The Preaching Peace team at Making Peace 2007.
Tony Bartlett
Tony Bartlett: I was born in 1946 in the shadow of World War II. My father had served in the British army in India and took ship back to England directly they dropped the bomb on Japan. My mother gave birth a year later. She was from Ireland, one of eleven sisters and brothers. Her parents had brought them up busting a living from rock and peat moors wedged in a vast horizon of water, Galway Bay in the west, Loch Corrib in the east, streams underfoot and rain in the air. Three older siblings emigrated to the U.S., but by the time my mother was eighteen the Depression curtailed U.S. immigration and she moved to England. She brought to the land of the enemy fervent national Catholicism and a passion for literature.
As a little boy and teenager the Roman Catholic priesthood was destiny. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense. I was ordained in 1973 within a religious congregation, the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. I studied with the Jesuits, first in the Pontifical Athanaem in Oxfordshire and then Heythrop College at London University. I also spent a year at the Lateran University in Rome. I left the congregation and the priesthood in 1984, finally conscious that it was either life or the institutional priesthood; there could be no middle way.
I ran a mission for homeless people in London’s East End and got married to Linda. We had children, moved to Norfolk, England, and then to Syracuse, U.S.A., where I gained my Ph.D. I am the author of Cross Purposes, The Violent Grammar of Christian Atonement, various papers and articles, and The Jonah Zone, Notes for a Theology of Jesus in the World which is appearing serially as an ebook. I teach as Assistant Professor in Theology at the Episcopal Seminary, Bexley Hall, in Rochester N.Y. Riding from Syracuse by car every week I cross a wetland on highway 90 called the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, known pejoratively to locals as "the swamp." For me it feels immensely prayerful every time I cross that place. It is all the waters on earth that the Wisdom of God hovers over, looking for her home.
For More on Tony and his book Cross Purposes (click here)
Bible Studies on 2nd Isaiah by Tony Barlett (click here)
Dorthy Whiston
Dorothy Whiston received her certificate in spiritual direction from the Shalem Institute in Bethesda, MD and her D.Min. from the Graduate Theological Foundation in South Bend, IN. She works with an ecumenical ministry for spiritual guidance in Iowa City, IA called Soul Friends and coordinates Kairos Restorative Justice Ministry, an ecumenical mission of her Roman Catholic parish that provides faith-based and other services to criminal offenders in prisons and the community. She’s also the eastern Iowa coordinator for the Alternatives to Violence Project, doing prison workshops. A Midwesterner by birth, she spent most of her adult years in western Montana and plans to return at the base of the beautiful Mission Mountains (think Tetons) on the Flathead Indian Reservation when her husband retires from teaching law. Dorothy is the mother of two young adults, a dog and a cat and is oh-so-slowly working on a spiritual memoir, As One Made New, looking at her life through the lens of mimetic theory.
Mary McKinney
Mary McKinney is a 1959 graduate of the First United Methodist Kindergarten in Winder, Georgia, and credits wonderful parents, kindergarten and congregation with her relationship with Jesus Christ and her solid foundation for life and ministry. A graduate of Agnes Scott College and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, she feels honored to be pastor at Mayfield Congregational Church. She has three wonderful children and lives with her partner, Goldy. Through an internet connection four years ago she stumbled onto preachingpeace.org. Life hasn’t been the same since. She enjoyed participating in MP1 and MP2, and encourages you to sign up for MP3! She loves camping, learning more about Grandfather, and has recently completed the Standard Course @ Tom Brown’s Tracker School. She is still trying to bust out fire with a bow drill.
Michael Hardin
Michael is a grateful graduate of North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago where he studied Bonhoeffer with F. Burton Nelson and Girard with Edwin A. Hallsten. He has published several articles utilizing Rene Girard’s mimetic theory and is pleased to be affiliated with the marvelous group of people who make up the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. He lives in Lancaster, PA (in the heart of Amish country).
Michael and Lorri attend Akron Mennonite Church. Together, they take classes at Tom Brown Jr’s School of Nature Awareness, Tracking and Wilderness survival in New Jersey (uummm, dandelions for lunch again). Michael loves the group Yes, the New York Giants (go Big Blue!), wandering the creation, the Netherlands, really good Italian and Mexican cuisine, single malts (I can’t wait to go visit John Mann!) and good books.
Some of Michael’s Essays:
“The Biblical Testaments As A Marriage of Convenience: Rene Girard and Early Christian Hermeneutics” presented to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion at Stanford, AAR/SBL Annual Meeting, 1990
“The Scapegoat: Crisis in Christology” presented to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, Wiesbaden, Germany, 1994
“Mimesis and Dominion: The Dynamics of Violence and the Imitation of Christ in Maximus Confessor” presented to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion at Stanford, 1992 published in St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol 36. No. 4
“Violence: Rene Girard and the Recovery of Early Christian Perspectives” presented to the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, 1988 and published in Brethren Life and Thought, Vol 37, No2
“Sacrificial Language in the ‘Letter to the Hebrews’” presented to the General Epistles section of the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting 1993, and represented upon request to a symposium held at the Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN 1994. Published in Violence Renounced, edited by Willard Swartley (Pandora Press: 2000)
“Reflections on the Spirituality of Soren Kierkegaard” Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol 45, 325-340.
“The Trinity as Hermeneutic: A Pietist Perspective” The Covenant Quarterly, Vol 45, No. 1
“The Authority of Scripture: A Pietist Perspective” The Covenant Quarterly, Vol 49, No. 1
“The Twelve Steps and Christian Spirituality” presented to the Christian Association of Psychological Studies, Detroit, 1992. Published in The Journal of Ministry in Addiction and Recovery, Vol 1, No 1
“A Theological Justification for the Anonymity of God” The Journal of Ministry in Addiction and Recovery, Vol 1, No 2
“Do Clergy Foster Co-Dependence?” The Journal of Ministry in Addiction and Recovery, Vol 2, No. 1
Jeff Krantz
Jeff is the Rector of the Church of the Advent in Westbury, NY, a graduate of The General Theological Seminary in NYC. He is a longtime advocate of non-violence and has only recently come upon the writings of Rene Girard.
Jeff has also been long committed to the task of using the Internet for the sharing of real Gospel, as opposed to much that passes for it.
In addition to this site, Jeff has produced two popular animated responses to the violence of September 11th, "A tribute to the rescue workers of 9/11" and "A memorial to the victims of 9/11."
Nancy Hitt
Nancy Hitt: I came of age in the wonderful chaos of the sixties. Love beads, peace, and the quest for meaning in life accompanied me to nursing school where I learned the skills to save the world one patient at a time. I loved it. I loved the glimpse into people’s lives and the opportunity to participate in them that nursing offered me. I especially loved the creativity that patients brought into unique and often painful situations. I chose child/adolescent psychiatric nursing because the challenge to help damaged kids heal was more important in the long run than anything else I could imagine, and it was the best possible kind of fun. Always possessed by an active imagination, I heard God calling in my thirties and thought I’d lost it….except that I knew what crazy looked like, and I wasn’t crazy. Therefore, the visions were real, and my life changed in response to them, taking me to Andover Newton Theological School and into pastoral ministry. Now licensed to meddle with body, mind, and spirit, I continue to be fascinated by what it means to be human.
I stumbled onto Girard and things mimetic online a few years ago. What captured my attention was that the material dealt with lived reality; from this perspective my own life experience validated what was going on in the scriptures. I no longer needed to rely on the expertise of scholars to explain a mystery. Today, I continue to read, study, and talk non-stop about this wonderful framework that makes so much sense out of everything. It excites me no end to explain the mimetic process and scapegoating dynamic and have faces light up with understanding. I figure it should take the rest of my life to work out being fully human from here…..
For those who need structure: I am married, (for 33yrs) have 3 children, 2 cats, and 1 dog. Life is not boring; I’m still on the quest.
Kenton Martin
Kenton is the current web administrator for PreachingPeace.org. He recently graduated Manheim Township High School, and is attending Penn State University with a major in Information Sciences and Technology.
Scott Hutchinson
The agape life of Jesus has sung a love song to me for as long as I can remember. I am in my seventeenth year as a local church pastor, twelve of them among the wonderful people of St. Andrew’s United Church of Christ in Perkasie, PA. In addition to the excitement preaching the gospel and the privilege of pastoral care, I love to teach and learn the ways of peace.
My education includes professional degrees in Divinity, Counseling and Human Relations, and Social Work. While deeply enjoying seminary, my most vital schooling has come among the beloved in places like PATH Community Mental Health Center, Panchimilama, El Salvador, and the Carbon County Jail. They have been exemplary teachers, embodying the presence of Christ and pointing to the emerging kingdom among us. The years have been a laboratory in God’s grace.
My daily life is blessed with the love of Debra, Corinne, Alex, and Kara, for whom I am grateful beyond words. My favorite things include writing, storytelling, rock and roll, and basketball. Mimetic theory has sharpened my wits biblically, enabling me to hear scriptural voices buried beneath traditional readings of the text, and to perceive anew the breadth of God’s saving power that sets us free from all bondage.
John Mann
John Mann is a pilgrim on a journey that began in Portland, Oregon when at the age of nine he wandered into a boy’s club at the local Baptist church. He followed a path that led to pastoral ministry and along the way picked up some hands-on skills by way of putting bread on the table: shoe-shine boy, mechanic, lumberjack, bus driver and fire fighter. In addition he managed to obtain a variety of degrees from institutions of higher learning such as Portland State University, Bethel Theological Seminary and McCormick Theological Seminary.
John is essentially a Presbyterian who is continually being re-formed by the foolishness of the gospel. In 2003 he moved from a pastorate in suburban Minneapolis to Glasgow, Scotland where he works as a Church of Scotland minister in a post-war housing estate, also known as an “urban priority” parish.
He has three grown children and since the year 2000 has been happily married to Lindsay Louise Biddle. John is an avid storyteller and is on the board of The Village, a Scottish storytelling center that happens to be located in his church, St. James, Glasgow. He is actively involved in the British Stop the War Coalition, has provided material for the short film, “Dear Mrs. Blair” and appeared in the BBC documentary “One Mother’s Son.” He appreciates jazz, fish and chips and is currently forming and reforming a collection of single malt whisky.
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