TODAY news - May 13, 2004

Internationally known speaker Tony Campolo, PhD, will be a guest speaker at the Loma Linda University Church of Seventh-day Adventists on Saturday, June 5, for the 11:15 a.m. worship service, and again at a special program at 7:00 p.m. where he will speak on "The Challenges That Great Thinkers Pose for Christianity."

Sponsored by the University Church, Dr. Campolo will present his topics at Gentry Gymnasium.

Professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania, Dr. Campolo previously served for 10 years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Eastern College and earned his doctorate from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Founder and president of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, Dr. Campolo has worked to create, nurture, and support programs for "atrisk" children in cities across North America, and has helped establish schools and universities in several developing countries. Dr. Campolo meets regularly with former president Bill Clinton to advise him on social policy and the problems affecting the nation's inner cities. Dr. Campolo is a media commentator on religious, social, and political matters, having guested on television programs including Nightline, Crossfire, Politically Incorrect, The Charlie Rose Show, Larry King Live, and CNN News.

He has co-hosted his own television series, Hashing It Out, on the Odyssey Network. This program is an extension of Dr. Campolo's book, Is Jesus a Republican or Democrat? He presently hosts From Across the Pond, a weekly program based in the United Kingdom. He is the author of 28 books. His most recent titles are Revolution and Renewal: How Churches Are Saving Our Cities, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons From Unexpected Places and Unlikely People, and The Survival Guide for Christians on Campus, co-authored by Will Willimon.

Dr. Campolo is an ordained minister, has served American Baptist Churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is presently an associate pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in west Philadelphia.

A graduate of the master of social work program at Loma Linda University was featured in the California Social Work Education Center's annual report.

LLU graduate Fay Aldridge, MSW, was featured on page 25 of the annual report. In her comments, she said that "Loma Linda has an excellent mission statement: 'To make man whole.' I think that this can certainly apply to children and families in the child welfare system."

Innerweave: The Wholeness Story
By Wil Alexander, PhD
Professor of family medicine, School of Medicine

"You don't have to do anything with memories, but only have them." These are the words of an ancient philosopher. Yet it was, for me, from my not so philosophic, but sometimes wise, mother, "Build your memories while you are young...to see you through when you can no longer remember much of anything going on in the present." I thought of this recently at the time of my youngest sister's death, remembering that not too long before she died she had paid for a wrecking crew to tear down and bulldoze away the home and yard where she had grown up, which evidently held for her much that she wished demolition would wipe out of her not so happy memories.

Thomas Moore makes these comments: "Memory holds us together as individuals and as communities. When we forget who we have been, we lose a full sense of who we are. People who have drifted apart from the soul or who want to defend themselves against the pain of experience often make an effort to erase memories. They move away from the actual scene of pain, tear down buildings associated with tragedy, or at a personal level, they get as busy as possible so that memory won't have a chance to penetrate their consciousness.

"Memory is potent. It does something to us. It makes us who we are. It gives us depth. It ties our past to our present to overcome the disjunction of a too literal life. It focuses our attention on the imagination of events rather than on events taken literally. Memory is a kind of poetry."

The take-home message to my middle is couched in Augustine's Confessions: "See how widely I have ranged, Lord searching for you in my memory. I have not found you outside it."

All contents copyright © 2004 Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center. All rights reserved.
Revised June 14, 2004
Send comments and questions to webmaster@univ.llu.edu
URL: http://www.llu.edu/