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It’s All In the Name

News & Events

President’s Report
By James R. Adams

Faith Identity on Campuses: The Lutheran and Episcopal Campus Ministries in Northern California invited me to help facilitate the fi rst of a planned series of conferences designed to equip student leaders for ministry. I was a bit unnerved by the agreement that my co-leader would be a person whom I had never met: Dr. Jane E. Strohl, an associate history professor at Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley, California. Considering the fact that we had only two telephone conversations before the event, I think we got on remarkably well.

The deal was that Jane and I were supposed to facilitate the conversation and not make presentations, but a few of the students arranged for me to spend the last twenty minutes of the conference telling them about progressive Christianity.

The participants were mostly graduate students from Stanford, Berkeley, Davis, Sacramento, Sonoma, and Chico, although a few undergraduates were part of the mix along with several chaplains and advisors. Having become used to seeing a majority of grey heads at TCPC gatherings, I found the gathering of younger people quite refreshing. In spite of the great gap between our ages, we seemed to understand each other fairly well. I’m looking forward to the June forum and more conversations with people of the younger generations.

TCPC Network Expands: Autonomous networks of progressive Christians are developing in Britain, Ireland, and South Australia. We are in communication with people in Canada and New Zealand and hope to see similar developments in those countries.

The Board of Directors and the Executive Council of TCPC-US have authorized me to raise the money necessary to fi nance a meeting of delegates from all the countries to form a steering committee for TCPC International. We want to gather them in Belmont, California, two days before this June’s forum. As you can imagine, air fare is an expensive proposition for people coming from such distances. Their fledgling organizations are not large enough or rich enough to bear the costs of their travel.

A letter has gone out asking for financial assistance to make possible the first meeting of the TCPC International steering committee. With the letter was a response form, but you don’t need the form to contribute. Just send a check to TCPC, 99 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138, and put “International” on the memo line.

» TCPC Online
The TCPC website continues to expand and develop. Traffic on the site has more than tripled since it was launched. Free websites are now available for affiliated organizations – creation of the site requires no knowledge of the web and can be updated three times a year. The site is hosted on the TCPC website so that the address is www.tcpc.org/**** with your group’s name in place of the stars. To create a site for your organization, start here.

» TCPC Forum 2003
The Big Tent: Presenting the Next Generation of Progressive Christian Leaders, to be held June 6-8, 2003 at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, CA, near San Francisco, will focus on leadership and resources for and from a new generation of progressive Christians.

Some of the younger-generation presenters will include Rev. Parisa Parsa of Faithful Fools in San Francisco, Kent Koth of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford, and Wayne Simmons from Belfast, N. Ireland, among others. Workshop topics will include religion and the arts, social justice and spirituality, interfaith relations, and more.

Accommodations at the University, as well as in a nearby hotel, will be available for very reasonable rates. Forum participants 35 and under will again be offered deep discounts for registration. Stay posted about Forum 2003 plans and online registration at www.tcpc.org.

» Regional Events
TCPC Britain:
"Embodying Openness: Putting Ourselves on the Map."
Report by Hugh Dawes

TCPC Britain:
"Where do I belong in my church?"
Report by Patti Whaley

TCPC Ireland:
"Christian Progressives in Ireland."
Report by Hilary Wakeman

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