Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, President of Chicago Theological Seminary, will be speaking this coming Monday at Eden Theological Seminary. Thistlethwaite is a longtime advocate for peaceful solutions in times of war. Just before the outbreak of the Iraq conflict she spoke these words.
Our most fundamental moral problem in all that is happening in our anxious times may be the way in which our anxiety over threats both real and imaged is causing us to see the stranger as a threat; to reject people and cultures different from ourselves and just write them off as strangers and enemies. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life in resistance to Hitler, once said, “Security is based on distrust; peace is based on trust.” In these strange times, the strange, the other, the one who does not look like us, is a source of threat. We reject their otherness. It makes it a lot easier to kill. Think of all the times in the New Testament, though, when Jesus meets and talks to people who are the sworn enemies of his own race, outcasts, polluted people and in that conversation finds a way to welcome their strangeness. The stranger the better for Jesus. We are a long way from there.
You can read the full sermon by clicking here.
If you're in St. Louis you should contact Eden and see if seats are still available.
