The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1834 (Edward Hicks, public domain)
The Biblical vision (Isaiah 11) is one of peace between nature, groups,
and children and adults. How are we doing in realizing that vision?
Where are we falling short? What must we do?
______________________
“A Conversation about Environmental, Familial and Social Sustainability:
An issue for the 21st Century”
In Memory of Don Browning, 1934-2010*
Friday evening and Saturday, January 21-22, 2011
Pres House, 731 State Street Mall, Madison, WI 53703
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”–Aldo Leopold
“If justice is giving each his or her due, the family today is unable to enact justice to wife or husband, and especially to the children, who are supposed to be the primary end of the whole enterprise….Churches today are at present infirmaries for sick families, and they must continue to be so under present circumstances.”–Robert Bellah, in Family Transformed
If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.” Then (Jesus) took a child, set him in front of them, and put his arm around him. “Whoever receives one of these children in my name,” he said, “receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” –Mark 9: 35-37
Participants in the conversation include: Dr. Calvin DeWitt, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison; Dr. Colleen Moore, Psychology, UW-Madison; Dr. Bruce Wilcox, Director, National Marriage Project, University of Virginia; Ed Brown, Director, Care of Creation; Dr. Gayle Reed, Forgiveness Consultant; Fr. Eric Nielsen, University Catholic Center; Rev. Mike Winnowski, Geneva Campus Church; Steve Musto, Blackhawk Church; Marline Pearson, Madison Area Technical College; and others.
For the conference schedule, click here. To review the discussion leading up to the conference, click here. To read an interview with W. Bradford Wilcox on the recent study of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, “When Marriage Disappears: The Retreat from Marriage in Middle America,” click here. To read further in some of the issues that will be discussed in the conversation, check W. Bradford Wilcox’s article in National Affairs, “The Evolution of Divorce,” (clickhere); and in Christianity Today, “Marriage: Marginalized in the Middle,” with Chuck Donovan (click here).
* Don Browning was Alexander Campbell Professor of Religious Ethics and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a key participant in the developing interdisciplinary study of the family. His comment that the notion of an ”ecology of families…makes sense to me…(and) needs to be developed” played a role in calling the present conversation into being. Don was a personal friend of several of the participants.
Thanks to the generosity of a donor, no registration fee is required. But we would appreciate your letting us know of your interest and/or plans to attend by emailing your name and email address to: vmvisick@gmail.com, so we might know how to make the best use of the space at Pres House for our dialogue sessions, coffee times, and reception (your name and email address will be kept confidential).
Sponsored by New College Madison, the Bradshaw-Knight Foundation, the Grad and Faculty Ministries of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Geneva Campus Church, the Presbyterian Student Center Foundation (PSCF), and other ministries in the Madison, WI area.
