Current Issue

Short Takes on Peace
Video clips of speak­ers and oth­ers gath­ered at a con­fer­ence as part of the ongo­ing PC(USA) peace dis­cern­ment process.

Episode 1: Mar­garet Aymer and Kate Colussy-Estes.  Pro­fes­sor Aymer chal­lenges us to take note of the images of vio­lence Jesus employed even as he sought to trans­form the val­ues and prac­tices of his soci­ety. Chap­lain Colussy-Estes talks about atti­tudes and actions of col­lege stu­dents related to vio­lence, war, and peacemaking.
Episode 2: Andrea Bar­toli, Kayla Rice and Rebekah Web­ster.  Pro­fes­sor Bar­toli com­bines a vision of Jesus as “de-violencer” with a prac­ti­cal polit­i­cal scientist’s under­stand­ing of war. Stu­dents Kayla Rice and Rebekah Web­ster reflect on events on their respec­tive cam­puses.
Episode 3: Emily Welty, David Smith and Ish­mael Dula.  Pro­fes­sor Welty speaks about the Occupy Move­ment as a form of non­vi­o­lent social change in the US. Stu­dents David Smith and Ish­mael Dula talk about a gen­er­a­tion that is mov­ing beyond past assump­tions about dif­fer­ences being divisive.

Episode 4: Allan Boe­sak, Car­olyn Gilbert and Jes­sica Hawkin­son.  Rev. Boe­sak dis­cusses the impact that the vio­lence of apartheid had on every­body in South Africa, not only on those most directly involved as per­pe­tra­tors or vic­tims. Stu­dents Car­olyn Gilbert and Jes­sica Hawkin­son point to the impor­tance of activism and the­o­log­i­cal reflec­tion in peacemaking. 
Episode 5: Charles Amjad-Ali, Anne Cerniglia, David Ear­ly­wine. Pro­fes­sor Amjad-Ali sees nation­al­ism and fun­da­men­tal­ist ide­ol­ogy, rather than authen­tic reli­gious tra­di­tion, as a source of vio­lence and ter­ror. Stu­dents Anne Cerniglia and David Ear­ly­wine share their thoughts about peacemaking.
Episode 6: Paul K. Chap­pell,Tommy Ross, Olivia Cook.  Chap­pell, a West Point grad­u­ate and Iraq vet­eran, now uses his strate­gic train­ing on non­vi­o­lent cam­paigns. Tommy Ross, mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence advi­sor to Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Harry Reid—and excerpt of whose address is provided—thinks over­all US pol­icy needs to keep force­ful meth­ods in the “toolbox.” 
Episode 7:Richard A. Hors­ley, Linda Morgan-Clement.  Pro­fes­sor Hors­ley main­tains that Jesus led a reform move­ment that chal­lenged the Roman empire as well as the Jew­ish author­i­ties. Chap­lain Morgan-Clement dis­cusses strate­gies for ener­giz­ing stu­dents for peacemaking. 
Episode 8: Short Takes Back­ground: Patrick Heery, edi­tor, Pres­by­te­ri­ans Today and for­mer Unbound edi­tor, explains how these videos came to be and invites view­ers to join the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.)’s peace dis­cern­ment process.