Archive for the ‘CPWR’ tag
Two views of Yoga discipleship
Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian
Council Trustee Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian hosts fellow trustee Dr. Kusumita Pedersen on her radio show, The Yoga Hour. The episode, entitled “21st Century Discipleship: Dedication to Self- and God-Realization,” offers a profound conversation about the way of discipleship—the universal path of radical freedom walked by devotees, saints and mystics through the ages.
The episode is available by mp3.
Karen Armstrong: Compassion in Action
Karen Armstrong spoke this past month at a special gathering hosted by the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions in Palo Alto, California. The celebrated author and founder of the Charter for Compassion addressed the ethos of compassion and the work of the Charter.
“Compassion is not just an attitude of sloppy benevolence, it requires practical action. It requires a sense of responsibility,” said Armstrong. “It’s not an impratical dream. It’s a necessity for our survival. We have to treat people, whoever they are, with respect.”
Armstrong also lifted up the collaborative nature of the work of the Charter for Compassion, and highlighted the partnership between the Charter and CPWR, particularly the integration of the Charter with the work of the Council’s Partner Cities Network
“This is the task of our time…to make the compassionate voice of religion, spirituality, morality a clear, luminous, and dynamic force in our troubled world.”
Council Welcomes New Trustees
In a commitment to extending its reach to diverse religious and spiritual communities, the Board of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, at its October 24-25, 2010 meeting, elected seven new Trustees for a three-year term:
Ms. Anju Bhargava (Hindu)
Mr. Kirit Daftary (Jain)
Dr. Robert Henderson (Baha’i)
Ms. Mary Nelson (Christian)
Mr. Christopher Peters (Native American)
Dr. Anantanand Rambachan (Hindu)
Mr. Kuldeep Singh (Sikh)
The Council also welcomed to their inaugural meeting four Trustees who were elected in April 2010:
Mrs. Ginny K. Jolly (Sikh)
Dr. Leo D. Lefebure (Catholic)
Rabbi Brant Rosen (Jewish)
Dr. Robert P. Sellers (Christian)
(For more detailed bios, please see below)
The roots of the Council go back to the historic 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, hosted in conjunction with the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, marking the first time in history the traditions of East and West met for formal interreligious dialogue.
Chicago was the site for the centennial celebration of this event with the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in August of that year. Subsequent Parliament events have been held in Cape Town, South Africa in 1999, Barcelona, Spain in 2004, and most recently, Melbourne, Australia in 2009.
Parliaments of the World’s Religions are the largest and most diverse interreligious gatherings in the world. 6,500 participants from over 80 countries representing over 200 religious, spiritual and traditional communities attended the most recent Parliament in Melbourne.
The Council is also establishing a network of locally based interreligious movements in over 70 cities worldwide.
The Council is governed by a board of 35 Trustees, with persons of Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Jain, Jewish, Hindu, Indigenous, Pagan, Sikh, Zoroastrian, and humanistic traditions.
BRIEF BIOS OF NEW TRUSTEES
COUNCIL FOR A PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS
Elected October 2010
Ms. Anju Bhargava (Hindu)
Anju Bhargava is a Strategic Business Transformation and Risk Management professional and management consultant. She has provided thought leadership in the public and private sectors, published papers and received many awards. She is the only Hindu American appointed to President Obama’s Inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and was the only Indian-American to serve in the Community Builder Fellowship, President Clinton’s White House initiative. She is the Founder of Hindu American Seva Charities, which is now a national movement for Hindu faith-based community service programs addressing social issues. For more than twenty years she has been a Hindu representative to the Interfaith Clergy Association of Livingston, New Jersey. An ordained pujari, she strives to combine philosophy and practice from a contemporary view and is active in Hindu education. She blogs “On Faith” for the Washington Post. She was a founding member of the New Jersey Corporate Diversity Network and is the President of Asian Indian Women in America (AIWA).
Mr. Kirit Daftary (Jain)
Kirit C. Daftary is a leader in the North American Jain community and is active in a number of organizations including the Jain Association of North America (JAINA) which he has served as president and the local Jain Center of North Texas of which he has also been the head. Currently, he is the President of Anuvibha of North America, a UN/NGO organization based in India and spiritually guided by Acharya Mahapragya Ji, the disciple of Acharya Tulsi. Kirit has a passion for the message of non-violence and the promotion of peace and harmony and is a frequent speaker including at universities. Since 2006, he has been associated with Parliament activities and was an Ambassador of the 2009 Parliament as well as active in the site selection process for 2009. He is a metallurgical engineer and received and M.B.A. and an M.A. from Wayne State University. He currently owns a successful import company dealing with India, China and Korea.
Dr. Robert C. Henderson (Bahá’i)
Robert C. Henderson is a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States, the national governing body of the American Bahá’í community. He has extensive experience in the fields of business, government, and education. He co-founded Henderson Zorich Consulting, which specializes in management consulting and leadership and diversity training, with his daughter, Dr. Camille Henderson. His clients have included such Fortune 100 companies as Amoco, AT&T, General Electric, Hallmark, Mobil, United Technologies, and Xerox, as well as the Chicago White Sox. Dr. Henderson served as a Federal Commissioner of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission and designed and led meetings of California Supreme Court members, judges and lawyers to establish a California State Supreme Court Commission on Race and Ethnic Bias. Dr. Henderson’s public speaking engagements are numerous; highlights include a plenary address given at the invitation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to the international conference, “Educating Girls: A Development Imperative,” and an address to an “Education Against Hatred” Seminar at Haifa University sponsored by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He was invited by President Clinton’s Advisory Board on Race to participate in the religious forum held in Louisville, Kentucky. Robert Henderson holds a doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts (1976). He has published several articles and books on management systems and in-service training programs.
Ms. Mary Nelson (Christian – Lutheran)
Mary Nelson has spent the last forty years working in faith-based community development on the west side of Chicago, seeking to carry out the asset based community development principles in concrete ways through her leadership of Bethel New Life, Inc. She received an MAT from Brown University and a PhD from Union Graduate School. Her focus has been community based planning and development, and Bethel New Life, under her leadership, grew from an all-volunteer organization to a nationally recognized community development corporation. Mary transitioned in 2006 from the leadership of Bethel New Life into a senior associate/President Emeritus position. She is former chair of the Board of Mid American Leadership Foundation, Woodstock Institute and National Congress for Community Economic Development. She is on the national Boards of Sojourners (currently as Chair) and Christian Community Development Association. She has also had a number of government appointments. Mary has been teaching graduate university courses for over fifteen years and does workshops on community development and faith based community development all over the world. She is currently the coordinator of the Loyola University (Chicago) Institute of Pastoral Studies (IPS) Masters in Social Justice and Community Development.
Mr. Christopher Peters (Native American)
Christopher Peters (Pohlik-lah/Karuk) was born and raised on his people’s territories in northwestern California. He is President and CEO of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, a Native led Indigenous Peoples public Foundation which supports grassroots Indigenous communities in the Americas and beyond. For more than thirty-five years his work has focused on grassroots social justice organizing, protecting sacred sites, working for holistic community renewal, rebuilding traditional economies, and supporting cultural revitalization efforts. Chris is a well-known and leading advocate for the protection of Native American prayer places and ceremonial life with long experience and expertise on the legal aspects of these issues. He has fought on the frontlines of environmental justice struggles to protect aboriginal ecosystems from the devastating effects of clear-cut logging, dam development, mining, recreational development and the negative impacts that the nuclear industry and globalization has inflicted upon Indigenous Peoples and homelands. Chris has a B.S. degree from the University of California, Davis, and an M.A. degree from Stanford University.
Dr. Anantanand Rambachan (Hindu)
Anant Rambachan, an internationally known scholar of Hinduism, is Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he has taught since 1985. A native of Trinidad, he received the M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Leeds, England. He is the author of many books including The Hindu Vision (1992), Gitamrtam: The Essential Teaching of the Bhagavadgita [Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), and The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity (2006). He has been active in interfaith programs with the World Council of Churches as well as the Vatican for twenty-five years as well as in the local setting in Minnesota. He is widely respected as a spokesperson for Hinduism and a bridge-builder between Hindus and other religious communities.
Mr. Kuldeep Singh (Sikh)
Mr. Kuldeep Singh has lived in the US since 1971 and “is probably known to and respected by nearly every Sikh in the United States,” according to Tarunjit Singh Butalia. He is currently President of Sikh Youth Federation-USA, established in 1968. He was Chairperson (1998 -2001 and 2003 -2004) of the World Sikh Council-America Region, which is the representative body of Sikh Gurdwaras and other Sikh institutions in the USA. He actively participated in the formation of the World Sikh Council and in 1996 was unanimously selected as the founder-coordinator of the World Sikh Council-America Region. He has organized Sikh youth camps in the summer for the last thirty-seven years for Sikh youth from across the US and Canada. He is an able fundraiser within the Sikh community. He is a sought-after speaker and has spoken at nearly every national and international Sikh conference and seminars and also organizes many such events. He helped organize the Sikh presence at the Chicago 1993 Parliament and provided assistance in encouraging Sikhs from across the world to attend the Melbourne 2009 Parliament, at which he was a major speaker.
Elected March 2010
Mrs. Ginny K. Jolly (Sikh)
Ginny K. Jolly is on the board of FATEH (Fellowship for Activists To Embrace Humanity) a nonprofit organization involved in service projects for the community. She has been instrumental in aligning with other organizations like Habitat for Humanity, March of Dimes, and Make a Wish Foundation to arrange many service projects in the Chicago community. To give something back to the community, which she strongly promotes, she has adopted a special needs child from Vietnam. She is using her Masters of Nutrition education in effectively managing two GNC stores and helping clients in their health needs. An aspiring Sikh, and proud mother of three, Jolly was on the PTO for Willow Creek School for four years in charge of the school’s cultural programs.
Dr. Leo D. Lefebure (Catholic)
Leo D. Lefebure is the Matteo Ricci, S.J., Professor of Theology at Georgetown University and a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. He is the author of four books, including Revelation, the Religions, and Violence and The Buddha and the Christ. His next book will be Following the Path of Wisdom: a Christian Commentary on the Dhammapada, which is co-authored with Peter Feldmeier. He is an honorary research fellow of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Rabbi Brant Rosen (Jewish)
Rabbi Brant Rosen has served as rabbi of Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation (JRC) in Evanston, IL, since 1998. A long-time activist for peace, social justice and human rights, Rabbi Rosen is the co-founder of Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza serves as the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbnical Council. Rabbi Rosen’s writings appear regularly in his blog, Shalom Rav, and he has published articles for the Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Jewish Week. In 2008, Rabbi Rosen was honored by Newsweek magazine as one of the Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis in America.
Dr. Robert P. Sellers (Christian – Baptist)
Dr. Robert P. Sellers is Connally Professor of Missions at Hardin-Simmons University in Texas. In the graduate seminary program, his classes emphasize cross-cultural living, the Global Church, Two-Thirds World and liberation theologies, world religions, and interreligious dialogue. He’s taught in Canada and Mexico, Great Britain, Eastern and Western Europe, Eastern and Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Along with Muslim and Baptist partners, Rob plans periodic national conferences. He also is active nationally as a member of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches and internationally through the Baptist-Muslim Relations Commission of the Baptist World Alliance.
Interfaith Activity Is Growing
“God in America” website features Swami Vivekananda
From PBS
A follower of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk who introduced Hinduism to the United States in the late 19th century. Wide-ranging in his intellect, Vivekananda studied Western logic, philosophy, history, classical music and Indian Sanskrit scripture. His teachers considered him a prodigy.
At the age of 30, Vivekananda first visited the United States in 1893 as a delegate to the World’s Parliament of Religions, held in conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair. In his opening remarks, he greeted the assembled gathering with the words “Sisters and Brothers of America.” The 7,000 people in attendance rose to their feet for an ovation lasting more than three minutes. Vivekananda proceeded to give a brief but eloquent speech that celebrated toleration and condemned fanaticism and its ills: “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.”
Continuing in this vein, Vivekananda went on to quote from the Bhagavad Gita: “As different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their waters in the sea, so, Oh Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”
Social Networking and Religion
From Religion Link
he new movie The Social Network focuses on the drama of how Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, the online community that has exploded in popularity and, some say, transformed social interactions. But are virtual networks deepening or undermining interpersonal relationships — and our spiritual lives?
The question is a critical one for religious groups, since they have been eager adopters of this new technology.
Many ministries, religious nonprofits, houses of worship, clergy and small-group ministries now routinely maintain pages on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or other secular social networking sites, and many more religious groups and individuals have established presences on religion-oriented sites, such as ChristianNetwork and Muslimsocial.com. Twitter, too, is having an impact, as some clergy and laypeople tweet prayers, meditations and even entire religious services or the whole of the Bible in the 140-characters format.
In many respects the migration to the world of tweets and virtual communities is inevitable. Some 500 million people are on Facebook, for example, and the number is growing exponentially.
But some religious leaders express growing concerns about putting their faith in Facebook. They worry that religion and spirituality are being reduced to bytes and instant messages – mere blips on a screen – and that something crucial to faith, like a concrete sense of community and the experiential aspect of religious practice, is being lost. Others say not so. They hail social media as an effective way to attract new followers and keep them connected at all times.
This edition of ReligionLink explores the ongoing debate over faith and social networking.
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INTERFAITH
CPWR Trustee Reflects on 2010 Nobel Women’s Initiative
From No expectations. In my years of travel, I’ve learned to have no expectations so that when things happen, I’m pleasantly surprised or not disappointed. This is how I’m entering this trip: an all-important delegation to soak in the stories, sights and sounds, whatever they may be. After all, this is the time for listening and learning, the reason why we have two ears and one mouth.
As an American my friends run the gamut, and through these friendships I’ve learned about different faith traditions and cultures. A rabbi once told me that from communication comes understanding, from understanding comes respect and from respect comes love. You don’t have to be Jewish to know and experience these words of wisdom.
I have friends who have lived on a kibutz, and I have friends who own the land on which that kibutz was built after being taken from them by force. While we cannot role back the hands of time, we can look forward and see what we can do with our hands, together, in the interest of a just and safe Holy Land for all of its people.
Partner Cities Network Launches Peace Cities Initiative
PARTNER CITIES NETWORK
LAUNCHES PEACE CITIES INITIATIVE IN CONJUNCTION WITH
UN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
September 1, 2010
Chicago, IL – September 1, 2010 – The Partner Cities Network of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions is pleased to announce the launch of Peace Cities, a city-to-city interfaith networking opportunity for self-organized grass-roots interfaith groups, made available through PeaceNext.org.
The Peace Cities program recognizes the on-the-ground work of over 70 partner interfaith communities and their leaders who work to foster interfaith cooperation, peace, and social cohesion. It serves to connect cities around the world that have hosted interfaith events in cooperation with the Partner Cities Network and the Parliament of World’s Religions (Chicago, USA 1993; Cape Town, South Africa 1999; Barcelona, Spain 2004; Monterrey, Mexico 2007 and Melbourne, Australia, 2009.)
Cities that have earned the designation of Peace City are able to post news about local interfaith events and to share resources with other Peace Cities through PeaceNext.org. Peace Cities are eligible to apply to join the Partner Cities Network through a fast-track application process.
The Peace Cities launch coincides with PeaceWeek, a global telesummit for building a culture of peace. A co-production of The Shift Network and The Peace Alliance, PeaceWeek is being held in conjunction with the UN International Day of Peace on September 21. This conference will feature over 50 leading international peacebuilders, pioneers, and innovators, and offer opportunities for personal growth and collective change.
The Peace Cities program of the Partner Cities Network invites all to participate in PeaceWeek, a global telesummit for building a culture of peace. A co-production of The Shift Network and The Peace Alliance, PeaceWeek is being held in conjunction with the UN International Day of Peace on September 21. This conference will feature over 50 leading international peacebuilders, pioneers, and innovators, and offer opportunities for personal growth and collective change. To join the PeaceWeek global conversations, please visit, www.peaceweek.info. Registrants will be able to participate for free in an unlimited number of live discussions and receive free access to the full library of event recordings.
The Partner Cities Network is also proud to partner with Odyssey Networks in “A Million Minutes for Peace” campaign. Our goal is to collect one million pledges to pray for peace for one minute at noon on the UN International Day of Peace. Please watch the 60-second video, and join us by pledging your prayer for peace.
Contact: Zabrina Santiago
Deputy Executive Director & Partner Cities Director
Phone: (312) 629-2990 x. 235
zabrina@parliamentofreligiong.org
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About the Partner Cities Network
The Partner Cities Network seeks to build and connect the interreligious movement worldwide. It serves to create a global dynamic that will bind cities together and facilitates the sharing of best practices to inspire opportunities for cooperative action among cities. Partner Cities will soon launch collaborative programming and innovative resource sharing through online resource centers, quarterly webinars, and regional gatherings.
Currently six international cities form the growing network, with eight cities completing the application process in 2010. Cities currently designated as Partner Cities are Chicago, Illinois, USA; Cape Town, South Africa; Barcelona, Spain; Monterrey, Mexico; Melbourne, Australia and San Jose, California, USA.
About Peace Cities
Peace Cities is an initiative of the Partner Cities Network. It seeks to bridge self-organized grass-roots interfaith initiatives in cities around the world through the Council’s social media platform, PeaceNext.org.
Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Interreligious Engagement
From Huffington Post
By Joshua M. Z. Stanton
If only our congregations were a thousandth as large as Lady Gaga’s fanpage on Facebook. That would mean that over 13,000 people would be members, with numbers skyrocketing by the day.
Many have suggested that the appeal of pop culture on Facebook (and Twitter and MySpace) is symptomatic of moral decline and perhaps even the end of religion — with the assumption, of course, that the two go together. But that fear has existed for generations, with every breakthrough in communication. Radio, records, and television were all thought to lead to the end of faith at one point or another. But there is no end to religion in sight. The idea that social media could somehow snuff it out after it survived centuries of technological advancement is unfounded. Religion is dynamic and has long been able to adapt to social change.
In fact, social networking sites may be of tremendous help to religious communities. They bring together people with strong religious convictions more than ever before. Just have a look at the “Jesus Daily” fanpage on Facebook, which has almost 3,000,000 members, or the fanpage for “Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him),” which has nearly 130,000. Imagine a religious congregation with 130,000 or even 3,000,000 members! The hundreds of thousands of people gathering on these fanpages are looking for religious inspiration, companionship, and community, and apparently they find it to one degree or another online.
Religion is in fact one of the most powerful forces in the age of social media. It is a core part of the landscape, with Facebook fanpages and Twitter profiles creating what some might consider to be virtual churches, synagogues, and mosques within the broader online panorama.
A number of websites are responding to the large and growing presence of religion in social media. Just take for example Patheos, which fills a gap in multi-perspective coverage of religious issues; the Washington Post, which has added the On Faith blog to its repertoire; the Huffington Post, which has similarly added the HuffPost Religion section to engage with challenging and timely topics; and the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, which recently launched the State of Formation project with the Parliament of the World’s Religions to engage seminary, divinity and graduate student leaders in online discourse on identity and current events. If anything, the challenge is not one of insufficient demand for religious content — the supposed indication of moral decline — but the presence of too few websites to fill it online.
A Call For Nominations from CPWR and Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
From The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
Greetings,
We hope this finds you well. We are excited to announce that we are now accepting nominations and self-nominations for Contributing Scholars for our new blog, State of Formation, and we’d like to give you the opportunity to weigh in.
The current American discourse on religion and ethics is primarily defined by established leaders – ministers, rabbis, academics and journalists.
There is an entire population of important stakeholders without a platform: the up-and-comers.
To remedy this, the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, in partnership with the Parliament of the World’s Religions, is set to launch State of Formation, a forum for up-and-coming religious and philosophical thinkers to draw upon the learning that is occurring in their academic and community work. Articles will frequently reflect on the pressing questions of a religiously pluralistic society and challenge existing religious and philosophical definitions.
State of Formation is a community conversation between young leaders in formation. Together, a cohort of seminarians, rabbinical students, graduate students and the like – the future religious and moral leaders of tomorrow – will work to redefine the ethical discourse today, particularly as it is used to refract current events and personal experiences.
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Nominees should be currently enrolled in a seminary, rabbinical school, graduate program, or another institution for theological or philosophical formation. We are looking for exceptional and visionary young leaders who are currently learning about and reflecting on religious and moral issues. Does this describe you or a young leader you know? Please take a moment to fill out our brief online nomination form here or e-mail us your one-page nomination to chris@irdialogue.org. Nominations are due October 15, 2010.
