Obama Going to Messiah College
This is just an update that Obama accepted the invitation to the Compassion Forum that will be held at Messiah College on April 13th. See my earlier post about Clinton’s announcement to attend.
Clinton confirms she's going to Messiah College
I mentioned the Compassion Forum the other day, when we knew the invitations were being considered, but Hillary Clinton has made it explicit: she’s going to participate in the forum at my alma mater (HT: Beliefnet [the article is kind of a watered down version of the press release]). I don’t think this will be proving which candidate is “Christian enough” as one commenter at Beliefnet suggests, since the Forum will be focused on issues of broader concern (e.g., domestic and international poverty, global AIDS, climate change, abortion, genocide in Darfur, and human rights and torture). Note that the board includes folks like Jim Wallis, Gary Haugen, Richard Cizik, and David Beckmann.
The spin is that these questions are being asked from a faith perspective. I think it does more for challenging people of faith to think about important social issues than it ranks the candidates on their “Christianness.” What Jim Wallis says is that politicians are “wind chasers.” They stick their finger up in the air and see which way the wind is blowing. Wallis says that Christians (and I think all concerned citizens, no matter religion) need to change the direction of the wind–like MLK, Jr. I hope that this Forum is one more step to raise public awareness that the faith-based voters are not only looking for the best Christian (although some unfortunately are) but they are more interested in making real change with difficult social concerns.
I’m envious of the students on campus right now because of the amazing learning opportunity this provides them.
For the record, I’m still a little dumbfounded that presidential candidates are going to an Anabaptist school!
My Anabaptist Alma Mater To Host Presidential Candidates
This is something else. Messiah College, my undergraduate alma mater located near Harrisburg, Pa., is going to be hosting the “Compassion Forum” in the evening of April 13th (nine days before the Pennsylvania primary). Invited are Obama, Clinton, and McCain for a conversation on important moral issues that bridge the partisan divide. Check out this bit from the announcement on Messiah’s news blog:
The Compassion Forum will be a unique event—not another traditional debate. Each candidate will participate in a separate substantive conversation. The Forum will be moderated by Jon Meacham, editor of “Newsweek,” author of “American Gospel,” and a respected scholar on faith and American politics. Conversation topics will focus on compassion and social justice issues such as U.S. and global poverty; AIDS; climate change; Darfur; and human rights.
The compassion, reconciliation, and social justice issues to be discussed at this forum are relevant to the mission and values of Messiah College. As host organization, Messiah will be able to create important educational opportunities for our students related to this event.
It is sponsored, in part, by Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, the ONE Campaign, and Oxfam America.To my knowledge, the campaigns haven’t officially accepted the invitation yet, but it sounds like it’s assumed they will. I hope they do. It is pretty darn interesting. Presidential candidates come to an Anabaptist school to talk about how issues important to people of faith. Anabaptists have come a long way in their interaction with society and politics. Of course, most of the students at the school are not actually Anabaptist and many probably don’t know much about Anabaptism, but the school is intentional about its Anabaptist values (even if its not as explicit about them as, say, Goshen). I wonder what the campaigns will do when they learn that Messiah doesn’t have a flag pole on campus (oh, heresies of heresies).
What I’m not looking forward to are more jokes about the name of the school or references to the whole Monica Goodling fiasco.
I was first tipped off by these two stories (and my alumni email update).
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