Sixty featured speakers included Brian McLaren, Miroslav Volf, Jim Wallis, and Shane Claibourne.
The conference, partially through an Internet dialogue, produced a vision statement (www.ev08.org). “Envision is a theologically and politically diverse movement of Christians committed to following the way of Jesus,” according to the conference statement, Envision the Future: A Declaration on the Common Good. The movement is intentionally diverse racially, ethnically and theologically, including all “who profess that the call of Jesus includes struggling for peace, social, economic, and racial justice and a flourishing creation,” according to the declaration. “In a spirit of humility and hospitality, we seek to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God and each other,” it states.
Dozens of Christian groups helped sponsor the conference, including Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary; Union Theological Seminary (N.Y.), Auburn Theological Seminary, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The Presbytery of New York, The Hudson River Presbytery, and Fuller Theological Seminary.
“Any time we get justice-oriented evangelicals and mainliners together, that’s the place I want to be,” said Brian McLaren, Emergent church author, speaker, and pastor, and one of the Envision presenters. “I’m impressed with this group because there are some real liberal progressive thoughtful Christian leaders and some bona fide evangelicals who really feel they don’t want to fight with each other, but instead want to work together,” said McLaren. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, addressed the conference on the opening night asserting, “We need to do this together because we can’t do it by ourselves.”
Justice as the eternal priority of God and the immediate, critical issue of this time in history was underscored by several speakers.
“Is justice more than ‘just us?’” asked Alise Barrymore, founding pastor of the Emmaus Community and dean of campus ministries at North Park University. “It doesn’t matter how many creeds you can recite or how long you have been uttering doctrinal formulae,” asserted Obery Hendricks, professor of biblical studies at New York Theological Seminary, “if you are not in some way struggling to build a just and healthy economic environment.”
While affirming the diversity of backgrounds participants brought to Envision 08, the “us” mindset and old Christian labels sometimes found in that diversity were challenged.
“If there’s anything I’ve learned from both liberals and conservatives, it’s that we can have all the right answers and still be mean,” admitted Shane Claiborne, author, speaker, and founding member of The Simple Way Community in Philadelphia. “You can have all the right ideas,” suggested Claiborne, “but if you’re mean, no one’s going to pay attention.” Claiborne said that he grew up in a church that taught “how to believe, but not how to follow” and challenged the conference participants that “maybe the greatest challenge is not just theology, not just what we believe, but how we live.”
Participants concluded the conference at a gathering and worship service during which John Perkins, civil rights leader and international teacher on racial reconciliation and community development, was honored for his “visionary leadership and unquenchable flame, which lights a path of justice for us all.”
Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, spoke as part of the closing worship, suggesting, “What we’re witnessing is the beginning of what could be another Great Awakening in which the hunger for spirituality and social justice are fueling a revival and inspiring a movement.”
Erin Dunigan is a freelance writer/photographer living in Newport
Beach, Calif.
