"Building Peace Relations between Muslims and Christians: Lessons from Ethiopia and the Meserete Kristos Church" is the topic of Bluffton University's C. Henry Smith Forum, at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 6, in Founders Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Dawit Yehualashet Kebede and Dr. Jan Bender Shetler will be the guest speakers, sharing the experience of the Mennonite-related Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia as a model for interreligious peace building. In Ethiopia, Muslims and Orthodox Christians have been able to maintain relatively peaceful relations, particularly in the walled city of Harar, during the last century.

Kebede was raised in Ethiopia with the tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. He earned a bachelor's degree in peace studies from Goshen College and is currently enrolled in Indiana University South Bend's Master of Public Affairs program.

Shetler, who holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Florida, is a professor of history at Goshen. Her recent publications include the 2007 book "Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present."

The C. Henry Smith Peace Lectureship honors a former professor at both Goshen and Bluffton. Smith taught at Goshen from 1903-13 and then at Bluffton for the next 35 years. He was known for his books on Mennonite history and the peace tradition of the Mennonite churches. After his death in 1948, his estate established a trust in his name that funds projects-including the lectureship-that promote the Mennonite peace message.

The lectureship is awarded each year to a faculty member from one of the Mennonite colleges, with priority given to Goshen and Bluffton faculty. The chosen faculty member must prepare a lecture that promotes the Mennonite peace stance, then present it at Bluffton and Goshen, and at other schools and on other occasions as invited.