Annual Campus Theme
What is Justice?
The Campus Theme program facilitates and coordinates a host of events, lectures, and discussions throughout the year centered around an enduring and ultimate question of human experience.
For the 2009-2010 academic year, the guiding question our campus community will engage is, “What is Justice?” It is a question that befits our North Park identity as a Christian, urban and multicultural institution and should challenge us in the coming months to reconsider how we understand this most basic virtue of societies and individuals.
The question of justice is fundamental to who we are as global citizens and Christians. The question of justice guides how people live and flourish together amidst diverse communities and limited resources. It guides us in righting an imperfect world, lifting up the oppressed, and cultivating a vision for shalom within and across cultures.
Come join the conversations and events this year as we explore this important topic together.
Upcoming Events
Campus Theme Public Lecture
October 20, 7:30 pm, Issacson Chapel, Nyvall Hall
Speaker: John Dinges
“Pursuing Justice after Pinochet”
Sub-title: South American Stories of Justice and Human Rights
Description from the speaker you want: “ I would like to talk about the people who pursued General Pinochet and gathered factual evidence on his crimes even during the time when justice was still impossible. Twenty five years later, these efforts began to bear fruit in the prosecution of Pinochet in
Spain, then in France, Italy, Argentina and finally in Chile itself. The people who did this were not pursuing revenge or retribution, but were acting from a profound sense of the pursuit of justice, irrespective of time.
The people I describe are lawyers, journalists, judges, priests and in many cases the family members of victims, who pursued a patient struggle
against overwhelming odds to achieve justice in the courts, where society judges itself. Pinochet died while under indictment for multiple crimes, although he never faced trial. His chief lieutenants in the secret police and many other military officers responsible for crimes have been convicted, however, and are still in jail.
It is a story of persistence and ultimately of faith in the systems of justice, however imperfect and weak willed.”
More About the Speaker
John Dinges has been a freelance correspondent in Latin America for many years, during the period of military governments and civil wars in South and Central America, writing for Time, the Washington Post, ABC Radio, the Miami Herald and other news organizations. On his return to the United States, he worked as assistant editor on the foreign desk at The Washington Post. He joined National Public Radio as it was building up its foreign coverage, serving as deputy foreign editor and managing editor for news.
He is the author, most recently, of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press 2004). His other books include Assassination on Embassy Row (1980), Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega (1990), Sound Reporting: The National Public Radio Guide to Radio Journalism and Production (as co-editor and co-author) (1992), and Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism (co-editor) (1995).
His awards include the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for excellence in Latin American reporting, the Latin American Studies Media Award, and two Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Awards (as NPR Managing Editor). He serves on the advisory boards of Human Rights Watch and the National Security Archive, and is a juror for the Cabot awards and the du-Pont Columbia awards.
Spring Events
- Tuesday, February 8: "Hip-Hop and Justice" by Dr. Paul Butler of the Law School at George Washington University
- Tuesday, February 25: "The Particular Injustice of Genocides" by Dr. Terry Lindsey of North Park University
Later in the Spring semester, the Campus Theme and a host of other organizations are currently planning a multiple day "Justice Experience Week" that will include several lectures on political, environmental, and theological conceptions of justice, workshops on urban justice and community renewal, and worship services centered on the theme of Justice in the Christian life. The dates for these events have yet to be finalized, but we will get the word out soon.
Plato and Rawls: Political Philosophy and the Problem of Justice
Tuesday, September 29 at 7:30 in Anderson Chapel
A lecture and discussion that explores the philosophical foundations of the meaning of justice and shows how the initial conception offered 2500 years ago by the Greek philosopher Plato compares to the contemporary American view of justice articulated by John Rawls. The lecture and discussion touches on questions such as: What is more important, liberty or equality? Do we seek justice to protect individuals or communities? Dr. Michael Zuckert, an expert of American political philosophy from Notre Dame University will give the lecture, by offering his wisdom from years of scholarship in the area. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah from North Park Theological Seminary will give a response to Zuckert’s philosophical exploration by asking what the church can learn from these philosophical traditions. These opening events will be part of the North Park Homecoming weeks activities open to the public.
Topic Summary