Denver Seminary

This latest blog is a little late. The last several weeks have been busy with the end of the school year (with all the grading that goes with it!), my travel to Chicago to give the commencement speech at North Park Theological Seminary, and then a trip to Washington, DC (May 29^th – June 1^st) for a gathering of Catholics and evangelicals.

The meeting in Washington was the final one for a group called Catholics and Evangelicals for the Common Good. This group began coming together about 5 years ago because of an earlier conversation between two ethicists, one Catholic and the other evangelical, who cold see that the two traditions could agree on several moral issues.

Several meetings, including this last one, were held at Georgetown University, which is a Jesuit institution. From the Catholic side, there was representation from that university, the University of Notre Dame, Boston College, St. John’s (both in New York City and Minnesota), the office of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, E. J. Dionne, Jr., who writes for the Washington Post, and others. On the evangelical side the convener was Ron Sider. Others, besides myself, who participated included Glen Stassen (Fuller Seminary), Galen Carey (Vice President of the NAE), Paul Alexander (Palmer Seminary), Richard Cizik, and Michael Gerson, former speech writer to George W. Bush and newspaper columnist. A wonderful group of people from whom I learned a lot!

The three principle topics that brought us together were: poverty, the unborn, and immigration. At each yearly meeting papers were presented on these topics or on Catholics and evangelicals working together, in spite of disagreements on some key doctrinal issues.

The papers will now be collected and published. But this gathering is proof that Christians of very different persuasions can come together for the common good… which includes working for immigration reform. There is much that unites us in these challenging times.