The Sunday Seminar Committee is pleased to announce the line-up of seminars for September. Seminars are in person and on Zoom on Sundays at 11:30 a.m.
September 6: Mutual Aid versus Charity? with Ezra Stone
What’s the difference between “mutual aid” and “charity”? According to Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis, mutual aid is “collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them.” In this seminar, facilitated by Ezra Stone, we will learn the difference, and about mutual aid projects in our community. We’ll explore how the concept of mutual aid fits with our church compact’s aim to “act in Christian concern for the welfare of all people.” During the discussion, you will also have the opportunity to make cards of solidarity and support for local families.
September 13: Protecting Voting Rights, with guest speaker Carl Delesdernier, Chief Deputy Supervisor of Elections
The Florida SAVE Act, HB 991, designed by Governor DeSantis, will take effect in January 2027 and is modeled after Trump’s proposed SAVE Act. How are they similar? How are they different? How will this affect voting in Florida? And how is our Supervisor of Elections protecting voting rights for all citizens in Alachua County? Join us to ask these and other questions of Carl Delesdernier, from Kim Barton’s office.
September 20: No seminar (Art Show)
September 27: How to End War, presented by Paul Pritchard
Paul Pritchard is a retired Air Force Lt. Col. with over twenty years of service. He is a former intelligence officer and a graduate of the industrial war college. In his book, A Young Man in War, he describes his first exposure to the atrocities of war in his initial arrival to the Vietnam airfield: “If there was a baptism in Vietnam, it wasn’t by fire. It was the humid, dusty, sun-dried wash of the helicopters mixed with the sweaty uncertainty of living or dying.” In his second edition of the book, he includes a treatise on the history of war and a discussion of How to End War. History shows that war has been part of life since the inception of civilization. Paul will discuss its origin, evolution, why it was embraced by Christianity and the necessity to redirect war’s energy if humanity is to survive.