A Regional Conference
on Religion and Violence
February 29 & March 1, 2004
Student teams from nine Mid-Atlantic colleges and universities gathered at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center on February 29 and March 1, 2004 for the ICJS's first Regional College Student Conference. The conference was an out-growth of the ICJS/National Jewish Scholars Project campus programming, which has been conducted at Goucher College for the past three years.

Focusing on the theme of religion and violence, students studied texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, and the Babylonian Talmud that reflect varying ways in which Christians and Jews have reacted to violence done against them. The students also discussed contemporary issues of religion and conflict with ICJS board member Taylor Branch, the chronicler of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and Catherine Heinhold, retreat coordinator for Georgetown University's cam-pus ministry.

Since the conference fell on the opening weekend of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, students were asked to discuss a hypothetical case study dealing with campus con-flict over the movie. A late-night viewing of the film Dead Man Walking spurred informal discussion until the early hours of the morning.

Students from Franklin and Marshall College, Georgetown Uni-versity, Goucher College, Princeton University, St. John's College (Annapolis), St. Mary's College, Towson University, the University of Maryland - Baltimore County, and the University of Maryland - College Park participated in the conference. We asked some of our students to respond to their experience for In A Word.

Being born to a Roman Catholic father and a Sephardic Jewish mother, much of my childhood was spent in a state of religious confusion. I had learned about certain aspects of each of the individual heritages, but beyond a basic understanding of their common heritage, I was never given a serious opportunity to investigate their intersection: What do the two traditions hold philosophically in common and what do they keep separate? There was always a nascent duplicity, knowing that my Catholic heritage stereotypically preached a doctrine of peace yet had historically persecuted my Sephardic ancestors. Later in life, I learned that it is only by such comparison between the familiar and the foreign that we gain understanding. Thus, for me, the ICJS's Religion and Violence conference was as much a personal quest as a scholastic endeavor. Through meeting people from all across the Judeo-Christian religious spectrum, learning about their experiences, and focusing on text study, I didn't necessarily gain answers to my questions, but I found a map that will perhaps lead to self-discovery.

Aaron Terrazas, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

This was the first time I sat with peers from area colleges who are dedicated to an honest investigation of our religious tradi-tions. Simply put: How is a religious person to handle the interpretation of difficult texts? Many, though not by any means all, texts seem to present ideas that are in conflict with values held dear in a just society. The questions are: What do traditional interpretations of ambiguous texts do for us? Are we free to interpret as we wish, while discounting millennia of commentary? As texts are discussed and processed, what are we doing to their relative value? If we believe that certain texts hold primal value to our identities, can we in fact place a relative value on some texts over others? These are a few of the myriad questions that pop up when the issue of religious texts and violent messages are examined.

In truth, the conference was like an appetizer. Having only a short time to meet my peers and the ICJS scholars, I felt that the surface of the potential for discussion on this topic was barely scratched. I strongly believe that if a week's time were given to the conference, a thousand times more would have been accomplished as far as interfaith sharing of feeling and spirit. The conference for me served as a springboard, lifting my interest in learning texts held sacred by Christians.

Shaya Pinson, University of Maryland, College Park

I came to the conference not knowing what to expect, but the dialogue started up right away as I bonded on the car ride down with the representatives from my school. One benefit of the conference was that it brought people together who go to the same school but might never have met. At the first ses-sion, different views came out immediately as we discussed the hypothetical scenario before us. With different school backgrounds, we explored not only the issues at hand but also the process of dialogue itself. Different students wanted to handle the discussion in different ways and we had to learn how to move the conversation in productive directions. I was encouraged to hear about the interfaith efforts of students at so many other schools and to see the willingness and open-ness of people to learn about other traditions. Not only was I encouraged, but I also got some new ideas for programs to try out at my school.

Katie Hampton, Princeton University

Turning Words Into Action
January 20 - February 24, 2004
For sixteen years the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies has addressed the contemporary challenges of religious plural-ism by developing local and national programs designed to shape a new relationship between Christians and Jews. Among our most successful ventures have been seminars and text study sessions for high school students.

In its second year, Bridging the Generations engaged a diverse student leadership community in a carefully constructed five-week community service project led by eight religious scholars and classroom teachers. This year the program teamed 26 students from eight Baltimore high schools (two public and six private) with nine senior citizens (eight female and one male) from Keswick Multi-Care Facility.

The goals of this year's program were to help our next gener-ation of leaders to recognize the importance of community service, to identify the relationship between faith and service, to connect with the elderly as sources of wisdom, to use the lenses of their faith traditions (Judaism and Christianity) to examine issues related to life lessons and aging, and to assess the attitudes of popular culture about aging.

The work began with an introductory session led by ICJS Executive Director Chris Leighton and Maggi Gaines, Executive Director of spark: Partnership for Service, during which the students were introduced to the project and each other. Study sessions included dinner for the students, the intro-duction of particular discussion topics, a text study focused around the night's theme, a visit with a senior, and a group reflection. Themes ranged from encountering the stranger and taking risks to the nature of obligation and coping with grief and loss. Texts were drawn from the Tanakh and the New Testament.

High school students aren't usually attracted to the subjects of aging, health problems, loss, and death. These issues are, however, realities that test their leadership and their ability to act with conviction and compassion in the world. With help from teachers, facilitators, and scholars our young participants were challenged to make discoveries about themselves and their world that will impact their interactions well into the future.

The lessons of Bridging the Generations were learned through our emotional connection to one another. We discovered once again how important "give and take" can be when we confront the barriers of age and history that separate us.

This year a journaling component was added to Bridging the Generations. While we are committed to maintaining the pri-vacy of our students' reflections, we have asked them to share a few entries in our fall edition of The Institute. We believe their thoughts will be particularly illuminating. Thought-ful discussions, shared memories, and the promise of understanding are all necessary ingredients in our present as well as our future.