October 27–29, 2005
For its fifth meeting, the National Working Group will
focus on faith and the sphere of politics. We’re meeting in
in Washington, D.C. We’ll visit Capitol Hill, visiting with various
members of Congress. Then we’ll talk with people working on issues
of religion in a variety of the idea factories around Washington
to see how these think tanks view their role in shaping the
national conversation over faith, values, and politics.
April 28–30, 2005
For its fourth meeting, the National Working Group focused on
faith and the sphere of work. We met in in Springdale,
Arkansas, hosted by Tyson Foods, Inc. We visited both poultry
processing plants and the corporate headquarters, thinking
together about the various ways faith intersects in the day-to-day
life of a major corporation. More reflections are here.
December 2004
The National Working Group, a dynamic mix of 24 pastors, laity,
and theologians, is halfway through a six-year conversation
regarding faith and the spheres of life. In our first meeting
in October 2003, we discussed the basic claim that faith
today has less impact on our lives. To push us in thinking
about these issues, we read Alan Wolfe’s recent book, The Transformation
of American Religion, in which he argues that culture and not
faith now most influences people of faith. In April 2004 we
gathered again, having written reflections on how faith does
not serve as a way of life within specific contexts: in family
life, at work, in relation to citizenship, or in relation to
arts and culture.
The first two meetings, therefore, focused more on diagnosing the shape of the problem. Now we’ve begun a series of four meetings in order to begin thinking together about solutions. We met together at the end of October 2004, our third meeting together, and all of us felt the strength of our relationships undergirding deepening conversations. Our focus was the relation of faith to family life, broadly speaking. In subsequent meetings we’ll turn to the spheres of work, citizenship, and arts and culture. Our aim is not to rate programs that connect faith to family or work, citizenship or leisure, but rather to think theologically about how we live faithfully within and across various spheres of life. Such theological reflection, though difficult, is the way we most truly find traction as we seek to live our faith in all spheres of life.
December 2003
The National Working Group’s aims are:
- to reflect on the Christian faith as a whole (e.g., by studying important historical examples of how faith was explicated as a way of life, such as great catechisms or compelling presentations of faith by individual theologians);
- to explore specific aspects of faith as they relate to Christian practices and fundamental issues of life or seek to understand specific Christian practices and fundamental issues of life as they relate to faith (e.g., by studying how faith is practiced by exemplary Christians);
- to draw on resources of other faiths that understand themselves as ways of life, such as Judaism and Islam, on the problem of connecting faith and life;
- to visit ministry sites that successfully exemplify faith as shaping people’s lives, whether these sites are faith communities, para-church organizations, or religiously unaffiliated institutions (e.g., businesses or hospitals).
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