wfn.org | 1999 Peace Prize Forum:'Machinery and Morality of Modern Conflict'

[NEWS <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

February 2, 1999

PEACE PRIZE FORUM FOCUSES ON 'MACHINERY AND MORALITY OF MODERN CONFLICT'
99-04-20-MR

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The contemporary and traditional modes of warfare
as well as new and traditional avenues of conflict resolution will be
topics of the 11th annual Peace Prize Forum, "Striving for Peace: The
Morality and Machinery of Modern Conflict," Feb. 19-20 at Augsburg
College, Minneapolis.  Augsburg is a college affiliated with the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
     The forum will feature a presentation by the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Jody Williams.  She is founding coordinator of the International
Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which was formally launched by six
nongovernmental organizations in October 1992.  Williams has written and
spoken extensively on the problem of land mines and the movement to ban
them.  The ELCA and the Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, are members of
the ICBL.  
     Other speakers include Stephen Goose, program director for the arms
division of Human Rights Watch, the largest United States-based
nongovernmental human rights organization; Larry Rasmussen, professor of
social ethics at Union Theological Seminary, New York; John J. Hamre,
deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense; Jan Egeland, special
advisor to the Norwegian Red Cross and International Peace Research
Institute of Oslo; and the Rev. Rebecca Larson, secretary for research and
development education in the Department for World Service of the Lutheran
World Federation.
     At the forum's opening ceremony Knut Vollebaek, Norwegian foreign
minister, will speak on values and interests in international politics and
the political upheaval and armed conflict in the Balkans -- the
southeastern states of Europe.  The Rev. Gunnar Stalsett, bishop of the
Lutheran Church in Oslo and member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, will
also speak at the forum.
     In addition to plenary sessions, the Peace Prize Forum will include
concurrent seminars on a variety of topics designed for college students,
faculty, staff and other churchgoers.  Seminar topics range from faith and
peacemaking to Norwegian heritage.
     The event rotates annually among five midwestern colleges of the
ELCA of Norwegian heritage: Augsburg College; Augustana College, Sioux
Falls, S.D.; Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn.; Luther College, Decorah,
Iowa; and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
     Held in cooperation with the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, this
series of forums was created to offer an opportunity for Nobel Peace Prize
laureates, diplomats, scholars and the general public to share in a
dialogue on the underlying causes of conflict in modern society and on the
dynamics of peacemaking.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html