LOUISVILLE — Exploring new visions of security in homes, neighborhoods, and the world will be the focus of the sixth annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days conference.
Scheduled for March 7-10 in Washington, D.C., the gathering will bring together religious advocates from around the world to learn about key issues and then lobby for them in the United States capital.
“2008: Claiming A Vision of True Security” is this year’s theme, which will be the overlay for discussions taking place in several different tracks. The area-specific tracks include Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. The issue-specific tracks are peace and global security, jubilee and economic justice, eco-justice and domestic.
Among the speakers are Mark A. Lomax, pastor of First Afrikan Church in Lithonia, Ga.; Lisa Schirch, a professor of peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.; and Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, a Turkish-born priest who represents the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) in Washington and is president of the National Council of Churches USA.
“As people of faith and conscience, we envision a world where security is not measured by military power, closed borders or corporate profits, but by the capacity to achieve the common global good and share the resources which sustain communities,” Advocacy Days organizers say in a vision statement posted on their Web site.
The top 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates also have been invited to take part in a town hall forum.
“What we are hoping to do … is to reclaim the word ‘security,'” said Leslie Woods, the representative for domestic poverty and environmental issues in the PC(USA)’s Washington office. The idea is to examine what true security means, “and talk about policies that are life-giving.”
