Peacebuilding must include healing that addresses trauma and cannot exclude those harmed by systemic and collective violence. This is the call by Josué Coy Dick, winner of the 2024 C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, in his speech “Jesus and the Wounded.”
Coy Dick is a fourth-year student at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, where he lives. He majors in music performance (violin); peace, justice and conflict studies; and social work.
The C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest is an annual, binational and intercollegiate contest for students at Anabaptist colleges and universities, and is administered by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. The purpose of the contest is to deepen students’ thinking about peace and create a platform for discussion of peace-related themes.
Coy Dick embodies that purpose as he challenges what peacebuilding looks like. He utilizes black, womanist and liberation theologies on suffering to interpret the biblical story of Jesus and the blind man. Drawing a parallel to his father’s journey of healing from systemic violence, he urges us to engage with the marginalized and traumatized as Jesus did.
Jesus’s act of humanizing the blind man created “an alternate social narrative in which the blind man's needs are as valid a demand on Jesus’ time as those of anybody else.” This, Coy Dick says, is an example of the essential work of peacebuilding.
Although peacebuilding in the form of political change and advocacy is important and essential, he says it cannot be the only way we work toward shalom. He calls his listeners to walk, “among the wounded and marginalized – listening as [Jesus] did to their stories, and affirming, as he did, the power of redemption and liberation contained within them.”
Coy Dick will receive a $500 cash award and a $500 scholarship to attend a peace conference of his choice. A video of his speech is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p_I6SpoE6k.
Micah Peters Unrau, from Canadian Mennonite University, won second prize for his speech, “Stories of decolonization: The myth of apology and the task of repentance.” Kalkidan Ararso, from Conrad Grebel University College, won third prize for her speech, “Echoes of Nahum: A miner's lament.”
Seven educational institutions participated in this year’s contest: Bethel College; Bluffton (Ohio) University; Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario; Goshen (Indiana) College; Hesston (Kansas) College; and Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas.
Established in 1974, this year’s contest marks its 50-year anniversary and commemorates the late C. Henry Smith. A Mennonite historian and professor, Smith taught at Goshen College, Bluffton University and Bethel College, and he was the first dean of Goshen College. Smith held deep interest in the Mennonite commitment to peace.
The judges for this year’s contest were Madalene Arias, East Canada writer for Canadian Mennonite; Michael George, social studies teacher at Lancaster Mennonite School and the facilitator of Mennonite Palestine Israel Network’s "Twinning with Gaza" initiative; and Matthew Peterson, licensed minister and theologian in residence with the Great Lakes Conference of the Brethren in Christ U.S. and doctoral candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary.