2024 Hosanna Preaching Project Recap
[A photo of our littlest learner, co-chair Addie Domske’s child Sagan, soaking up liberation education!]
The purpose of the annual Hosanna Project experience is to struggle with and to address the serious theological problems which arise when religious traditions assert that its members are somehow chosen, set apart, called or covenanted to be in a unique and specially privileged relationship with God to the exclusion of all others. We address the practice of secular nation-states, like the USA, Israel, and others, who make similar claims of divine election.
The Project, which began as an offshoot from the Education Committee of IPMN, offers an annual daylong seminar for small groups of preachers, educators, and advocates who gather to study and discuss passages taken from the upcoming year's lectionary texts which refer to the profound theological concerns voiced directly by Palestinians and Jews. (Read more about Hosanna at its designated website here.)
This year saw new leadership for Hosanna as longtime Hosanna faculty member Addie Domske and IPMN steering committee member Dee Roberts joined together to become Hosanna co-chairs. After a successful pivot in teaching team leadership, we gathered together an awesome group of local faculty and paired our meeting with the Annual Meeting in Decatur, GA. (Please read the faculty bios here and don’t miss our keynote speaker, who made connections between the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta and Palestine solidarity.) Because of the pairing with the IPMN Annual Meeting, five of our Hosanna participants joined in on the IPMN Annual Meeting either in-person or online.
Just as our 2021 Hosanna Project pivoted to be online during the pandemic, our 2024 seminar involved a last minute pivot. Beginning Thursday 3/14, Candler’s Pitts Theology Library (our original host) became the receiving end of an intense “email bombing” campaign from Zionists in the area, forcefully requesting that Emory’s President Fenves cancel the event. Due to the immense amount of online and in-person backlash over the event, the Hosanna co-chairs, alongside the IPMN steering committee, made the decision to move the event from Pitts Theology Library to a new location for the safety of the participants and the teaching team. We were able to keep our community safe and still practice radical hospitality from a new location as we taught our 11-person cohort about how to be prophetic preachers around Palestine.
Addie and Dee want to thank former co-chairs, Pauline Coffman and Mark Davidson, for handing over the reins to us at the San Anselmo meeting in November 2022. We also express deep gratitude to the 18 folks (teachers and participants) who gathered to learn in our adjusted location, and to those of you who prayed for and nurtured us into a successful cohort for 2024. Hosanna remains a beautiful expression of our IPMN work to speak to (not for) the church about how we might best show up for Palestine.
To support the future of the Hosanna Preaching Project, which we now offer to participants for free, we hope you will consider making a donation here! (Just write “IPMN Hosanna” in the memo/comment field.) A $50 donation covers one whole participant! We are already in talks about our next location, and plan to offer our next seminar in November of 2025.