wfn.org | Adventist Church Hosts Race Relations Summit

["Christian B. Schäffler" <APD_Info_Schweiz@compuserve.com>]

October 22, 1999
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland

Adventist Church Hosts Race Relations Summit

Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. (ANN/APD)   More than 300 church 
administrators and institutional leaders of the nearly one million-
member Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America have 
been invited to engage in a broad and constructive dialogue on 
race relations as it pertains to church and society.  This summit 
on race relations, themed "Racial Harmony in the New 
Millennium: Making it Happen," will be held at the Seventh-day 
Adventist Church World Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, 
from October 27 - 30. 

"Rather than merely talk about critical racial issues, participants 
will be asked to concentrate on the important question of how to 
bring about positive change in race relations, recommend bold 
initiatives for dismantling racism, and create an on-going 
mechanism to continually motivate, expand, and monitor the 
progress of those initiatives," said Dr. Rosa Banks, director of 
Human Relations for the Church, and a representative to the 
President's Initiative on Race's Faith Community Committee.  

"We accept President Clinton's call to action and will prayerfully 
and objectively address concerns within our diverse 
congregation, seek to improve race relations, and take steps to 
prepare our members for life and ministry in the 21st century," 
said Alfred McClure, president of the Seventh-day Adventist 
Church in North America.

The four-day event will convene on Wednesday, October 27, with 
an interfaith prayer breakfast involving community and political 
leaders and clergy of various faiths. Plenary sessions, 21 
workshops, small group breakout sessions, and a "Great 
Conversation on Race" panel discussion will create an 
environment for constructive dialogue, while more than 50 
renowned thought leaders will spur on the quest for creative 
solutions. The program will end on Saturday, October 30, with a 
worship service that celebrates diversity. Adventists observe 
Saturday as their day of worship. 

Some of the speakers include: Dr. Samuel Betances, futurist, 
author, motivational speaker, and senior consultant for Chicago-
based Souder, Betances, and Associates, Inc.; Dr. Tony Campolo, 
professor of Sociology at Eastern College in St. Davids, PA, 
author of 26 books, and producer of Hashing It Out, a weekly 
television show on the Odyssey Network; Dr. Edwin Nichols, a 
Washington, D.C.-based psychologist, motivational speaker, and 
director of Nichols and Associates, Inc.; Dr. Betty Lentz Siegel, 
nationally recognised lecturer and president of Kennesaw State 
University in GA; and Dr. Cain Hope Felder, professor of New 
Testament in the School of Divinity at Howard University in 
Washington, D.C.