Convocation on May 12

On Saturday, May 12, 2012, the Institute for Christian Studies will be celebrating the successful program completion of nine Junior Members in a Convocation ceremony held at St. Joseph Chapel in Regis College. At the event, ICS will be conferring the Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) upon Dr. Samson Makhado and Mr. Fred Reinders who will both be giving convocation addresses.

Social Justice and Human Rights Conference a Success

The Social Justice and Human Rights Conference took place on April 27-28 with more than 145 people in attendance during the course of the two days. “It was a very successful event,” Conference Director Lambert Zuidervaart reports, “and it creates room for more conversations in the future. I am very grateful for the support shown by ICS donors, granting agencies such as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Priscilla and Stanford Reid Trust, and several conference sponsors.” Co-hosted by the ICS Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics (CPRSE) and by Emmanuel College, the conference will give rise to further dialogue on CPRSE’s Ground Motive web log (http://www.groundmotive.net). Highlights will appear in session summaries and a conference documentary video, which are currently being prepared. Stay tuned to CPRSE’s webpage (http://www.icscanada.edu/cprse) for the latest details.

Albert Boerema appointed as Adjunct Faculty

Dr. Albert Boerema has been appointed as an ICS Adjunct Faculty member. Boerema is a former high school principal who is now a professor at Calvin College. He will teach Introduction to Educational Leadership at the 2012 Summer Institute at Redeemer University College, July 3-13. This course is accredited for CSTC. Enrolment deadline: 1 June 2012. Course description and syllabus: http://courses.icscanada.edu/search/label/S12 Registration: http://www.icscanada.edu/academics/course-registration-form

From Commemoration to Strategy

This past February ICS and Citizens for Public Justice together sponsored a two day event to both commemorate the Christian activism of Gerald Vandezande and speak about the future of faith-based advocacy work in light of his example.  The move from commemoration to strategizing for the future was made via a panel of three Vandezande collaborators who had worked with Gerald in three different dimensions of his career.  Linda Tripp spoke of Gerald's long collaboration with evangelical activists pushing for an authentic evangelical concern for social justice.  John Hiemstra spoke as a Reformed Christian social theorist about Gerald's long efforts to entice such theorists to theorize in service of the struggle for economic and social justice.  Javed Akbar spoke of Gerald's enthusiasm for interreligious dialogue and solidarity around a shared religious concern for concrete action on behalf of society's vulnerable and weak in the name of justice.  Together these talks bore witness to the remarkable vocation of Gerald Vandezande, to be sure.  But they did more; they also made a statement about the intersection of theory, religion and social ethics/action.  In so doing they express something important about that intersection that reminds us at ICS of what we are trying to think through in our teaching and scholarship, and especially in our Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics.  That is why we felt it only fitting to make the texts of these talks available to our readers at http://www.icscanada.edu/repository/2012/GeraldVandezandeReflections