Archive for the ‘NAIN’ tag
Pagans in the Interfaith Movement
From The Wild Hunt
The North American Interfaith Network (NAIN), one of North America’s oldest interfaith organizations, recently held their yearly gathering in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the meeting, Covenant of the Goddess member Rachael Watcher, a longtime interfaith activist, was elected to the Executive Board of NAIN. Watcher is the second Pagan to serve on the Board, she will be joining Grove Harris, a member of Reclaiming, who has served with the Pluralism Project and the Council For A Parliament of the World’s Religions. COG’s National Public Information Officer released this statement on the election.
“Our CoG National Interfaith Representative – Rachael Watcher attended that meeting, and was elected to a four year term on the NAIN Board of Directors. This is important news for Wiccans and Pagans everywhere. Once again we are represented on the board of one of the oldest and most well respected interfaith organizations in North America. This election of Rachael demonstrates that CoG’s collective support for interfaith is reaping rewards of respect and inclusion for the entire Pagan community.”
This is yet another advance for Pagans within the interfaith movement. In addition to NAIN’s two Pagan board members, there are currently three Pagans, Andras Corban-Arthen, Phyllis Curott, and Angie Buchanan, serving on the Board of Trustees of the Council For A Parliament of the World’s Religions. Also, it should be noted that the United Religions Initiative has seen active Pagan participation for the entirety of its ten-year history.
These remarkable achievements, along with the “in the trenches” interfaith outreach and activism by individual modern Pagans, has ushered the modern Pagan movement to a place of global attention and influence that’s nearly unprecedented considering where we were a generation ago. A lot has happened since Paganism “came out” to the global interfaith community in 1993, and we’ve since built bridges and new understandings at a remarkable pace. Whatever our future, these achievements ensure that the voices of modern Pagans continue to be heard by the world’s religions. Congratulations to Rachael Watcher on her election!
Looking Forward: Young Adult Perspectives on the Interfaith Movement
From YouTube and The Pluralism Project
The North American Interfaith Network (NAIN) held its annual conference, NAINConnect 2010, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The theme of the 2010 conference was “Many Faiths, One Family, Building a World of Harmony,” organized by a series of panels.
CPWR Communications Director Alisa Roadcup was one of twelve NAIN Young Adult Scholarship recipients who attended NAINConnect 2010. In this video, she and other scholarship recipients discuss the future of the interfaith movement and the role of the next generation of interfaith leaders.
Interfaith Leaders Gather at NAIN
Religious awareness and sensitivity are the missing ingredients in American diplomacy, professional peacemaker Douglas Johnston told interfaith leaders gathered in Salt Lake City Monday.
Johnston, president and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., freely quotes the Quran, refers to Islamic history and praises the goodness and accomplishments of Muslims in his work in Sudan, Kashmir, the Middle East and even this country to engage Muslims and others in conflict resolution.
Instead of asking how Jesus would react in certain situations, he gets participants to consider what the Prophet Muhammad would do.
Because Islam literally means, “submission to God,” Johnston once told a hostile group of 57 Taliban commanders, religious figures and tribal leaders, meeting with him in the mountains of Pakistan, “we’re all Muslim.”
“I was there to build upon common values, show respect and to create confidence,” Johnston told more than 100 representatives of the North American Interfaith Network, whose three-day gathering concludes today at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Salt Lake City. “It’s the only way to defuse rage.”
Though a Christian, Johnston comes at diplomatic relations from a military and academic perspective. He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and holds a master’s degree in public administration and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University. He worked for the Department of Defense and founded the Kennedy School’s Executive Program in National and International Security.
Yet he knows a lot about many faiths and does a lot of listening as he partners with local groups to develop proposals.
In his keynote speech sponsored by Utah Valley University’s Religious Studies Program, Johnston said he first tested his ideas in Sudan a decade ago, where the war between the Islamic north and Christian south had brutalized the country for decades. Where other nongovernmental organizations flooded the south with services to victims, Johnston went north to find the root causes. There he found surprising openness among some Muslim leaders. Women didn’t wear burkas, for example, and were well-represented in the country’s Parliament and at the university.
