"I
both found and lost my humanity wearing the uniform of a United States
soldier."
-- Logan
Mehl-Laituri, from his testimony at the Truth Commission on Conscience
in War
Dear Starr King Friends,
This Monday, May 3, from 7-9 pm, Starr King will present
highlights of an extraordinary event on March 21 at the historic Riverside Church
in New York:
the Truth Commission on Conscience in War. Two Starr King core faculty members,
Drs. Gabriella Lettini and Rita Nakashima Brock, led the work to create this
transformative evening of truth-telling about war and the moral consequences
for those who serve in it.
Starr King sent a total of six Commissioners to the Riverside hearing. I was privileged to be one of those
Commissioners. The Truth Commission has seeded a movement to expand regulations
for Conscientious Objection in the military.
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 Please join us at the First Congregational Church in
Berkeley, 2345 Channing, to hear all six of the Commissioners from Starr King
and to see the testimony of veterans of war, taped at Riverside. If you cannot be there, you may
view the entire four-hour hearing at the Riverside
website (www.theriversidechurchny.org/news/article.php?id=337).
Under Dr. Lettini's leadership, the Starr King Master of Arts in Religious Leadership for Social Change (MASC) program
is maturing into the vision for social change that created it, just five years
ago. She not only organized the Commissioners and served on the planning
committee for the Truth Commission, but she also taught, with Dr. Brock, a
special nationwide course for seminarians and doctoral students interested in
being Commissioners. Starr King had three students in the course, and others
participated from Yale Divinity School, Drew Theological School, Chicago
Theological Seminary, California Institute for Integral Studies, Associated
Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and Fuller
Theological School.
You can support the transformative work of Starr
King's MASC program by making a donation, as we move ahead with teaching
religious leaders how to heal the moral injuries of war in our communities and
how to use truth commission methods for transformative social change. In
addition to making a donation, sign up at the Truth Commission website
(www.conscienceinwar.org) for updates on the commissioner's work to protect
moral conscience in the military. And join us in Berkeley this Monday if you are in town.
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