2022 Faith and Culture Symposium: Racial Reconciliation Through Music
Thank you for taking part in the 2022 Faith and Culture Symposium! Check back for information on the 2024 symposium.
Mission Statement
Montreat College is committed to helping our students develop their ability to experience, engage, and learn from culture within the context of a Christ-centered worldview. As part of this commitment, the biennial Faith & Culture Symposium is designed to foster student engagement with the cultural arts: music, literature, film, theatre, and visual art. We acknowledge the centrality of the arts to the human experience, both as an expression of the human condition and as a revelation of God’s character, and we believe that the experience of the arts collectively is an essential part of a full Christian life and education.
Goals and Objectives
In keeping with Montreat College’s educational objectives, the Faith & Culture Symposium seeks to help students develop the following traits:
- An appreciation for what is good, beautiful, and true. Substantive engagement with the arts fosters an appreciation of the good, beautiful, and true. The creation and experience of art is a unique way of knowing, a distinctly valuable way of perceiving and communicating the truth of the human condition and God’s good creation.
- A genuine critical openness to the ideas and beliefs of others. Each and every artistic endeavor is the product of a unique human consciousness, an expression—in Thomas Aquinas’ words—of “the freedom of the soul.” Engagement with such inherent artistic variety demands an openness to the different, the other, and the new.
- The formation of Christian values and ethical reasoning. Cultural engagement does not happen in a vacuum. This is a co-curricular activity intended to compliment and reinforce the college’s larger efforts to prepare students to engage culture from a distinctly Christ-centered worldview. In addition to encouraging direct engagement with the arts, Speakers and events address what it means to engage culture as a Christian, working in conjunction with the college’s standard curriculum, particularly the IS 102 and 200 classes.
- Critical thinking and problem solving skills. This provides experiences, insights, and skills that help students develop the kind of critical thinking skills that will serve them long after they have graduated from Montreat. The ability to engage arts and culture critically is an essential one for Christians, particularly in today’s fast-moving, increasingly secular, and increasingly commercial American culture.
2022 Featured Speakers
Kimberly Williams
Kimberly desires to see every nation, tribe and tongue worshipping together as she embraces both the God she serves and the culture she serves in. Kimberly is a singer, songwriter, and independent recording artist, as well as a Worship Pastor. She proclaims her faith in God through the realities of her experience and by the leading of the Spirit of God.
David Bailey
David M. Bailey believes that the Church should lead by example in cross-cultural engagement and reconciliation. He’s the founder and executive director of Arrabon; a ministry that equips and empowers Christians to be effective in the ministry of reconciliation. David is an active speaker, consultant, and strategist for many national organizations about cultural intelligence and culture-making.
DJ Besbleve
Molded by a life of constant changes and frequent moves during his most formative years, Herman Bright (aka DJ Besbleve) was blessed with the exposure of a wide range of musical mediums and styles as well as environments. His Christ-centered DJ-ing specializing in Hip-Hop has allowed him to be used to spread the Gospel, create stronger soldiers, and bring people to Jesus Christ. His passions for God’s Word and for music allow him to minister God’s will in settings of celebration where others may not realize the two should coexist.