied to Christian theology you may wish to read the Occasional Articles. If you are searching for a way to preach the gospel, so that it is good news, you can access our comments for any given Sunday using the seasonal drop down menus at the top of the screen. Each Sunday has three sections: an Anthropological Reading which appropriates and applies mimetic theory to the text and our modern understanding; the Historical/Cultural section which looks at items of interest to us as we develop our understanding of early Christian development as well exegetical notes intended to stimulate your thought; finally, the So What? section reflects our thoughts on how all of this affects our theology and life. You will also find an extensive bibliography page (by clicking on any bibliographic link) as well as a glossary of terms you may not be familiar with.
2008 is our sixth year in the Preaching Peace venture. We serve at present over 10,000 readers a month. Exciting new things are always happening at Preaching Peace, so keep coming back!
We believe it is important to keep this material on the Web free of charge. Jesus said, "Freely you have received, freely give." But we still like to hear from our readership. Why not drop us a quick e-mail? Let us know who you are and where you serve so we may keep you in our prayers and think of you as we write. Share Preaching Peace with others whom you know who desire to participate in the vitality of the Gospel of Peace.
Shalom,
Michael Hardin Executive Director
