Campus Theme Day Focuses on Food, Faith, and Our Future on Earth
Events will include a ‘Poverty Banquet,’ examining the diversity and disparity of how the world eats
CHICAGO (March 18, 2015) — One of the first volunteer opportunities freshman Marisa Bowden participated in at North Park University was making, serving, and sharing food with people experiencing homelessness in Chicago. Last fall, Bowden joined 36 other students from North Park’s COMPASS program for first-year students in the Anderson Hall dormitory kitchen to prepare hot meals for over 100 people in the city’s Uptown and Wicker Park neighborhoods. “We delivered the food to our neighbors through the local organization the Night Ministry,” Bowden said. “When it was served, we engaged in conversation with them, and students’ hearts and minds were truly opened.”
The service experience was one of many related to food and justice that University Ministries has partnered with departments across campus and nonprofit organizations to provide for North Park students. The University community’s concern for these issues was part of what led to centering this year’s Campus Theme around the question “What Is Food?”
The yearlong Campus Theme program includes a series of events, lectures, and discussions related to an enduring and ultimate question of human experience. Wednesday, March 25, will mark the climax of this year’s program with Campus Theme Day: Food, Faith, and Our Future on Earth.
"Campus Theme Day brings a variety of perspectives to bear on this issue, including faith, culture, justice, and economics,” said Dr. Karl Clifton Soderstrom, associate professor of philosophy and the director of the Campus Theme program. “Between the morning chapel service, the afternoon panel discussion, and the evening Poverty Banquet, we will offer a comprehensive view of the ways food affects our lives now and in the future.”
The day’s events will begin with a 10:30 am chapel service in Anderson Chapel featuring Dr. Norman Wirzba, professor of theology and ethics at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Wirzba’s talk, “Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating,” will address the intersection of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies.
“Food is God’s expression of love for us,” said Wirzba. “When we eat well, we participate in this love, and by sharing, extend God’s love to others. Eating is not simply about ingesting calories. It is about witnessing to God’s hospitable and nurturing ways with creatures. Good eating matters for Christians because it makes for healthy bodies, vibrant communities, and healthy lands.”
Wirzba will return to Anderson Chapel at 3:30 pm for “The Ethics and Economics of the Land,” a panel discussion on food justice. Panelists will include Wirzba; alumni Ryan Anderson, ecological economist at the Delta Institute, and Tim King, farmer and former chief strategy officer at Sojourners; and Seminary student Ericka Elion, formerly of Bread for the World.
“The panel discussion will be about systems—agricultural, economic, rural-to-urban food transfer systems,” Clifton-Soderstrom said. “Each panelist has a relationship with the question of what it means to respect the land, and how that relates to faith and policy.”
Campus Theme Day closes with a 6:00 pm “Poverty Banquet” in Hamming Hall, a unique dinner experience that examines both the diversity and disparity of how the world eats. “The Poverty Banquet is designed to create a dramatic, interactive event that enables participants to experience the extent of global poverty, the degree of inequality in the world, and the interconnectedness of the three income tiers—20 percent high-income, 30 percent middle-income, and 50 percent low-income,” said Tony Zamblé, director of University Ministries.
Adjunct Youth Ministry Professor Cynthia Stewart will be the Banquet’s keynote speaker, and Ericka Elion will return as master of ceremonies, leading participants through an interactive program that Zamblé believes will be “a very realistic and impactful evening. Without divulging too much, different groups will be served accordingly, resulting in a powerful experience for all involved.”
For North Park students, the Poverty Banquet will provide another experience in a regular series of service-oriented activities around shared meals and food. This week, the African Student Club cooked a traditional African meal together, tying into the Campus Theme and empowering students to make food as an expression of culture. In April, Residence Life and University Ministries will partner on a Greater Chicago Food Depository volunteer experience for students, allocating food to the Friendship Center in Albany Park, and directly impacting the North Park community.
Marisa Bowden, who served with other COMPASS students last fall, was so impacted by her volunteering experience that she became a participant in the University’s weekly Friday Night Street Ministry. Through this ongoing, relational program, she helps prepare and serve food for hungry people on Lower Wacker Drive, engaging in conversation over meals.
The experience has taught Bowden that “you don’t need to be an international missionary to make this world a better place. It can start within the kitchen of our own homes.”
All Campus Theme events are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit www.northpark.edu/campustheme.
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