Dear Friends of the GTU,

I have long believed that religion plays an important role in public life at both a national and international level. The most difficult challenge is to discern how religion best engages public issues and in what ways religious institutions can and should enter into the public square. Theological institutions like the GTU, I believe, best serve the public good when they offer their resources in clarifying significant issues, and in providing a lens of interpretation that brings to bear the theological and ethical insights of religious traditions. Several events have occurred at the GTU in the last months that exemplify just these kinds of efforts.

In October the GTU co-sponsored a conference in Beijing, China on the topic "Faithful/Fateful Encounters: Religions and Cultural Exchanges Between Asia and the West." The co-sponsor was the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This was an extraordinary scholarly exchange among 20 GTU faculty and 20 scholars of religion from China. The conversations covered Biblical, historical, sociological and theological interpretations of how religion and culture interact, with a focus on how a country's cultural values can be preserved in the context of modernization and development. I was enormously proud of our faculty for the quality, range, and diversity of their scholarship, as well as for the quality of the interaction among the scholars. By virtue of its location, its students and faculty, and the focus of its research and outreach to the Asian community, the GTU is uniquely situated to speak to the expanding future of east-west dialogue about the interface between religion and culture.

In October the presidents of the member schools authored an open letter raising concerns about an impending preemptive strike by the United States against Iraq. It is significant that across the denominations that make up the GTU, a univocal voice could be articulated about such a crucial issue. I am most proud of the presidents for their courage in making this statement as well as for the capacity to speak in a collective ecumenical voice about these matters. The GTU's strength as a force in the religious and public sector is being realized in significant ways today.

As a follow-up, in December the GTU sponsored a panel discussion for clergy in the Bay Area on "Preaching in a Time of Impending War." This panel featured homiletics, liturgics, and theology faculty from the GTU. As a resource for clergy facing the challenge of preaching in conflicted times, the discussion focused on how to think theologically and religiously about the crisis that confronts this nation.

I am grateful for the quality of the conversation that permeates the GTU. We are making that conversation increasingly more focused and more public. Thank you for the role that you play in this extraordinary institution, and please accept my very best wishes for a new year filled with promise and hope.

Warm regards,

James A. Donahue

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