Photo by Julia Baker.

I’ll admit that I attended the Mindpower meeting in February with some skepticism. From my perspective, however, Mindpower hit it right on the nose. They had listened incredibly well and creatively packaged what they heard into a concept that I believe reflects honestly who we are – at least who we want to be.

I can’t image that anyone who knows me well is particularly surprised that I hold this perspective. This has been my personal “branding” for years. As I write this perspective, I’m traveling home from leading a retreat I titled “A Passionate Life; a Wholistic Peace.” While I often fall way short of my ideals, I believe that peacemaking, in its broadest sense, is at the heart of Jesus’ life and message.

Do I have concerns? Yes.

1.    I wish there could be a bit more nuance in the healing concept. First, in terms of reciprocity. We are not only helping to heal the world, but those acts – and the world’s citizens – are helping to heal us, too. Authentic peace-making is as much about our own salvation as it is about helping others. Secondly, I wish there were a way to clearly but simply say that it is God who does the healing. We are only the instruments.

2.    We have far to go in living out this message within our own walls. I acknowledge a few relationships of my own that are in need of some work, and I know I am not alone. I worry about setting ourselves up to be something “out there” that we sometimes do very poorly here.

3.    We need to emphasize clearly that what we mean is peace in a very broad sense. Anti-war, tree-hugging students (and I love them dearly) represent only a few of our peacemakers. Equally important are those who teach E.N.L., provide low-cost tax assistance, donate their meals, staff a restaurant to benefit LaCasa, support a hurting friend, plan an evening worship, etc.

I have a wild brainstorm about how to make this commitment to “peace in its many forms” tangible.

How about including a local peacemaking course in our new general education package? It could be a three hour, service-learning course that includes reading, journaling and regular meetings with a cohort and faculty sponsor. It might span two or more semesters; it might connect with one of the many non-profit organizations in the region; or it might help with schoolyard upkeep, assist older citizens, read to pre-schoolers, work with little league, walk with an immigrant family, visit prison-inmates, etc.

I know this would be a huge undertaking – but so was S.S.T. – and I maintain that our local outreach and connections are equally important (perhaps more important) to our global-mindedness and our service orientation. And I suspect that in the long run, such a venture could transform our regional recruiting efforts.

Carolyn Schrock-Shenk is an associate professor of peace, justice and conflict studies at Goshen College.

Photo contributed by Andy Alexis-Baker.

Several years ago I witnessed some young people illegally shooting fireworks on July Fourth. The trespassers were playing a dicey tag game, shooting bottle rockets at each other and deliberately launching them at a hawk’s (a federally protected species) nest containing nestlings.

From a strictly legal perspective, I had every right to call the police. But would this have been an appropriate ethical Christian response?

Police officers carry a variety of weapons, many of which can kill. Therefore, when we call the police we must be aware that we are relying on a nonnegotiable solution to a problem that is rooted in the state’s monopoly on violence.

Regardless of our personal commitments to peace, calling the police means inviting guns, tasers, clubs and other signs of state violence, into a situation. For this reason, asking the police to solve our conflicts is a serious decision that requires a great deal of forethought and discernment.

As such, I suggest the following guidelines:

- We should call the police as a last resort.

- We should ask if the police represent a proportionate response. Loud party versus men with guns. Is that proportionate?

- We should ask whether our intentions are to punish or humiliate somebody.

- We should ask if reconciliation is possible in the situation. And if it is, does inviting the police into the situation threaten that process?

- We should ask what Jesus might do in the situation.

Contrary to popular belief, the police are not social workers. They are trained to protect certain interests by any means they deem necessary.

The police make arrests that blackball a person for life, even if the caller did not intend it. The police can and often do blame victims of a crime for their predicament and do not always champion the cause of ones who are harmed.

If we engage the police, we must do so with open eyes. We cannot make wise decisions about calling the police based on uncritical assumptions.

In the opening scenario, I chose to speak directly with the people involved. As a white male citizen, I recognize I am privileged to engage these questions in ways that may be unavailable for marginalized groups. However, these social imbalances call for more discernment, not less.

How we relate to our neighbors and the police is a question of witness. Our choices affect our relationships with others inside and outside of the body of Christ.

Andy Alexis-Baker is an adjunct professor of peace, justice and conflict studies.

The bowling is far away, and the path in between is filled with cold and Yetis. The bowling alley has surpassed stinky to reach the state of “stanky.” Finally, the bowling alley costs dollars. I currently only have $300 and 250 of those dollars need to go towards paying rent.

But I had a moment of clarity when one friend said, “You know, I have Wii bowling … We could just stick around and do that for free.”

A Wii – for those of you not in the know – is a video game system that responds to your hand movements and can perfectly recreate real life activities like bowling and cow racing.

At my friend’s words, I realized that the future was NOW. Thus I concluded that the past was now and the present and the future was the mega-future. Then my brain started to hurt, so I stopped thinking.

Still, Wii-bowling points us to an important truth: we are inching ever closer to true virtual reality, and we should jump on the bandwagon.

The Virtual Bandwagon! Hey-oh!

First, Goshen College should provide every student with a Wii. True, this will be expensive, but I’m sure we can have a bake sale or something. Perhaps some enterprising students can travel to Washington and create a “Wii Stimulus Package” that Congress would love. After all the money Congress has spent recently, an extra $200,000 probably sounds like an appropriate tip at the Olive Garden.

Next, we should figure out what real-life experiences we should attempt to recreate with our new virtual centers. It goes without saying that they should be modeled around the core values. But just in case it doesn’t go without saying, there. I just said it.

Servant leaders? Watch as we pick up virtual trash with our virtual sticks and stuff it in a virtual dumpster. As we clean a virtual river, we could program rabbits and eagles to sing songs for us, teaching us that service can be fun! Of course, when we were finished, the real world would be exactly the same. This teaches us that service is about the journey, not the destination.

Compassionate peacemakers? The Wii could take us into the midst of violent conflicts throughout history without putting the student in danger. The Wii remote could be a “Peace Laser.”

We could sneak among the wreckage of Troy, jump out with our lasers and turn even the most bloodthirsty warriors into peace-loving Gandhi-types. This would be extremely fun and would teach us that conflicts can be resolved by aiming lasers and … hmmm. Perhaps I should rethink this one.

Passionate learners? Two or possibly three words: Wii-search paper. This game would recreate the feeling of flipping through books at the library, scrolling through EBSCO and citing sources. Ugh! This sounds terrible. OK, we really don’t need this particular core value. Adios, passionate learners!

Global citizens would of course lead to virtual S.S.T. With an Internet hookup, we could arrange for people from other countries to be “virtual host parents.” You could use the Wii remote to scratch your head in confusion, apologize when you learn that head-scratching is a rude gesture of contempt and take countless pictures of buildings/stray dogs.

Christ-centered would be the trickiest, because how can a machine measure what is happening in someone’s heart? Clearly, we need further progress in nanotechnology before this core value is realized. Go, science department, go!

I hope you are as jazzed as I am about what a virtual Goshen College might look like. Until that day arrives, we can only imagine the thrill of virtually sprinting across the tracks to avoid being crushed by a virtual train.

Annalisa Gerig-Sickles won the C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical contest locally, with her speech about raids on employers suspected of hiring illegal immigrants. Photo by Chase Snyder.

Six Goshen College students took center stage in the Umble Center on Tuesday night to address pertinent peace and justice issues during the annual C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest.

Analisa Gerig-Sickles, a senior elementary education major, won first place with her speech “No Mas Redadas/No More Raids.” By winning the contest, she received $150 and the opportunity to compete at the U.S./Canada C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, which is sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee.

The runner-up was Isaac Yoder-Schrock, a first-year physics major, who earned $100 with his speech “National Healthcare, Caring for Others.”

In her speech, Gerig-Sickles communicated the impact of work raids on illegal immigrants. She used stories from her experience last summer with a church in Postville, Iowa, where one of the largest worker raids in United States history took place at Agriprocessors meat-packing plant.

“During the raid, many people were maltreated,” said Gerig-Sickles. “One woman who was hiding under a pile of boxes was yanked out and slapped across the face. Hundreds of workers suspected to be illegal immigrants … were loaded in vans and taken to the National Cattle Congress facility, a place normally used to exhibit cows.”

Gerig-Sickles hoped people would feel compassion for the immigrants and speak out against raids. “No matter how you feel about immigration and how our country deals with it politically or socially, I hope that you can feel compassion for the people and families affected by this raid,” Gerig-Sickles said. “I encourage you to contact your senators and representatives and to spread the word that you do not support raids.”

Frank Johnson, the special assistant to the President and one of the three judges, said they chose Gerig-Sickles’ speech because of her “ability to combine personal passion with a relevant issue in a way that compelled me to consider my role in the immigration issue.”

Yoder-Schrock spoke about the necessity of universal health care in the United States. “The U.S. currently spends almost $7,000 per person per year on health care,” he said. “We spend more than every other country in the world, and yet we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not insure all of its citizens.”

“We need to internalize and then act upon the ideals of national health care, Mennonite and Christian beliefs alike. This means taking care of each other,” he said.

Also participating in the contest were: Ben Baumgartner, a first-year Bible and religion major; Alison Brookins, a sophomore theater major; Hoa Nguyen, a senior business major; and Hector Varela, a sophomore TESOL and Spanish double major.

“My colleagues in the Communication Department and I feel that the caliber of the student speakers and their presentations were exceptional in this year’s contest,” said Rachel Lapp, assistant professor of communication. “It was a close contest, ultimately, to determine the winners because there were truly strong components of each of the speeches delivered.”

Dr. Laura Brenneman speaks on her studies of the apostle Paul in the C. Henry Smith Peace Lecture. Photo by Chase Snyder.

Dr. Laura Brenneman, assistant professor of religion at Bluffton University, led the Goshen College campus in conversation about the connection between freedom and peace in her C. Henry Smith Lecture on Monday. In addition to her evening lecture, Brenneman presented an extended convocation to the student body on Monday morning.

Brenneman is currently director of peace and conflict studies at Bluffton University. She has masters degrees from both Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Eastern Mennonite University as well as a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Durham in England.

Both presentations emphasized Brenneman’s studies in the book of Galatians and the images and themes of freedom expressed in Apostle Paul’s letters. North Americans’ reactions to the attacks on September 11, 2001 played a large role in Brenneman’s interest in the theme of freedom.

Brenneman identified the political rhetoric present through George W. Bush’s identification of “freedom” as the object attacked on Sept. 11. “People began to link the word ‘freedom’ with America, and it happened so quickly,” Brenneman said.

The context of Apostle Paul’s writing in a time of competing ideologies of what it means to be Christian provided insight to her study. “There are competing claims for our loyalty, and we need to be clear what those are,” Brenneman said in her evening lecture.

Both the morning convocation and the evening lecture began with an invitation to the audience to share what words come to mind when given the word “freedom.” According to Brenneman, North Americans’ definition of freedom seems to be “freedom from constraints” – a definition rooted in personal autonomy and found explicitly in our country’s founding documents.

Brenneman emphasized the danger in viewing freedom as a right, as something to defend. “I think that [definition] runs really counter to the notion of freedom as a gift,” she said.

Calling upon quotations from people such as Nelson Mandela and Rick Warren, Brenneman provided a new definition of freedom: “pursuit to do things, instead of freedom from things.”

Brenneman’s thesis draws largely from Galatians 5:1 and 5:13-14. “By being set free, believers can live out what they are: a people whose mission is to love, which necessitates thoroughgoing nonviolence,” she said.

The evening lecture included additional time for bible study and exploration with these verses.

Brenneman linked a message of nonviolence into her theme as well. In both presentations, she expressed the need for Christians to demonstrate a “not in charge” ethic, unsettling the seat of power of which we, as North American Christians, are accustomed.

According to Brenneman, the bodily resurrection makes a huge difference. She says that the last change to be destroyed is death. “[Death] happens, but there is no reason to fear it!” she said.

Brenneman pointed out that Galatians is full of language about freedom and slavery. She elaborated on both the positive and negative types of slavery expressed in the text and urged us to instead become slaves to each other. “It’s the pursuit of each other, in love,” she said.

Brenneman stressed the importance of Paul’s message that every person can become a new creation in Christ. “He’s saying, ‘you can be more than you are,’ and you have to believe that about other people, too.”