Dr. Katherine Bassard addresses how to live out our ministry of reconciliation in a world that is increasingly polarized, divided and broken. This chapel is part of our ongoing Dialogue on Race and Diversity coordinated by the Black Student Union (BSU) and Multicultural and International Student Services (MISS).

Dr. Bassard is a recognized expert in African American Literature. She examines poetry, novels, speeches, sermons, and prayers by African American women from Maria W. Stewart to Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, discussing how such texts respond as a collective “literary witness” to the use of the Bible for purposes of social domination. Her recent publications include Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women’s Writing and Transforming Scriptures: African American Women Writers and the Bible. Dr. Bassard has received numerous awards and grants for her teaching and research efforts, including recognition by the Center for Teaching Excellence, Honor’s College, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, as well as from the Pew and Ford foundations. Holding degrees in English from Wake Forest University, VCU (MA), and Rutgers University (Ph.D.), Dr. Bassard has taught at the University of California Berkeley and since 1999 VCU, where she now serves as senior vice provost for faculty affairs.

“Christianity without consequence: Called to a ministry of reconciliation,”
. , US Executive Director.

April 2014 marked 20 years since the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi.  Two of the most Christianized countries in Africa became the place where Christians killed other Christians.  What can we learn from this experience about the ministry of reconciliation we are called to, in Africa and in the United States?

Dr. Salim Munayer, Director of .

The Middle East is fraught with polarization. Yet in the midst of conflicts churches are often recognized as communities of forgiveness and reconciliation. For Dr. Salim Munayer bearing witness to the Gospel of reconciliation within the conflict is his passion. In this Chapel Gathering in the Seminary, he speaks about this enormously challenging calling.
Salim Munayer is an Arab-Palestinian Christian whose family was forced to flee their home, Lydda-Lod, in 1948. Like the Anabaptist/Baptist/Free Church Tradition, Salim’s Theology of Reconciliation offers a third way between the bipolar split of the western church’s conservative evangelicalism and protestant liberalism. Salim is on faculty at Bethlehem Bible College and is director of Musalaha – a dynamic peace-building program based out of Jerusalem.

On Musalaha’s homepage Salim says: “Conservative Western evangelicals tend to see the Middle East through the lens of religion. To many Westerners, Islam is frequently viewed as a threat since it is distinctively different and foreign in its expression. Islam is often perceived as anti-Christian, and the majority of problems in the Middle East are linked to Islam’s dominance in the region. These perceptions can lead to fear of Muslims, sometimes resulting in negative and racist attitudes toward Arab or Muslim people. At the other end of the spectrum, many liberal churches see current events in the Middle East as a byproduct of social changes such as modernization and urbanization, and they see radical Islam as a result of colonialism and imperialism…”

Salim’s theology is rooted in the reconciling work of Jesus on the cross. Salim’s mission is focused on building and reconciling relationships and, according to Salim, “most of Musalaha’s reconciliation work is between Israeli Messianic Jews and Palestinian Christians.”

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.