Well-known theologian, philosopher and psychoanalyst, Professor Rubem Alves of Brazil is confirmed to deliver the opening keynote speech for the WSCF 34th General Assembly. Dr Alves will speak on the Assembly’s theme “ Your sons and daughters shall prophesy” bringing the challenge of what it means to prophesy to the young student Christian activists and thinkers of our time.

Though Dr Alves usually prefers to hold onto his words before a speech, he has agreed to share some musings on the theme of his talk to the WSCF Assembly, in his characteristic style,

“I dream that my words could sound as a work of art. I explain. Speaking about his own experience Cummings remarked that “works of art are of an infinite solitude. The artist’s unlimited country is himself.”

A scholar of many decades, Dr Alves is the author of numerous articles, speeches, critiques and theological reflections on the human condition and the liberation of the human body and spirit.

His writings include texts on liberation theology, theology and the creative imagination, the meaning of religion, theologies of human hope and of development. He has written on the subject of play and the subversion of dominant values, on love and religion and on the solidarity of struggle.

Despite his knowledge and experience, Rubem makes no claims of superior vision or certitude. He writes in the forms of the interdisciplinary field of study known as theopoetics, which combines elements of poetic analysis, process theology, narrative theology and postmodern philosophy. It engages in a method of doing theology that relies on poetic and interpretative responses to divine experience as the means to understand God, in contrast to the series of proofs employed by other systematic theological approaches.

Dr Alves will share his reflections on his experience and that of his generation in the forty years from the 1968 student revolution up till today,

“We were sailors. Nietzsche could have been our prophet and his words could have been our motto:

“I am driven out of fatherlands and motherlands. Thus I now love only my children's land, yet undiscovered, in the farthest sea..."

" Exiles shall you be from all father and forefather-lands! Your children's land shall you love: this shall be your new nobility - the undiscovered land in the most distant sea. For that I bid your sails search and search."

According to Dr Alves, the search of his generation was abruptly brought to a halt. He leaves us with a series of questions to ponder,

“…our ship was smashed against the rock of history. And now we are survivors of a shipwreck, on a beach, trying to build a modest canoe with the remains of what was once an unsinkable ship. What was lost? What is left? Which winds shall we invoke to blow our sails? Which God will come to help us?”

Dr Alves will present the first keynote speech of the WSCF 34th General Assembly between 9.30-10.30am on Saturday 2 August, in the Ancienne chapelle/Grand salle at GA venue, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Montreal. Visitors who wish to attend should contact General Assembly administration on arrival at the venue to obtain a C$15.00 day pass to the Assembly, which gives entry to all public meetings of the Assembly for Saturday August 2nd.