Report from ‘Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts’: Week 2
Report from Week 2 of Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts: The Truth’s Superb Surprise, led by Debra Rienstra of Calvin College, sponsored by CICW and hosted by Seminars in Christian Scholarship: (previous report)
Our second week took us from the richly textured work of Garret Keizer, Marilynne Robinson, and Vinita Wright to discussions of more informal and technology-driven forms of communication, including magazines, visual arts, and the Internet.
At the end of our last day, we went around and shared a word that represented a key area of reflection for us the past two weeks. Mine was “witness.” The very first two days of the seminar, when we talked about the increased blurring of spiritual memoir and apologetics, I seized on the word “witness” when it was offered as an umbrella over both. I’m no good at “witnessing” in the narrow evangelizing sense, but I’ve been challenged these past two weeks to witness in my writing and my life with even a fraction of the subtlety, beauty, wisdom, and hospitality of many of the voices we’ve encountered during the seminar.
We were all struck by the sense of community that formed early and intensely during these two weeks, more than we’ve experienced at other seminars and conferences. And we hatched a scheme to keep working, writing, and witnessing together; stay tuned!
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