The Council that convenes the Parliament of the World’s Religions is faced with an enormous one-time financial challenge we must immediately overcome to continue to exist. By April 13, 2013, we can raise the $150,000 needed to go on. 

In just two days, generous gifts granted through our fundraising site on CauseVox and direct commitments have totaled more than $35,000.

CPWR Executive Director Dr. Mary Nelson says each Board Trustee is meeting equal fundraising goals through personal outreach. By helping us meet this challenge, the Board of Trustees can free the Parliament to carry on the mission of creating peace in the world through interfaith harmony by:

• Convening the next Parliament event
• Widening our connections and keep encouraging local interfaith event
• Celebrating our deep 120 year history
• Honoring our leaders and MOVE FORWARD TO A FUTURE WITH HOPE

Reasons to donate are many and personal, but the hundreds stepping in already have  shared that the Parliament:

• “…teaches tolerance”
• “…is a vehicle for peace in the world,”
• “…was the highlight of my life.”

On behalf of the Russell Berrie Foundation,the  Institute of International Education has announced the sixth consecutive year of the Russell Berrie Fellowship Program in Interreligious Studies, arranged at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum).

The aim of the Fellowship Program is to build bridges between Christian, Jewish, and other religious traditions by providing the next generation of religious leaders with a comprehensive understanding of and dedication to interfaith issues. Russell Berrie Fellows are expected to complete the program and return home to their parishes and communities to lead others in efforts to promote interfaith understanding.

The Fellowship offers clergy, religious, and members of the laity an opportunity to study at the Angelicum to obtain a Certificate in Interreligious Studies. The award provides one year of financial support for up to ten new Russell Berrie Fellows. It is intended to cover tuition, a modest living stipend and book allowance, examination fees, and travel to and from the recipient’s home country.

Applicants of all faiths and backgrounds from around the world – including students currently enrolled at the Angelicum – who have a demonstrated interest in Interreligious Studies, are encouraged to apply on the Russell Berrie Fellowship site.  The application deadline is March 22, 2013. 

The United Nations’ Interfaith Harmony Week begins February 1 and will continue through February 7. Recognizing the critical need for inter-religious dialogue, events will be held worldwide to observe this special time of year.   We encourage all to attend an Interfaith event. Some of the following events held here in Chicago are free and open to all.

CPWR Sacred Space Ambassador, Suzanne Morgan, and Carisse Ramos developed the Interreligious New Year Program being hosted by the Midwest Buddhist Temple in Chicago on Friday, February 1, 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m,  Midwest Buddhist Temple, 435. W Menomonee St., Chicago. The program features:

• Year-End Introduction by Rev. Ron Miyamura
• Buddhist Ringing of the Bell
• Sharing New Year Practices from Diverse Traditions
• *Presenters followed by participants New Year Flower Release
• Toshi Koshi Soba Noodles and refreshments

Peace is at once the destination and the path. Hatred is never ended by hatred but only by dialogue, understanding and regard. These convictions come from the deepest beliefs of the world’s religious and spiritual communities.

The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religion join the Asian-American Coalition of Chicago to present a gathering with representatives of different Metropolitan Chicago area faith communities to lead prayers for Peace, Prosperity and Harmonious Co-existence.

Finding ways to transcend religious divides and foster mutual understanding and respect between people will continue through this service on February 23 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Grand Ball Room, sections F-G-H.

You are invited:

When: Saturday, February 23, 2013, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM

Where: Hyatt Regency O’Hare (Grand Ball Room – Section F-G-H)

9300 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue, Rosemont, IL 60018

(Parking at Hyatt Regency O’Hare Hotel Parking lot is complimentary)

For More Information, please contact:

Rajinder Singh Mago 630-440-7730

Dr. Mary Nelson 312-629-2990

Dr. Nguyen-Trung Hieu 773-307-5035

by CPWR Trustee Anantanand Rambachan

Participants of the first meeting of the Task Force on Phase II of Educating Religious Leaders for a      Multi-religious World.

The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions was pleased to facilitate an interfaith gathering of 17 key leaders, representing 10 different faith traditions to explore the preparation and role of religious leaders in an increasingly interreligious world. The meeting was held on October 7-8, 2012 in California at the Claremont School of Theology of Claremont Lincoln University.

Little attention has been given to the nature of leadership or leadership education across religious and spiritual traditions. Still less is known about the role of multi-religious considerations in the preparation of religious leaders in most religious and spiritual communities.

This group will gather again in the spring 2013 in New York to continue its study of the nature of leadership and leadership education across religious and spiritual traditions.  Specifically, the Task Force focuses on the role of multi-religious considerations in the preparation of religious leaders in various religious and spiritual communities.

Educating Religious Leaders for a Multi-Religious World is a project of The Council for a Parliament of the World Religions and funded by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

Mr. Varun Soni, Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California; Dr. Heidi Hadsell, President, Hartford Seminary; Dr. Azizah al-Hibri, Professor of Law, T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond and Founder and President, KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights; Mr. Kuldeep Singh, President, Sikh Youth Alliance of North America (SYANA).

A Holiday Sermon for Every Faith: Tools for Teaching Tolerance

with Lecia Brooks

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 10:00 a.m. CST

What we know about the state of hate and intolerance in the U.S. is harrowing, but not crippling. How can holiday sermons transform communal calls for peace into tools for teaching tolerance? Join Lecia Brooks, Southern Poverty Law Center’s Director of Outreach, in the in the first webinar installation of our Faiths Against Hate campaign. Faith-based community and interfaith participants will benefit by this discussion explaining how interfaith measures can successfully mitigate the worsening climate of hate in the United States, how to link the lessons of the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance campaign to the holiday sermon as a vehicle, what positive outcomes arose from peace-seeking action this year, and how to train parents to teach tolerance in a holiday season.

Lecia Brooks is the Director of Outreach for the Southern Poverty Law Center where she leads efforts to develop and facilitate educational resource models of anti-oppression, teaching tolerance, and advancing civil rights.   Brooks shepherded the publication of the widely-read biannual Teaching Tolerance Magazine of the SPLC in conjunction with the center’s first web-based professional development program, the Teaching Diverse Students Initiative.  Prior to joining the SPLC, she served as Director of Special Projects at the Conference for Community & Justice in Los Angeles.  While there, she initiated a series of anti-hate courses with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office for juvenile hate crime offenders; designed and directed residential camp programs with Tyra Banks for teenage girls to combat the negative effects of sexism; and created and facilitated anti-oppression workshops for high school students and teachers featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Brooks is also the Founder and Principal Consultant for Diversity Matters, an independent consulting firm that develops customized education and diversity workshops for non-profits, institutions of higher learning and government entities. Brooks began her career as an elementary school teacher, and earned her degree in political science at Loyola Marymount University.  

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees:
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees:
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/965841566

All of our webinars are recorded.  Click here to watch webinars

Some of Fran’s fellow pupils at Benton Park High School’s World Religions Day.

by Fran Talbot
from The Guardian

It was 8:15am. I stood, chopping melons, in a 60 year old Chinese dress. Outside, some unusually dour northern weather was doing its utmost best to turn Benton Park School into a lake.  The Year 7s were practically having to swim past the school gates and the Brazilian samba band looked incredibly nostalgic for the golden sun of Rio.

Okay, so the last paragraph sounds like the start of a low budget disaster movie, but it was in fact the start of Benton Park’s famous World Religions Day!

I love World Religions Day. It’s the crazy brain child of Benton’s Religious Studies and Philosophy department, and Head Teacher Mr Foley. Conceived four years ago in an attempt to bring cultural diversity to Benton Park, it has been a roaring success right from the start.

Click here to read full article

Najeeba Syeed-Miller Professor Najeeba Syeed-Miller, J.D., teaches Interreligious Education at Claremont School of Theology. She has extensive experience in mediating conflicts among communities of ethnic and religious diversity, and has won awards for her peacemaking and public interest work.

by Najeeba Syeed-Miller
from MuslimVoices.org

I was recently offering a workshop to a group of Muslim educators from all types of ethnic, racial and community backgrounds. One of my points in the training on conflict resolution was the importance of story telling,the many ways that stories are formed, told and uttered in different cultural contexts.

Sometimes, the content of the story is less important than the way we tell the story.

We talked about how to listen to the form of the story being told, its inherent design logic, and what we learn about a person and her community from the way she chooses to tell her story especially in times of conflict. For it is in conflict times that we resort to what is most familiar and sacred to us all.

For years, I have had the honor of being a peacemaker, a mediator who listens to people’s stories. I jokingly told a colleague that I could tell what they were thinking even as they were telling their story just by the way they sat, how their hands moved, whether they looked away at certain points or by what they also did not say.

It is important to hear a story being told as a fully embodied experience. The words, the way they are arranged, the flow of the narrative, its resonance with body language give you a more complete vision and experience of the story and insights into the storyteller.

So I thought about the ways stories play into my work, into my life and into my recovery of the sacred capacity of humans to build peace with each other. Some thoughts are below.

Click here to read the full article

Thresholds

By Camilla Schick
From Common Ground News Service

London – Camilla Howalt, Mohamed Negm, and Orly Orbach’s art piece Thresholds is an inspiring reflection on the nature of faith in the contemporary world. Together the artists represented the three Abrahamic faiths through an abstract, dream-like triptych depicting the thresholds at the doorways of houses of worship as spaces of risk and uncertainty, requiring a prayer or a blessing before entering.

For the UK’s National Interfaith Week from 20-26 November, the Three Faiths Forum (3FF), one of the country’s leading interfaith organisations, invited the public to celebrate the artistic results of its experimental Urban Dialogues programme in London.

The art competition, now in its second year, fosters collaboration between artists of different belief backgrounds, enabling them to use their work as a means of promoting closer understanding and cooperation between communities.

This year’s competition brought together 34 artists of different beliefs to work and exhibit their paintings and installations, creating an interfaith dialogue which wouldn’t otherwise be experienced in single-faith art spaces.

3FF Director Stephen Shashoua says, “One of the aims of Urban Dialogues is to highlight the work of individual artists from our communities and create a space within the urban environment where we can speak about different faiths, beliefs and ideas, with this work creating stimulus for discussion.”

Thresholds is one of the winning collaborations that was displayed at the Red Gallery in East London’s Shoreditch area.

The artists visited religious spaces they confessed they might not have otherwise explored in more depth, including the East London Mosque, the Bevis Marks Synagogue and St Ethelburga’s Centre.

Click here to read the full article.

From Huffington Post

Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from “Beyond Religion” by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.

I am an old man now. I was born in 1935 in a small village in northeastern Tibet. For reasons beyond my control, I have lived most of my adult life as a stateless refugee in India, which has been my second home for over 50 years. I often joke that I am India’s longest-staying guest. In common with other people of my age, I have witnessed many of the dramatic events that have shaped the world we live in. Since the late 1960s, I have also traveled a great deal, and have had the honor to meet people from many different backgrounds: not just presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens, and leaders from all the world’s great religious traditions, but also a great number of ordinary people from all walks of life.

Looking back over the past decades, I find many reasons to rejoice. Through advances in medical science, deadly diseases have been eradicated. Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the oneness of humanity. There is also growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment. In very many ways, the last half-century or so has been one of progress and positive change.

At the same time, despite tremendous advances in so many fields, there is still great suffering, and humanity continues to face enormous difficulties and problems. While in the more affluent parts of the world people enjoy lifestyles of high consumption, there remain countless millions whose basic needs are not met. With the end of the Cold War, the threat of global nuclear destruction has receded, but many continue to endure the sufferings and tragedy of armed conflict. In many areas, too, people are having to deal with environmental problems and, with these, threats to their livelihood and worse. At the same time, many others are struggling to get by in the face of inequality, corruption and injustice.

Click here to read the full article