At the first formal conference of its kind to be held on a Seventh-day Adventist university campus, some 170 people gathered to talk about ways to increase peacemaking. The one-day conference, “Talking Peace, Making Peace: An Adventist Conversation,”  was held on the campus of La Sierra University, an Adventist institution, on Jan. 28.

“The purpose of the peace conference was to widen a local dialog on Adventism and peace/war, and identify individuals who were interested in pursuing the discussion,” said Ginger Hanks Harwood, one of the conference organizers. We believe that “peacemaking is an important part of being a follower of Christ and is a central component of the Adventist experience and mission.”

The conference was also to “contribute to the on-going dialog about the importance of affirming traditional Adventist stances on peacemaking through social justice and even sociopolitical protest and to demonstrate the wide range of topics that interface with Christian peacemaking,” Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson, another organizer, added.

The conference was organized by Adventist Women for Peace, an organization whose seven founding members—Gillian Keough Geraty, Hanks-Harwood, Iris Landa, Morales-Gudmundsson and Marta Pastor Teel—started a blog a year ago to give people a forum to express their viewpoints and share information on peace.

“We wanted to begin by looking at the history of Adventism on peace and military involvement, as we strongly suspected that many people are unaware of our legacy as a peace church,” said Harwood who started the conference with a presentation called, “‘The Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus:’ Faith, War and Peacemaking in 19th Century Adventism.”

The daylong event had a mix of presentations that ranged from scripture readings to a historical presentation on the church’s long-held stance on peace to artistic presentations and ended with a viewing of the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” which was about the 1994 genocide in that African nation.

In the afternoon the program focused on ways in which “Adventists are working on peacemaking in a variety of ways that ranged from creating art with a message decrying violence and oppression, to holding workshops on forgiveness and reconciliation, to teaching peace-making skills in the elementary classroom,” said Harwood.

Another discussion explored how the church can more actively contribute to peacemaking in the future and in the present.

Kendra Haloviak, a professor at the university and one of three teaching a graduate course on peacemaking brought her students. “We are grateful that we have a campus that helps students wrestle with this issue,” she said pointing to the campus’ history of offering lectures and seminars on forgiveness and peacemaking.

Doug Morgan, a professor at Columbia Union College—an Adventist college near Washington, D.C. also did a presentation and is one of the founding members of Adventist Peace Fellowship, which co-sponsored the conference.

“The conference was encouraging and inspiring,” Morgan said. “It helped to see what other such grassroots organizations were doing for peace.  I think there is an opening there and people are now thinking about how to organize more around this very important issue.”