2022 Stott-Bediako Forum

About the 2022 Stott-Bediako Forum

Across the world today, we are seeing increased polarization; threats of coups d’état; proliferation of violence toward people based on race, religion, gender, and sexuality; and the growth of economic empires – much of which has been justified by people who use the name of Jesus to baptize their activities and feed the ideological flames. Now, as war unfolds due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we witness a similar tendency among some Christians to use people’s suffering to build up personal fame and engage in political power-plays.

What does a faithful Christian witness look like in the context of power?

Thankfully, many Christians have responded to these challenges in their writing and actions at local and national levels, drawing on the example set by Jesus as he engaged with the imperial powers of his day and taught his followers to live out a redemptive ethic born from their allegiance to the Kingdom of God. In this Stott-Bediako Forum, INFEMIT sought to bring together perspectives and experiences from across the globe of people and communities that are living out a faithful Christian witness in the face of empire and power in order to challenge and encourage the global Church. We explored together how Christians in local and global contexts can reflect and live out their faith in the public sphere from a deeper understanding of how Jesus interacts with power.

Read the Forum Press Release

Dates: 29-31 October 2022
Location: Arad, Romania (and online)

The annual Stott-Bediako Forum held by the International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation (INFEMIT), bears the names of John Stott and Kwame Bediako, two historical theologians who shared a vision for theological expressions rooted in and emerging from diverse contexts around the globe. They sought to bridge traditional divides, such as those between “Majority” and “Minority” worlds, men and women, academia and practitioners. Following their example, INFEMIT hosts the Stott-Bediako Forum as an open, public event that brings together scholars and practitioners to reflect and respond redemptively to issues of the gospel in the world today. We welcome practitioners, artists, scholars, students, missionaries, and others! The forum typically brings together people who represent a wide range of organizations, networks, and institutions, particularly from the hosting region. The 2022 Stott-Bediako Forum was hosted by the University of Arad in Eastern Europe!

The 2022 Stott-Bediako Forum was a hybrid event, which means that people joined in both online and in-person. There were moments in which all participated together, as well as several online activities scheduled at various times to accommodate people in different time zones. Following the forum, we made available the recorded forum content (access via links below) and we also continued to interact with one another on the AMRI Connect platform (Association of Mission Researchers and Institutions). INFEMIT finally hosted a short series of post-forum conversations with three of our plenary presenters, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, Martin Accad, and Zac Niringiye.

Themes and Topics

The following are titles and descriptions of contributions that were prepared for this conversation. You can watch or listen to several of the presentations by clicking each title.

Faithful Witness in the Public Sphere

Nina Balmaceda

Nina evaluates the history of the manipulation of religion for political gain in Latin America, as well as how this plays out in today’s political and religious landscape. She seeks to demonstrate the difference between desirable and necessary political engagement as citizens and the excessive partisanship and ideologization of Christians for political manipulation.

Carolina Pineda

Taking a deep dive into Colombia’s political history and the response of the Church to the armed conflict, the peace referendum in 2016, and the strikes in 2019 and 2021, Carolina asks the question of how the Church can respond faithfully to political and social realities in a given context in light of that country’s complex history. She particularly seeks to explore practical responses that lead toward reconciliation instead of polarization.

Ciprian Gheorghe-Luca

Ciprian explores the narrative of Pentecost and how the Spirit empowers Christians to be Jesus’ witnesses on earth, amidst and against the idolatrous culture and power structures of the Empire. He examines the concept of “citizenship” as defined within the Roman empire and the ways the Pentecost(al) narrative challenges this concept. This then helps to imagine a faithful Christian witness within Eastern-Europe today, where (so-called) “Christian conservative” nationalist, populist, and xenophobic ideologies seem to be increasingly gaining ground.

David de Leon & Nikki Toyama-Szeto

David and Nikki ask the question: What does faith look like in the public square? They explore specific ways that faith groups are showing up to work effectively within systems without being co-opted by them. They look at unique contributions from Pilipino and Asian American Pacific Islander traditions and communities through case studies, as well as scriptural reflection, historical accounts, and political theologies.

Greg Leffel

Examining past and present forms of imperialism, Greg periodizes a double history from the 20th to the 21st century that traces oppression from above and resistance from below. He then examines the new era emerging, driven by the structural and epistemic effects of global warming and environmental degradation; massive population growth and migration; and artificial intelligence signaling a transhumanist future. He explores this new era as the immediate context for our deliberations about power and resistance and the meaning of empire—about Jesus’s (and now our own) witness to power and empire.

Christian Citizenship in the Midst of Empire

Zac Niringiye

Bishop Zac highlights the contradiction of Christianity being heralded as a beacon of light and hope of a world in bondage to empire, while in fact there is overwhelming historical evidence of the collusion of Christianity with empire. He argues that dominant forms of Christianity are grounded in the same imperial narrative of a totalitarian saturation of public life with one social-economic-cultural vision. He invites us to deep soul searching and renunciation of this dominant narrative; highlighting the call of the gospel for those who live by it to live and act in ways that subvert empire and seek the common good.

Ruth Padilla DeBorst

Ruth explores the encounter of Anabaptist and Reformed influences in the thought of members of the FTL in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, illustrating how the withdrawal and prophetically alternative strands of the first merge and clash with the world transformative posture of the second. She proposes this intermingling as a fruitful corrective to either extreme of the polarity and examines how these postures influence structures and power balances in the church and Christian movements.

Julijana Mladenovska-Tesija

Julijana shares an ethnographic account of Osijek during the Croatian Homeland War (1991-1997) with an aim to provide an understanding of how this city became a war-time peace laboratory. She particularly looks at how grassroots activities provide (counter)narratives that help to understand the complex role religion played in this process.

Nestor Ravilas

Nestor explores Jesus’ attitudes and actions regarding the Roman empire in the Bible, as he responds to questions about how Christians should respond to imperial powers today. As a Filipino, these questions emerge around today’s political climate and actions such as the aggressive incursion of the Chinese in the West Philippine Sea.

James Padilla DeBorst

James identifies how political debate and the Christian imagination are typically caught up in the choice between Market and State and the political right and left, while deeper inequalities grow at an imperial scale. He explores the possibility of an alternative imaginary where the Christian Community leavens the world system with concrete jubilee practices.

Christianity’s Subversive Power and Practice

Martin Accad

Martin explores the power of change and the “transition of power” in the ministry of Jesus, with particular attention to the Gospel of John, as he weaves in his own experience with a change movement in Lebanon that developed following the October 2019 uprising. He asks questions about Jesus’ framework for a new change movement, the tools available to effect change, and the ways the new change movement is called to address and embody power.

Mandie Avila Kaminski

Mandie uses the framework of the prophetic imagination proposed by Walter Bruggemann to articulate the need for biblical practices as an antidote to the domestication of Christianity in various contexts, whether through cultural accommodation, imperial allyship, cancel culture and elitism, or bifurcated ministry. She presents a trauma-informed reading of Esther to explore possibilities for building resilience and resisting empire today.

Al Tizon

Al calls us to name, confess, and begin to dismantle the “love of money”, which goes beyond the personal to include the making and maintaining of nations. Al invites the church to identify and address this reality within its own structures, so that we may be poised to get at “the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) in the larger society as expressed through the machinations of empire.

Marcel Mcelaru

Marcel presents a hermeneutical exercise in which he focuses on three biblical images related to the pair power / powerlessness, drawing a few implications for engaging the powers in today’s world.

Tony Deik

Tony offers a fresh reading of the Acts of the Apostles in conversation with Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Building upon the thesis that the ecclesiology and missiology of Acts are politically charged, Tony examines one of the most ancient church practices: the sharing and redistribution of wealth and possessions, as described in Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-35. He argues that language and ideas used by Luke to describe the church’s sharing of possessions are those of social justice and that Luke alludes to Graeco-Roman justice language in order to subvert and transform widespread social justice ethics.

Start a Group Discussion!

As part of the Stott-Bediako Forum, we created a group discussion guide so that you and a few other people can enter into a process of dialogue and reflection. The guide was generated from the interviews and paper excerpts of a few Forum contributors, reflecting on different aspects of Empire and Power. Click here to access and use the guide with your small group.

Forum discussion guide

The event may have finished, but the conversation continues. Join in!

We’re glad to journey with you.

Have questions? Get in touch.

Thank-You to Sponsors

This Forum was widely supported by individual donors and foundations, as well as local churches and the University of Arad. We’re so thankful for all of the financial support and gifts in kind that helped to make this possible!

You can help sponsor future Stott-Bediako Forums by making a donation here. Thank you!

A Theology of “Nondominating Power”: Kwame Bediako on Politics, by Tim Hartman	Non-Violent Visions of God: Non-violent Theologizing as Resistance to Empire, by Joel D. Aguilar Ramírez	The Hope for the Eschatological Imperium as Counter-Politics, by Ana Petrache
Jesus Vis-à-vis the Power and Peace of Empire, by Rev. Prof. Kabiro wa Gatumu	Jesus and Women: Lessons on Subverting Patriarchal Power in Private and Public Spheres, by Mary Thamari	Discipleship between Cesar and Christ: Reading Mark 8:27-10:45 in the Context of Power, by Daniel Oprean
Christian Witness in the Public Space: A Case Study of Romanian Pentecostal Christians, by Daniela Meisaros	Penticostalismul românesc după 100 de ani, încotro? Orientarea teologiei penticostale române spre noua paradigmă a teologiei penticostale globale, by Eugen Porcilescu	Theological Interpretation of Macedonian Contemporary Painters, by Kosta Milkov
Power and [Political] Economics: Reflections from Latin America, by H. Fernando Bullon	Songs of Liberation, by Jocabed Solano	The Public Presence as Christian Virtue, by Teofil Stanciu
The Unexpected Messenger, by Melody Wachsmuth