January 28, 2006

From Egypt to Babylon, from Persia to Rome, the biblical story is told in the shadow of empire. In the first century the apostle Paul founded and shaped small communities that embodied an alternative ethic in the face of an aggressive and dominant empire. These communities drew their hope from the gospel of Jesus; their covenantal character was nourished by the Israelite vision of faithful life in the shadow of empire. What does Paul's subversive challenge to empire teach us today? What does a gospel-shaped community have to learn from the vision of Israel and first century christians? From the first century to the present, from subversive speech to ethics, this conference will explore how the gospel shapes our imagination and gives us the resources to live in the shadow of empire today.

Keynote Speaker

Sylvia Keesmaat is adjunct professor at the Institute for Christian Studies. Prior to this she was professor of biblical studies at ICS from 1994-2004. Sylvia has specialized in the apostle Paul and New Testament interpretations of Israel's scriptures and has written extensively on contemporary biblical hermeneutics and social justice. She is the author of Paul and His Story: (Re)Interpreting the Exodus Tradition, and in 2004 co-authored (with Brian Walsh) Colossians Remixed: Subverting The Empire (IVP) .

Order Colossians Remixed from the ICS Bookshop

Schedule and Location

Workshops & Presentations

Session 1 Workshops

Holy Grounds: Coffee & Church in the Inner City

Ron Helmer surprised even himself when he was able to feed rather than yell at a man he caught stealing cookies. Ron Zehr often pauses mid-sentence in his teaching to greet familiar faces as they wander in and out of his church "sanctuary" every Sunday morning. Helmer runs Jabez Coffee Bar, a vivid, local example of concretely living out the hospitality of Christ in the face of violence and poverty. Zehr, whose church inhabits Jabez on Sundays, leads Coram Deo Community of Faith, a young church plant seeking to discover and recognize God's presence in the heart of Surrey and in every part of their lives. Together the two Rons are passionate about incarnating God for the redemption of their city. They'll share some stories, principles and the theological framework that fuels their passion to make ministry street-level and build relationships with people who would never darken the doors of a church.

Ron Helmer is the Owner of Jabez coffee bar located in Whalley. Ron attended Northwest Theological Bible College and worked for 3 years in a church located in Japan with his wife Ruth.
Ron Zehrhas been in pastoral ministry locally and overseas for fifteen years. Along the way, he's also written and published in the alternative health field and provided career consulting to business executives.

Life in a Machine: The Agrarian Vision of Wendell Berry

American poet/farmer Wendell Berry irritates people. Can a man who refuses to buy a computer have anything worthwhile to say to our modern culture? For over twenty-five years, Berry has been decrying the abuses of farmland and farm culture but is regularly dismissed as stubborn, naive or fanatical. Yet the pollution of streams, erosion of soil and loss of farmland continues as does Berry's critique: as the farmer goes, so go we. With reference to two of his recent essays as well as his poem "The Man Born to Farming", this workshop will examine Berry's criticisms of life in the empire of industrialization, as well as his hopeful vision of local self-sufficiency, accepting our humble place in God's "Great Economy."

Wilma van der Leek (MCS, Regent College) is a former farm girl whose recent article on Wendell Berry was published to mixed reviews. Come and find out why.

Making your Church a Creation Awareness Centre: Subverting the Empire from the Pew

"Environmental Stewardship is not talk; environmental stewardship is action." Cal DeWitt. God has given us this earth to use but not to abuse. Lists of "100 ways to save the earth" are valid and useful in their own way. But that is not the whole picture. The question is not "what set of rules make you a good steward?" We make responsible choices because we are free in Christ and we want to show solidarity with Him as disciples of the Creator of all things. Instead, we need to ask how will I treat creation knowing that God created it by His Word and sees it as good (Genesis)? How will I live knowing that every human being on this earth is created in the image of God with a responsibility to "tend and keep the garden"? How can we make our churches a place where stewardship is practiced in day-to-day activities and not just spoken about from the pulpit? This session will include a brainstorming session on how to make YOUR church a creation awareness centre.

Cindy Verbeek who works for A Rocha, a Christian environmental, world-wide education project with a piece of property and ministry right here in Surrey.

Organic Agriculture: Its Spiritual Implications for Industrial Idolatry

Together participants will explore the cultural/spiritual motives for agriculture as it is usually done. We will seek to uncover the hidden presumptions we make each time we engage our modern technological culture, seeking innovations that honour the creator by honouring the creation. Hopefully, we will use organic agriculture as a microcosm to infer insights that have direct implications for many segments of our culture [i.e. medicine, journalism, education, etc.]

Dennis Vriend is somewhat of a pioneer in organic agriculture. He, with his wife Ruth, have grown 20 acres of mixed vegetables near Edmonton for 25 years.

Session 2 Workshops

Embedded In Place: The Roosevelt Story

This workshop will illustrate how Christians in Bellingham Washington (USA) are contributing to efforts that seek neighbourhood transformation. Descriptions will highlight how various service ministries such as a Financial Life Skills program, municipal Block Watch crime fighting program, and general community development strategies are making a holistic positive difference in the Roosevelt Neighbourhood (Bellingham).

Jeff Littlejohn is Executive Director of Northwest Mercy Ministries. He and his family who live north of Lynden (precisely 2 miles south of the Canadian border) on 5 acres nestled among dairy farm neighbours attend Sonlight Christian Reformed Church.

What can we find there? Reading Poetry, Finding Theory

Through dependence on and connection to the author's lived experience, poetry brings essential grounding to typical theory. By looking at examples from scripture and elsewhere we will discover together the ways poetry can revitalize the process of responsible theory making, especially in questioning power and seeking justice.

Yvana Mols is a student studying at the Instituted for Christian Studies in Toronto.

Restorative Justice: An Alternative Response to Crime and Conflict

We will consider the basic concepts, values and practices of Restorative Justice which challenge the dominant practice of legal justice processed in an adversarial fashion. In reflection on the biblical basis of this approach we will consider the Cosmic rule of Christ.

Henry Smidstra has served as chaplain for the CRC in BC's Women's Correctional Centers in the lower mainland since 1991. He and his wife, Grace, are members of Willoughby CRC in Langley.

Religion in the Service of the Empire: Warnings from the book of Amos

We will trace out the connections between the power and affluence of the ruling elite, social oppression that attends the satiation of the powerful, and the collaborating role of the religious establishment in maintaining the status quo. The book of Amos provides ample connection between these three aspects of imperial reality, and calls on the faithful to awaken from their participation in such structures of injustice. The prophetic enunciations of Amos can help us continue to reflect on the ways the Christian church has been co-opted by the present arrangements of power and the dominant consciousness that attends it.

Born into a working class family in East Vancouver, Dave Diewert took the academic route through most of his life, returning to Vancouver to teach at Regent College, mostly in the area of biblical languages and Old Testament. Unsatisfied with an academic career narrowly defined, impacted by the lives of the "least" in society, and disturbed by the systemic injustice in the world, he eventually left full-time teaching to deepen his understanding of "the view from below" and to struggle with what it means to be with and for the poor. Despite feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, he continues to live in East Vancouver with his wife and "partner in crime" Teresa.

Throughout the day ... An Offering of the Arts

Ceramics: Cindy Nyboer

Mixed media: Neil Prinzen

Poetry: Yvana Mols and "the Mad Farmer"

Music by "Upstream" from Nelson Ave. Community Church featuring Janice Uyesugi from Elektra, a world-renowned women's choir. Enjoy Upstream's offering with harmonica, congos, guitar and voice.

ICS would like to thank the following sponsors: