CPTnet
11 April 2011
ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: CPT Aboriginal
Justice Team to participate in the Wild Goose Festival this summer
This summer the CPT Aboriginal Justice team
will participate in the inaugural Wild Goose Festival set in North Carolina’s
Shakori Hills from 23-26 June 2011. The gathering will bring together disparate voices in a
conversation on the present and future state of Christian faith in North
America and around the world. The
organizers have invited Christian Peacemaker Teams to contribute by sharing
tales from its work and its dream of a world without violence.
The festival is a new opportunity to link
CPT’s vision of faith-based peacemaking with wider networks in a place where
justice, spirituality, music and art will intersect. “I’ve appreciated Christian Peacemaker Teams’ active,
tangible witness to non-violence since I learned of CPT while attending the UK’s
Greenbelt Festival in 2003,” wrote Mike Morrell, Communications Coordinator of
the Wild Goose Festival. “Since
then, I’ve watched your work and influence expand, even while many of us in the
U.S. have sought to create a festive space for active peacemaking right here at
home. I think that friends of CPT will find at our inaugural Wild Goose
Festival scores of kindred spirits who are seeking to follow Jesus into the
actual and rhetorical war zones that are flaring up with increasing frequency.
“
Inspired by the long-established Greenbelt
festival in the UK, the Wild Goose Festival line-up includes speakers,
musicians, artists, performers and storytellers. The Aboriginal Justice team will bring stories of CPT’s efforts,
particularly in North America, to partner with First Peoples working for peace
and justice. We hope that by being
present in the first year of the festival, we can help to establish peacemaking
as a central concept of Christian practice for a new generation.
“CPT’s presence bearing witness to
non-violence in the world’s conflict zones gives it a unique perspective on
grassroots activism,” wrote Wild Goose Festival director, Gareth Higgins in an
e-mail. “I’m excited that CPT is part of the first Wild Goose Festival as we
seek to nurture a new community movement at the intersection of justice,
spirituality and art. CPT already
belongs at Wild Goose, and we’re looking forward to the conversation about how
we might reduce violence in our own local contexts as well as around the world.”
Before becoming director of Wild Goose, Higgins worked as a peace activist in his
home country, Northern Ireland
This festival is going to be an exciting,
dynamic, spirit-led time of connecting, learning, discovery and expression. Those interested in attending will find
information about the festival here.
