20,000 to attend Greenbelt Festival
24th August 2012 - by Ellen Teague
Peace and social justice will once again be high on the agenda of the Greenbelt Festival, held at Cheltenham Racecourse 24-27 August.
Among the 20,000 expected to attend will be a team of young people who, inspired by the festival theme, ‘Saving Paradise, will use their stall to highlight the effect of violent conflict on children and the importance of the transformative work of Christian peacemaking. The stall, which represents the fourteen members of the Network of Christian Peace Organisations, is a resource point for those wanting to get more actively involved in work for peace. Matt Jeziorski, Pax Christi’s youth worker who heads up the team, says, “Greenbelt never fails to inform, inspire, and challenge on issues of faith and justice and I wholeheartedly recommend it”.
They will also encourage participants to make the most of the peace programme at Greenbelt. This includes US Jesuit John Dear speaking on ‘The Gospel of Nonviolence’; Canon David Porter from Coventry Cathedral speaking on ‘Forgiveness, Justice and the Elusive Quest for Reconciliation’; Dr Mary Grey on ‘Holy Text, Holy Land’; Ciaron O’Rielly and Ben Griffith of Veterans for Peace speaking on ‘Faith-based nonviolent resistance’; and Giles Fraser on ‘The Military Ethical Complex’. Christian peace activists Chris Cole and Dr Peter Lee of Kings College, London will lead a panel discussion on drone technology, entitled ‘Lethal force by remote control’.
Christian Ecology Link (CEL) will also have a stall as part of a joint project with other green
Christian Organisations. On 27 August Sr Helen Julian CSF and Brother Hugh of Hilfield
Priory will talk in Eden at 2pm on ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon and Cousin Carbon’.
Greenbelt Festival is a festival of arts, faith and justice held annually in England since 1974, when it started off as a Christian music festival.
See: www.greenbelt.org.uk
