Josué Coy Dick wins 2024 binational C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest
Bethel College senior Josué Coy Dick reflects on the speech that earned him first place in the 2024 binational C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest.
Josué Coy Dick, a senior from North Newton, won first place in the 2024 binational C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, an annual competition among Anabaptist colleges where participants deliver a speech on a topic related to Christian ideals of peace. Coy Dick’s speech focused on marginalized groups and peace-building.
This year’s competition brought participants from institutions across North America, including Bluffton University, Conrad Grebel University College, Goshen College, Canadian Mennonite University, Hesston College, and Tabor College. The judges of this year’s oratorical contest were experts Madalene Arias, Michael George, and Matthew Peterson.
Alongside other first-place winning performances, Coy Dick’s speech will be featured in an upcoming issue of Anabaptist World, an anabaptist publication and journal. Additionally, videos of Coy Dick’s and other top-performing speeches will be posted on the Mennonite Central Committee’s YouTube Channel.
This was not the first time Coy Dick has delivered oratorical presentations. “Giving the speech took practice, but I have some experience now giving speeches so it wasn't too bad. I also participated in the contest my freshman year,” he said. “I think it's important to talk about issues of peace including in the context of Christianity and in this community.”
Coy Dick’s speech, drawing from his own personal experiences, expert opinion, and theological reflection, highlighted the connection between trauma healing and peace-building. At the beginning of his speech, Coy Dick acknowledged the often overlooked role of mending the many flaws of systemic violence within the Mennonite community.
In the speech, Coy Dick critiqued the tendency within the progressive, white, middle-class Mennonite communities that he grew up in to focus on peace-building in the political sense while neglecting the spiritual wounds dealt by systemic violence. In Coy Dick’s view, the Mennonite communities that he is a part of could play a considerably larger role in fostering growth within marginalized communities by engaging in relationships with them.
“I think that anyone who wants to heal and be healed might want to start by listening to and being in community with folks who are a part of marginalized communities,” Coy Dick expressed. “What that looks like specifically is different in every situation, so it's hard to say exactly. But once you decide it's something you want to dedicate yourself to, it's a practice in humility, and you learn on the journey.”
“I think that anyone who wants to heal and be healed might want to start by listening to and being in community with folks who are a part of marginalized communities.”
Josué Coy Dick
Coy Dick’s father is a Q’eqchi indigenous Guatemalan, and so he framed his speech within his own family’s history of generational trauma. “Growing up, I witnessed and participated in the important, but painfully slow healing process of my father… whose community has been traumatized by both chronic and acute systemic violence for over 500 years. I experience this process of healing as an essential component of peace-building; of attempting to live as a family with the internal wholeness and healthy relationships that undergird the biblical concept of shalom.”
Coy Dick’s oration was informed by his studies at Bethel College where a wide range of theological perspectives had been presented to him. “I grew up with a lot of liberation theology and while at Bethel, I've discovered womanist theology and started reading a lot more of it, especially relating to theologies of how to think about living in the context of suffering or death.”
In addition to the liberation and womanist theological standpoints, Coy Dick said that Black theologies were also integral to his interpretation of biblical readings, the concept of shalom, and the pursuit of such holistic peace.
Serving as the cornerstone of Coy Dick’s presentation, he examined and dissected Luke 18:35-43. He went on to describe this selection in further detail, “…I was reading the passage one day, and what struck me was that Jesus asked the blind man what he could do for him. He didn't make any assumptions. I also found it powerful that Jesus said, 'Your faith has saved you’, rather than something like, ‘I have saved you.’”
Coy Dick explained that this act of recognition and care, alongside Jesus’ emphasis on the man’s faith journey as the solution to his ailment serves as a model for how Mennonites or Christians as a whole may approach the many needs of marginalized communities – with love and care.