This embodied retreat provides an opportunity for Christian Settlers to confront the longstanding history of European Christians/Christianity harming Indigenous peoples, exemplified in Church participation in Residential Schools, and then to envision and work towards a different future. The retreat demonstrates that the founding of Residential Schools and settler colonialism itself exposed the colonization of our …
View course details “Seeking Transformation–A Retreat for Christians Settlers”
Facilitator: Paul Okoye This highly interactive and educational workshop invites you to consider the building blocks that create conflict and those that assist or detract in conflict’s resolution. The workshop includes reflection, conversation, and exercises as conflicts are studied and models for addressing conflicts are considered. Significant time will be given to skill building for …
View course details “Understanding Conflict Foundations”
Facilitator: Betty Pries This workshop uses the two lenses of conflict drivers and conflict paradoxes and considers seemingly intractable conflicts and their transformation. Questions for consideration include the nature of intractability, de-escalation strategies, transforming intractable conflicts, and engaging emotions. This workshop builds on Understanding Conflict: Foundations. It is highly interactive, insightful, engaging, and critical for all …
View course details “Understanding Conflict Advanced”
Jesus is clear that it is the peacemakers who are blessed, and this is what his disciples are to be. But Christians have disagreed for centuries as to just what it means to be a peacemaker. Does it mean that Christians are obligated to refuse the use of all violence? Does it allow for participation …
View course details “Violence, War, and Christian Peacemaking”
Facilitator: Paul Okoye This highly interactive and educational workshop invites you to consider the building blocks that create conflict and those that assist or detract in conflict’s resolution. The workshop includes reflection, conversation, and exercises as conflicts are studied and models for addressing conflicts are considered. Significant time will be given to skill building for …
View course details “Understanding Conflict Foundations–ONLINE”
Civil discourse is a critical part of engaging in our civic life together, as it can help us to bridge partisan political divides, learn from one another, and create better solutions to the problems in our communities. But what is civil discourse? Is it different from civility? Based on the online class created by The …
View course details “Make Me an Instrument of Peace: Civil Discourse Training”
Reconciliation is the mission of the Church; and reconciliation is not the absence of conflict but rather the navigation of it. When approached with skill and grounded in Christ’s love, conflict is a healthy process through which we fully encounter our neighbor, we learn about ourselves, and ultimately leads to unity amidst difference. In this …
View course details “Navigating Conflict: Speaking the Truth in Love”
The course explores the parables of Jesus in their historical, cultural, and literary contexts. A close study of specific parables will determine the embedded theological themes, ethical lessons, codifications for social reconstruction, and the significance of the parabolic discourse for the Church and society today. I am thrilled to be the instructor for the course …
View course details “The Parables”
The Canadian Ecumenical Anti-Racism Network (CEARN) of the Canadian Council of Churches invites you to two days of ecumenical support and engagement in anti-racism in and through the churches. The immensity of the racism across the country that has risen up and become bolder has affected Canadian churches and its members. How are churches responding …
View course details “Sharing, Solidarity and Action: Racial Justice and the Canadian Churches (An online gathering)”
With Harry Huebner, CMU Professor Emeritus of Theology and Philosophy There are those who say that nothing has challenged their pacifist convictions more than the war in Ukraine. This course will create a forum for expressing thoughts and feelings about the horrors of war and will consider again what Christian pacifism is about.
