Peace workshop inspired by King

Alexander Levering Kern heads Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, which runs a program to train teenagers in peacemaking. (SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)

The program to teach teenagers nonviolence and peacemaking had just started last summer when it was rocked by the slaying of a member's mother.

Police say that Elizabeth Cann was gunned down in her Norton home in August by her boyfriend, who also shot two of her daughters and left them critically wounded. Another daughter, Amanda, 17, was on vacation in Florida. She had joined Interfaith Youth Initiative that summer.

"By necessity, we made the Elizabeth Cann tragedy a focus of our work in the fall, gathering by conference call and providing support and referrals to our young people as they made sense of this senseless tragedy," recalled Alexander Levering Kern, who heads Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, a Newton-based coalition of religious groups that runs the youth initiative.

For Black History Month, the youth initiative, which grew out of a broader program commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s "beloved community," is taking applications for its summer institute on peacemaking, which will run July 12-20 at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.

During the institute, theologians and social activists train teenagers in conflict resolution, theology, and worship leadership. Last summer's session drew 27 teens.

King often referred in his talks to the "beloved community," the world of nonviolence and justice that Christians long for. The Newton coalition launched a commemoration in 2005 of King's concept, cosponsored by the Women's Theological Center of Boston. Kern, a Quaker, discussed the program in a recent interview, excerpts of which follow.

QI thought the faith community in Boston had been working hard for many years on youth violence. How is the Interfaith Youth Initiative different?

We commend and learn from and collaborate with the efforts of the Black Ministerial Alliance and communities to address youth violence. What distinguishes our program is that we view youth violence as an issue that, while it's concentrated in certain communities in Boston, is by no means an issue of one community alone. Particularly if you look at the varieties of violence, from domestic violence to school violence to young people concerned with violence globally. We're not focusing exclusively on training peacemakers for the Dorchester-Mattapan-Roxbury context.

QSo if the teens you work with wind up writing letters to the editor about Darfur or go into the Foreign Service, you will have succeeded?

We will have succeeded. It's built on Dr. King's vision that each young person is, finally, a child of God and brothers and sisters to all humanity and architects of beloved community, wherever that may take them. Another distinctive is the retreats that we hold over the course of the year and the ongoing mentoring support for young people as they pursue school, higher education, their sense of vocation or call.

We're intentionally multicultural. We draw from across communities, small towns, lower- and working-class white communities in the Boston area. Amanda Cann is one of our participants. Last year, we saw school violence in Lincoln-Sudbury and a wave of suicides in the western suburbs.

QIn the midst of summer's warmth, how difficult is it to find teenagers interested in theology and conflict resolution? Twenty-seven last year is a fraction of the teens in Greater Boston.

Certainly. In Greater Boston, there are thousands. And there's no end to the need for programs for support. If we look at the ecology of support for youth and violence prevention, the Interfaith Youth Initiative represents one small but important contribution. We can't pretend to have all the answers.

QLast year, you had state legislators meet the teens to discuss the appropriate intersection of religious faith and politics. That's a big issue these days. What is appropriate in that regard?

It's essential that people of faith bring their personal convictions and moral compass to bear upon poverty and genocide and youth violence. With the Interfaith Youth Initiative, the pluralistic and interfaith nature of this program provides a healthy check on any presumption of a spiritual monopoly on political truth. The legislators we met with, while many are people of faith, advised the young people to avoid any inappropriate encroachment of religion and to honor that boundary between church and state.

QReaders, I'm sure, will find me remiss if I don't ask how is [Amanda Cann] doing?

She's still in the program. She'll be in the program for life, I hope and suspect. She's moving forward with her own healing. She's intending to attend college next year and has been attending our retreats and is connected with us, as young people are, through every new technological innovation there is, from cellphones to text messaging to Facebook.

QWhat did that tragedy do to the faith of teens in the program? It hasn't shattered their faith?

It hasn't, extraordinarily. The funeral for Elizabeth Cann was, in some sense, a cathartic, healing moment for our young people.

Application information for the July session on peacemaking will be available at www.coopmet.org.Comments, questions and story ideas may be sent to spiritual@globe.com.

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