Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bob JanisCell: 860.716.4998
Email: bobjanis@lycos.com

“We Shall Be Moved By Love” Conference
to Voice the Values of the Religious Left

Chicago clergy and seminarians, along with members of the community, will gather at a conference Apr. 8th-9th to discover common ground among the varied voices of the religious left. The conference, entitled “We Shall Be Moved By Love: Reclaiming the Voices of the Moral Left”, will bring together different religious traditions to find ways to act in solidarity on our passions for progressive social transformation.

The Conference will take place Friday, April 8th, and Saturday, April 9th, at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, 5500 S. University Ave. The conference will include a 6:00 pm Friday night interfaith worship, followed by dinner, and workshops, presentations, and booths from 9:30 am - 4:00 pm on Saturday. The workshops will include topics such as “social justice vs. personal piety”, environmental justice, and peace. The conference is free and open to all.

The “We Shall Be Moved By Love” planning committee is composed of students at several Chicago theological schools, as well as the University of Chicago. For more information about the conference and its organizing group, go to www.nowwhatmoralvalues.blogspot.com, or contact Bob Janis at 860-716-4998.


Contact: Bob Janis
Day: 860-716-4998
Night: 773-292-9637
Email: weshallbemovedbylove@yahoo.com

Feb 4 minutes

We Shall Be Moved by Love
February 4, 2005

Present: Vincent Lloyd, Ed Loomis, Le Anne Clausen, Danielle Gerrior, Bob Janis, Eliza Galaher

We began at 1:10pm

Introductions/Opening words

Old Business:

April 9 and 10 are our nearly-solid conference dates. If there are any major objections, they need to be spoken soon.

We were updated on two Religious Left events coming up:
There will be a lunchtime discussion with John Fish and Sharon Hunter Smith. It is part of a faith and justice series at the Div school. Bob will pass out fliers at Meadville.
There will be a presentation funded by CTS, M/L and (McCormick? LSTC?) called “Beyond the 2004 Election: What Religious People Can Do” on February 8, from 5:30-7:00pm.

We decided that we liked the name we arrived at during our last meeting: “We Shall Be Moved by Love: Reclaiming the Moral Left”. Unless there is major objection, we will be moving forward with this name.

We discussed what question should be put forth for the presenters to address. Our consensus was “How can we claim the moral left?” Danielle will create a rough draft for a proposal sheet. We will also all look for quotes that might spark conversation.

Ed asked us to consider asking someone from the religious right or secular left. We discussed it but came to no conclusions.

Danielle will try to get a group together to sing “We Shall Be Moved by Love” (by Carolyn McDade) for the opening event.

We decided against committees, in favor of point people. We came up with a list of tasks, and began matching volunteers with each task:
Building and AV Logistics: [Jackie?]
Food: Ed
Worship: Eliza
Registration
Inviting display organizations/people: Le Anne
Advertising
MC
Coordinator of speakers
Fundraising: [Fred?]
Inviting/recruiting speakers: Bob

People in brackets have not been confirmed. Positions without names are not yet taken.

Bob will put together a list of possible people to submit proposals.

The interfaith council of Hyde Park is meeting soon. Bob will contact them, as well as Protestants for the common good.

Our website will still be nowwhatmoralvalues.blogspot.com.

Danielle raised that we need to move forward quickly, that we can’t wait to make every decision with the whole group present.

Next week we’ll be meeting again at 1PM on Friday at the Shelf at LSTC, which is on the second floor above the refectory.
Point people are asked to submit a “report” on their progress. If that person cannot make it to the meeting, they can email any news to Danielle or Bob.

We checked out, had closing words, and ended at 2:05PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Danielle Gerrior

January 18 minutes

Now What? Meeting Minutes
January 18, 2005

Present: Jackie Pogue, Danielle Gerrior, Le Anne
Clausen, Bob Janis

Meeting came to order at 5:35 (after dinner).

Bob provided an opening reading by MLK Jr.

J-Term ends for most ACTS students soon – we need a
new meeting time. We came up with four suggestions.
Please reply ASAP as to which you can attend:
Friday 1PM
Wednesday 12:30PM
Thursday 10AM
Thursday 5:15PM

We need a big turnout for our next meeting – we will
not meet next week.

When next we meet, we will break into subcommittees
(publicity, fundraising, etc.) which will have time to
meet at that time, to avoid the need to find two
meeting times.

Bob reported from Fred, who went to the Religious Left
meeting last week. That group was interested in our
conference, and is CONSIDERING providing us with some
funding.

The website has been fairly dormant, but it is
possible for us to contribute to it. One may sign in,
or “blog anonymously”. The four of us agreed that it
would be good if we could all make more use of that
resource.

April 30- May 1 will be the Chicago Social Forum’s
conference. Tickets are $10 for individuals and $5 for
students. For $25 organizations can get two tickets
and be listed as a co-sponsor.

We came up with a provisional title, submitted for
approval. It is “We Shall Be Moved by Love: Reclaiming
the Moral Left.” We discussed how love can be seen as
that which motivates both justice and mercy.

As for the question the conference should address,
Jackie pointed out that it is important to know our
intent for the conference before we can frame the
question. Bob pointed out that we need to fill a niche
not being otherwise addressed. He suggested that
instead of a question, we could put out an idea or
quote and allow possible presenters to respond
creatively to that offering. Nonetheless, we did come
up with some potential questions:
What is permissible/ not permissible within our
moral worldview(s)?
How do moral values affect your actions?
What are the moral values of the left?
What can/should we do?
We tabled this discussion until a larger group of us
was together.

Bob raised the question of asking George Soros for
money. We decided it couldn’t hurt to ask, and Jackie
volunteered to look into it.

Le Anne wondered if there was a listing of Chicago
area liberal folk. Bob mentioned that the Chicago
Social Forum has a list of last year’s participants.

Jackie recommended “Baghdad Burning”, a blog by a
woman in Iraq.

Bob will put agenda and minutes spaces on the
blogspot.

Danielle and Bob will go to the Religious Left meeting
this week. We will forward minutes of that meeting on
to this group.

Bob offered up a benediction.

The meeting concluded at 6:30PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Danielle Gerrior

January 11 minutes

Now What? Meeting
January 11, 2005 LSTC “Shelf”

Present: Bob Janis, Danielle Gerrior, Jackie Pogue,
Sarah Wilcox, Ed Loomis, Brett Lortie, Purple
Rodela, Colin Bossen, Le Anne Clausen, Eliza Galaher

Meeting came to order at 5:15PM.

Bob provided some background to this group, how we got
started and the general concept of the conference, so
far.

Colin suggested inviting Barack Obama to the
conference, not to present, but to participate in a
conversation. Ed suggested inviting Melissa
Lacewell-Harris.

There is a “placeholder” blog website for us, set up
by Bob:
www.nowwhatmoralvalues.blogspot.com/

Eliza suggested bumping back the date to the second
week of April – sensitivity to the Easter holidays
was raised by Sara as an important thing to keep in
mind. Two weekends were offered as likely
possibilities, with slight preference for the earlier
weekend – April 15-16 and 9-10.

Eliza pointed out that time for group process (in
small and large groups) is important.

Danielle and Eliza were worried about Obama being
too “fancy-schmancy” for a seminarian-focused
conference.

Ed wanted Friday to be voluntary, so that participants
could come to the Saturday events even if they
couldn’t make it the night before.

A possible line-up for the Friday events:
“Hors d’oeuvregistration”
Worship
Address
Goodnight
Saturday would be more of a working day, possibly
with homilies in the morning and after lunch, with
panels and group discussions between?

The question of cost was raised, but not settled. LSTC
has said we can use their space for free – Friday
until 10PM, Saturday 8-5PM. If we go beyond those
times, we may have to pay, as we may have to do to use
the chapel. Money for meals is still an issue.

The question of registration was also raised, and
also unresolved. Sara brought up the possibility of
setting up an online registration.

Brett asked about two Buddhist leaders who want to be
involved, and after some conversation about the
presence of “authority figures”, the feeling seemed
generally that we would benefit from having them, and
that as long as they were not put in the spotlight
more than other participants, their presence and input
would not misdirect the conference.

Eliza expressed concern that we stay on task, focused
on liberal moral values.

We were given two homework assignments for our next
meeting:
*** What question do we want presenters to address?
*** What should the name of our group/conference be?

The next planning meeting for the 2005 Chicago Social
Forum will be Wednesday, January 19 6PM at the Jane
Addams house, 1136 W. Wilson Ave. It is a secular
left group planning another conference.

This Thursday, January 13, at 5PM there will be a
Religious Left meeting at the U of C in Swift Hall.
Their web site is www.religiousleft.blogspot.com (we
think).

OUR next meeting will be next Tuesday at 5:15PM at
Le Anne Clause’s house. Her address is 5437 S.
University Ave. #3, and her phone number is
773-955-3196.

We checked out and were adjourned at 6:20PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Danielle Gerrior

Agenda for Friday (Rough Draft)

(Rough Draft) Agenda for They Shall be Moved by Love meeting
February 4, 1:00 pm


Opening Words (Who’d like to do them this week?) (2-5 min)

Introductions (5 min.)

Old Business (Keeping everyone up to speed with who we are & what’s going on) (10 min)
Conference: When & Where, Basic idea of what will go on, etc.
Religious Left/Other committees: Keeping up to speed with other committees and events of interest
Other old business (A space for whoever wants to add something)

Voting/Decisions: (25 mins.)
Names of Committee and Conference (ask for other ideas then vote?)
The Questions/Topics to give to readers (brainstorm, then vote if we’re comfortable doing so – or we could give the brainstorming to a subcommittee)

Subcommittees (20 mins.)
( First, get some input as to the idea of subcommittees and how they’ll be organised: how often would they meet? How many? Etc.
We should probably think through our own ideas ahead of time, and then reviswe them according to recommendations. Here’s my preliminary thoughts:
Publicity, Questions/Content/Presentations, Finances, Food & Mingling (i.e. everything that isn’t the presentations and discussion), Discussion/Interactive, Prayer Service. So that’s 6 committees – a lot I know. And I think that people can be on more than one committee – in fact, some of us would need to be – but each should only lead one if possible. I don’t know though – haven’t done this before!)

New Business
Next meeting(s): subcommittees should work out when they meet. Are we having another meeting all togeter? I’d say yes, in 2 weeks, but we’ll see.
Other new business?

Closing Words/Benediction (Who’d like?)

when and where to have our conference

If you have info on possible locations for the Moral Values conference, please list them in this thread.

Moral Values Conference discussion

We'd like to have a conference on moral values & religion, in Hyde Park in one of the coming months. It would involve statements or sermons from seminarians and others, as well as discussion. We have some potential places in which to have a conference, as well as a number of interested participants.

Any ideas? Please respond to this. Peace!

Welcome to Moved by Love website

Welcome! The "Moved By Love" Committee was started in November 2004, to discuss issues about the moral values of religious progressives, liberals and radicals. We are presently planning a conference, to be held at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, April 8 & 9.
If you would like to know more about this committee or the conference, please email one of the moderators of this website (listed at the top right of the main page). Thanks, and peace be with all of us.