Bluffton University will host two annual campus events—the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Forum and the Keeney Peace Lecture—on Tuesday, Jan. 22. Both are free and open to the public.
Dr. Dafina-Lazarus Stewart, an associate professor of higher education and student affairs at Bowling Green State University, will revisit King’s legacy in her forum presentation at 11 a.m. in Founders Hall.
That evening, at 7:30 p.m., Tim Nafziger, interim assistant director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, will lecture on “Peacemaking and Technology: The Good, the Bad and the Redemption-in-progress” in Yoder Recital Hall.
Stewart, whose academic research focuses on issues of diversity and social justice in higher education, will encourage development of a holistic image of King while reflecting on his significance.
She will recall his words and ideas, she says, “to move beyond conciliatory images toward more passionate, assertive and even militant characterizations” of his life and legacy. She will also discuss what socially just approach to service and civil rights issues would be consistent with his message.
The late civil rights leader will also be part of the Keeney Peace Lecture. Noting that “movements for peace and social justice have used technological advances to disrupt the status quo for centuries,”
Nafziger cites the example of King and the civil rights movement, which he says used the nightly television news that beamed racist brutality into American living rooms. Long before, early Anabaptists used printed pamphlets and Bibles to evangelize and organize, he adds, and recently, social media played an important role in revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
Nafziger, who lives in Southern California, works as a Web consultant, photographer and blogger for The Mennonite magazine.
