Bangor Daily News, Sept. 15, 2007

The Sept. 15, 2007, edition of the Bangor Daily News featured an article about the Camden Conference. Titled "Conference mixing politics, religion," the article features information about the confirmed speakers in the 2008 Conference as well as comments from the program committee.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

Conference mixing politics, religion
By Tom Groening
Saturday, September 15, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

CAMDEN - The theme of next year’s Camden Conference flies in the face of the adage warning against discussing religion and politics among friends.

The 21st annual event, scheduled for Feb. 22-24, will take on "Religion as a Force in World Affairs."

Speakers for the three-day event will include people from Christian and Muslim traditions. A key issue to be explored will be what role, if any, religion should play in U.S. foreign policy.

The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Bryan Hehir, professor of the practice of religion and public life" at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he teaches courses such as "The Politics and Ethics of the Use of Force" and "Religion and Government: Choices of Morality, Law and Policy."

Jim Matlack, chairman of the conference’s program committee, said Hehir served for more than 10 years as a principal adviser to the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference on International Affairs in Washington, D.C. He was a professor at Georgetown University at the time.

In the 1960s, Matlack said, Hehir drafted a major position paper for the Catholic Bishops Conference on the subject of nuclear weapons. The paper discussed the moral use of the weapons, and Hehir "found some reasons to be critical of the U.S. policy," Matlack said.

Hehir went on to head the Harvard Divinity School for three years in the 1990s and "had a major leadership position with national Catholic charities," he said.

"He’s an extraordinarily good and gifted person," Matlack said, as well as a serious academic.

Hehir is still a parish priest, which Matlack believes keeps him grounded in the issues that affect ordinary people.

Another speaker will be Rend al-Rahim Francke, a Shiite woman from Iraq who heads the Washington-based Iraq Foundation. Francke will assess the clash between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East.

Matlack said Francke founded the Iraq Foundation in 1991 to advocate for democratic principles and human rights in Iraq and to encourage the U.S. to stand up to Saddam Hussein. She was also ambassador from Iraq to the U.S. when Iyad Allawi was prime minister, he said.

Religion is a "potent influence upon the formation and the implementation of foreign policy — especially the shaping of foreign policy in the United States — as a crucial factor in ongoing conflicts and crisis settings," according to the conference Web site.

Religion is "a central component in the deepening clash between self-identities in various movements and communities," while also a "potential stimulus for mediation, peace-making, and constructive social action." ...

Typically, community events relating to the conference theme, such as book discussions, films and lectures, have been held at libraries and academic centers on Mount Desert Island and in Blue Hill, Belfast, Rockland and Thomaston.

Next year, Matlack said, the community events have become year-round with a pause during the busy summer. Events resume this fall leading up to the February conference, he said.

The conference was created by a group of retirees in the Camden area who had worked for the U.S. State Department and the CIA or who had other overseas experiences in public service or academic life. The conference has grown from a small gathering in Camden’s Congregational church in its earliest years to about 1,000 participants who overflow the Camden Opera House and spill into the Strand Theatre in Rockland.

Next year, the World Affairs Council in Portland will feature a live TV feed of the conference for those from southern Maine.

In recent years, conference themes have included the Middle East with retired Gen. Anthony Zinni delivering the keynote address; China with Ambassador James Lilley the keynote speaker; and Europe with professor David Calleo of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies giving the keynote address.

Registration began this week. See www.camdenconference.org for more information.

Banwell leads Conference far afield

Camden Conference Board president Bland Banwell was interviewed for the Jan. 17, 2008, issue of the Waldo County Citizen. In the interview, she discussed the role of technology in bringing the Conference outside of Camden and attracting a more diverse audience. Excerpts from the article, written by Jay Davis, are below:

BELFAST (Jan 14, 08): The annual Camden Conference remains a three-day affair hosted at the Camden Opera House, but its audience continues to grow.

Bland Banwell of Belfast, president of the nonprofit event's board of directors, said last week satellite sites in Belfast, Rockland and Portland will increase the number of participants from the 500-plus in Camden to more than 1,000.

The Hannaford Auditorium at the University of Southern Maine will be outfitted with technology that will allow people to see a live broadcast of the conference and to ask questions of the participants. The World Affairs Council of Maine will host that broadcast. ...

Rockland's Strand Theatre, which last year became the conference's first satellite site, will continue that role in 2008.

The 21st annual event, scheduled for Feb. 22-24, is already sold out in Camden, Banwell said. The topic is “Religion as a force in world affairs,” with the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, as keynote speaker.

The mission of the conference is “to foster informed discourse on world issues,” often with a tie to Maine. And the weekend themes have spanned the globe, from China to Africa to the Middle East and Latin America. ...

Topics are chosen by the board after long deliberation, Banwell explained, with a goal of contributing to community debate about important topics. The directors then read up on experts in the subject area and recommend speakers. ...

Banwell, a native of Washington, D.C., who lived in Uganda, India and London with her late husband, Dr. John Banwell, said one of the founders of the conference, former Camden resident Bob Tierney, will be a special guest at this year's event.

Banwell, a committed multi-culturalist and a believer in community dialogues, has made expanding the conference's audience a major thrust of her presidency.

Technology is a key to achieving that goal, and she is using a recent grant to beef up the conference's ability to broaden its reach. The connection between the Camden Opera House and the USM auditorium was recently tested and passed with flying colors. “If we can go to Portland, we can go anyplace in the world,” she said. ...

Banwell has brought young people into the conference world, with students from Belfast Area High School and Belfast's Game Loft involved in this year's activities. “The conference has to be relevant,” she said. “It can't be for just a small group of people.”