Brian Walsh seminar - Beyond Homelessness

Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement
A Day Seminar with Dr. Brian Walsh
Saturday October 20, 2007 Cityside Baptist 8A Mt. Eden Rd, Newton  Cost $20

Introducing Our Speaker:
Dr. Brian Walsh is the Christian Reformed campus minister at the University of Toronto and Adjunct Professor of Theology of Culture at Wycliffe College, Toronto. His earlier books The Transforming Vision and Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be (both co-authored with J. Richard Middleton) have explored the shape and character of Christian cultural witness at the end of modernity.
In 2005 he published Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire with his wife Sylvia
Keesmaat. This ‘anti-commentary’ has been described as forging a whole new genre of
writing that bring biblical texts into a radical interface with contemporary culture. Walsh’s
most recent work has been with Steve Bouma-Prediger of Hope College, in Michigan, USA.
Together they have written Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of  Displacement. This project forms the content of our seminar with Dr. Walsh.

Introducing the Theme:
The themes of home, homelessness, and homecoming are pervasive in
contemporary culture. From the crisis in affordable housing to the decline of the family farm,
from literature and art through advertising and the movies, from scholarly tomes to the
popular press, these themes are seemingly ubiquitous. And they are profoundly illuminating
motifs with which to understand much of what is often called the postmodern age.
In this seminar we will illustrate and analyze various forms of homelessness—socioeconomic,
ecological, and psycho-spiritual—and demonstrate how the Christian faith, and
especially the biblical story, addresses the hurts of contemporary homelessness. In contrast
to both those who say we are already at home and those who insist there is no home,
biblical faith portrays Christians as sojourners on the way home but not yet home. God's
redemptive homecoming is coming, and we are called to bear witness to God’s good future
of shalom. So we are called to redemptive homemaking in a culture of widespread
displacement, anticipating the homecoming of the Kingdom of God.

Schedule:
9.00 Registration and coffee
10.00 Worship: “Creation, Covenant and the Homemaking God” [Genesis 1-9]
10.30 Presentation #1 Getting the Big Picture: Who is Homeless?
11.15 Break
11.30 Presentation #2 Getting the Big Picture: Biblical Homecoming
12.45 Lunch
2.00 Worship: “Wine, Money and the Homebreaking King” [1 Kings 21]
2.30 Presentation #3 Globalization, poverty, ecology and homelessness
3.15 Break
4.00 Presentation #4 Shalom and an Economics for Homemaking
5.15 Concluding Worship: “Wine, Bread and the Homemaking King” [Mark 13-16]
6.00 Dinner
8.00 An evening together of film and/or music

Sponsored by
Tear Fund NZ " Creation Care Study Program (CCSP) " Cityside Baptist