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WTS Transforming the Legacy
Symposium
December 17-19, 2009 |
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Transforming the
Legacy: People of the Spirit in
the 21st Century
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A Symposium to Honor the Work and Ministry
of Bishop James Kenneth Mathews and Joseph Wesley
Mathews with Workshops to look toward the Future
Host Sponsor:
Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington DC 20016 |
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Purpose of the Symposium:
This Symposium is proposed to commemorate the 2009 opening of the Joseph Wesley Mathews Archives at the Wesley Theological Seminary Library, publicizing the archives availability for graduate student and public research, and to promote the legacy of Bishop James K. Mathews and Dean Joseph Wesley Mathews as their ministries continue to inspire and guide People of the Spirit in the 21st century.
After a long search for an academic institution to give them a home, the Joseph Wesley Mathews personal archives were gifted by his surviving heirs, Joseph Wesley Mathews, Jr. and James Mathews to Wesley Theological Seminary in 2008. They have been placed in the Seminary’s library where work to ensure their preservation and availability to the seminary students, professors and the public for research begins during the Fall Semester of 2009. By a resolution of the Ecumenical Institute/Institute of Cultural Affairs joint Board of Directors the institutes supported the family’s gift. Since 1977 when Joseph Mathews passed away, the archives were housed in the Chicago offices of the Institutes. Under the leadership of Betty Pesek, with Lyn Mathews
Edwards until her death in 1998, they had been carefully organized and preserved and used by many persons for research and writing.
In 2004, Resurgence Publishing Corporation was founded with Betty Pesek serving as its first president, to initiate publishing of works from the content of the archives attributed to the thought and spiritual leadership of Joseph Mathews who served as the first Dean of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute (founded in Evanston, Illinois from a resolution of the World Council of Churches).
His archives contain original works from his seminary days, World War II when he served as an Army Chaplin in the Pacific, his tenure at Perkins Theological Seminary, and his ground-breaking work providing leadership to the Christian Faith and Life Community in Austin Texas prior to coming to Chicago to take the position of Dean of the Ecumenical Institute. The Archives also contain his unpublished thesis on what he considered the revolutionary thinking of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church.
In their early years, before WWII, these two brothers were Methodist Evangelists and Pastors and after WWII became sentinel leaders in Methodism and the Ecumenical Movement through very divergent yet parallel careers. Two initial publications draw from these archives and also the personal archives of Bishop James Kenneth Mathews, Joseph’s brother. The first is
Bending History: Talks of Joseph Wesley Mathews published in 2004 under the General Editorship of Dr. John L. Epps with a foreword by Bishop James K. Mathews. Joseph was a great orator and his talks captured the essence of his thinking, both theological and sociological, and the responsibility of the church and people of the spirit for the world. “Bending history” was his theme for over 30 years following WWII until his death. A second edition was published in 2005. The second book is
Brother Joe: A 20th Century Apostle published in 2006, a biography by Bishop James K. Mathews to chronicle Joseph’s life and much of the work these brothers did together.
It was the hope of Joseph that the thought provoking work contained in his personal archives, with all of its “warts and glory” might continue to contribute to and support pioneering thinking and work he could not live to see. This Symposium and the publication coming from it are proposed as both an honor to his dream and a partial fulfillment of that dream by many who have taken this
path “to build the Earth.”
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| Symposium Participants will receive a coupon code when they
have paid their registration to order Bending History and
Brother Joe at the Symposium Specials discount prices. |
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Order Books Online
Click here for Symposium
Book Specials ordering
instructions.
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