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In This Issue:

1. Executive Director's Updates
   • NPT Review Underway
   • Send a Picture Postcard or Tell a Friend
   • Supporting Interreligious Council Building
   • Internships for Summer Now Available
   • Honoring Indigenous Peoples
   • Media Training for Religious Leaders
   • Dialogue for a New Moral Agenda
2. We Are All Connected
   • Interview with Ms. Jacqueline Ogega Moturi - African Women's Project Director, Religions for Peace
3. An Introduction to The Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM)
4. Off the Shelf
   • "New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American Religious Life"
   • "Relating Religions: Essays in the Study of Religion"
   • "Seven Friends Seven Faiths: Looking at Celebrations of Different Faiths"
   • "The Sovereignty Revolution"
   • Combating the AIDS Stigma
   • Jews in America: A New Website
   • The iPod Generation
   • Bruderhof Peacemakers Guide
5. Food for Thought: Oscar A. Romero
6. Donate to Religions for Peace - USA
7. Subscribe/Unsubscribe

From Our Executive Director…

Photo by Christine Pawelski Artwork at the Foot of Hiroshima's Children's Peace Monument

NPT Review Underway

The 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (take a deep breath) is underway now at the United Nations. (The UN has fascinatingly long names for conferences, treaties, and organizations, doesn't it?) Religions for Peace and Religions for Peace - USA co-sponsored an interfaith service on May 2nd to recognize the start of the "NPT". It included interpretive dance, music and readings from representatives of nine religious traditions.

Send a Picture Postcard or Tell a Friend

Last month we did our semi-annual appeal to readers and friends of Religions for Peace-USA for support of our programs. Several of you have responded. Thank you!

On behalf of our colleagues at RFP-USA we wanted to give something back to express our appreciation. This month we are unveiling a new postcard service with colorful pictures. Want to send a note to a friend? Need a creative way to stay in touch? Send your friend a picture postcard, using our new e-card service. Peaceful images of sunsets and flowers, for example, make a warm e-mail greeting. New pictures will join the collection as we move along, so come back or bookmark it. Click here to send an e-card to a friend.

If you are able to donate now and somehow missed the opportunity, please consider making a secure gift online today at http://www.rfpusa.org/donate. If you are not able to donate at this time, but appreciate receiving this e-news and value the work of RFP-USA, please take 20 seconds and tell a friend about RFP-USA. Click here to send them an automated note.

Supporting Interreligious Council Building

Part of the work of RFP-USA is in helping interreligious councils and interfaith organizations become successful at their mission. We have been working with dedicated and passionate individuals in Philadelphia (www.interfaithcenterpa.org) and Kansas City (soon to be www.kcinterfaith.org) to get young interreligious councils going. The picture above shows representatives of the Kansas City Interfaith Council gathered during a recent consultation visit of RFP-USA in early April. As part of our relationship with them, the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia will host a day long community workshop on Monday, May 9th on conflict transformation. It will be led by one of the principal authors of Religions for Peace's guidebook on "Women of Faith Transforming Conflict: A Multireligious Training Manual," Ms. Elisa Levy.

Internships for Summer Now Available

Time is running out to line up summer internships. If you are in the NYC region and interested in working as an intern, please contact us today. All applicants must submit a resume and a writing sample. To learn more, click here.

Honoring Indigenous Peoples

In support of the IVth Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to be held at the U.N. in NYC from May 16-27th, the Office of the Chaplain of the Church Center for the U.N. and Religions for Peace-USA will cosponsor a dramatic reading of "The Controversy of Valladolid" by Jean-Claude Carriere, translated from French to English by Richard Nelson. The performance is free of charge.

The 100-minute reading will take place on May 12th from 5:30-7:30 p.m. with a light reception afterwards. It will be directed and performed by the entire cast of the recent Public Theatre's English premiere performance of the play (performed in March 2005) and is a profoundly difficult and terrorizing argument between two Catholic priests, the Pope's Prelate and a philosopher. This argument and others of the 1500s have informed international law regarding indigenous peoples’ human rights and property rights for the past 500 years. In addition, the voices do not seem far from some political discourse and argument of the current day.

Media Training for Religious Leaders

Auburn Media is hosting a one-day media training workshop for Religious Leaders on May 10th led by Callie Crossley, Emmy Award winning director and former producer for ABC News's 20/20. Crossley, a 2002 fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, will lead a select group of multifaith religious leaders in a day of intimate, intensive media training to craft messages and communicate effectively in the media. Registrations are now closed.

The full-day workshop will provide:

• personalized assistance in developing the tools needed to shape a core message for media presentations;
• strategies for interview etiquette and effective communication, using video and audio playback; and
• guidance on how to develop media contacts for your organization.

More and more, faith leaders are being called upon to articulate their perspectives on television, radio and in print. Religion and faith emerged as a central issue in national discourse during a divisive presidential election and Americans have named moral values as a top concern. The time is now for religious leaders to learn to communicate their vision of ethics and faith successfully to a broad audience, so that the public understands the breadth of religious opinion and is awakened to the prophetic tradition alive today.

Drawing upon the expertise of Auburn Theological Seminary's Center for Multifaith Education and a staff of award-winning producers and documentarians, Auburn Media works regularly with leading media makers and is committed to lifting up the many voices of religion.

If you are interested in learning more about future opportunities, please contact Kellie Anderson-Picallo at Auburn Media, (212) 662-4315.

"A Dialogue for a New Moral Agenda," a bi-partisan, interfaith conference, sponsored by The Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University. The dialogue will take place May 23rd and 24th on the campus of George Washington University. The purpose of the dialogue is to explore what moral language will allow us to best express the values we share, the values that resonate with the moral sensibilities of most Americans. Speakers at the conference will include Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.

The topics of the conference will include:

• moral suasion versus moral coercion as the basis for a new moral agenda.
• the reform of our moral institutions (such as the family, schools, places of worship, and the community at large) to actively bring out the best elements of our nature while discouraging the worst.
• the power of moral dialogues to increase our awareness of shared values.
• moving beyond the excessive commitment to "making it" and leaving more space for spiritual, social, and personal growth. o exploring what makes a society fair.
• the scope of our obligations to members of other societies and the budding global community.

Amitai Etzioni, Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies and author of The Spirit of Community, will present the Institute's positions. For the conference schedule and a list of speakers, please visit here. If you have any questions contact Ms. Eleanor Morrison, Conference Coordinator at egm@gwu.edu.

Want to know more about what women of faith are doing in Africa?

Ms. Jacqueline Ogega Moturi, African Women's Project Director, speaks about it with our Director of Development and Information Management, Ms. Kinza Ghaznavi.

From combatting HIV/AIDS to reconstruction in post-conflict areas African women of faith are working to bring peace and justice to their local communities.

To learn more about the work African women of faith are involved in and how you can help read the interview.

With over 50 member religious communities and over 90 members on its three councils, Religions for Peace-USA, wishes to occasionally spotlight individual members or communities. This issue features The Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM). The Executive Director of RFP-USA will be offering a keynote address and workshops at the CMSM's annual conference at Scottsdale, Arizona in August.

The Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) serves the leadership of the Catholic orders and congregations of the more than 20,000 vowed religious priests and brothers of the United States, ten percent of whom are foreign missionaries. CMSM provides a voice for these communities in U.S. church and society. CMSM also collaborates with the U.S. bishops and other key groups and organizations that serve church and society.

CMSM was formed in 1956 as a conference for leaders of religious congregations and institutes in the United States. It was organized at the request of Pope Pius XII who, in l950, urged religions around the world to come together in national associations. The newly established Conference established several goals that have been refined and expanded over the years. The primary goal is to support leaders and provide them with the resources necessary to be effective leaders. Second, the Conference strives to promote the dialogue and collaboration among the leaders of religious institutes and with the Catholic Church and society. Finally, CMSM provides a corporate influence and voice for male religious leaders through its national and regional structures.

CMSM addresses the life and concerns of religious and communities of apostolic life in the United States, including their evangelizing mission in the context of Church and culture in this country. CMSM also represents the U.S. male religious and apostolic communities before a number of national and international bodies, including the Congregation of Religious and Secular Institutes of the Holy See, which officially recognizes CMSM as the national representative body for men in religious and apostolic communities in the United States.

The Conference is divided into six regions that meet twice a year. The entire membership of the Conference, which represents approximately 25,000 male religious priests and brothers, meets each year in August.

For more information on the CMSM and its activities visit them at www.cmsm.org or e-mail postmaster@cmsm.org.

In this section we feature interesting, replicable projects of our member religious communities or thought-provoking publications for our common mission. You can order any of these books from Amazon with one click. A portion of the proceeds will benefit RFP-USA.

New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American Religious Life by Bruce B. Lawrence.

The author of this book, a leading scholar of religion, Bruce B. Lawrence, explores how Asian immigrants have engaged American culture. In America the fastest growing religions - faster than all Christian sects combined - are Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, the book asks how these new faiths have changed and challenged the pluralist face of American civil society since the mid-1060s.

The author is the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor of Religion and professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University.

Relating Religions: Essays in the Study of Religion by Jonathan Z. Smith.

Jonathan Z. Smith is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of the Humanities in the College and the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World at the University of Chicago.

Jonathan Z. Smith is best known for his analyses of religious studies as a discipline and for his advocacy and refinement of comparison as the basis for the history of religions. This book gathers seventeen essays that consider the role of taxonomy and classification in the study of religion, the construction of difference, and the procedures of generalization and redescription that Smith takes to be key to the comparative enterprise.

Seven Friends Seven Faiths: Looking at Celebrations of Different Faiths by Martha Bettis Gee. The author is a writer, editor, and consultant in educational ministry. A certified Christian educator for Presbyterian Church (USA), she is the Director of Christian Education at Fairlawn Presbyterian Church, Columbus Indiana.

This guide helps children learn about the rich interfaith community by learning about the celebrations of different faiths, including our own. It offers three sessions for children ages 6 through 12, and an intergenerational experience including games, recipes, and songs. Each session begins with worship and Bible study, and has a wide variety of activities for different age levels. To order this source call the UM service center at 800-305-9857 and ask for stock #03288.

The Sovereignty Revolution by Alan Cranston.

A few days before his death the author finished this book which contains his final thoughts on how humanity can effectively address the challenges we can only resolve at the global level, from international terrorism to climate change to regional wars and genocide?

The manuscript has been published with a Forward by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, an Introduction by Jonathan Schell, and companion essays by Jane Goodall and Jonathan Granoff. Jonathan Granoff is closely associated with the work of the Standing Commission on Disarmament in Religions for Peace International.

In his final years, Alan Cranston worked to develep new approaches to resolving global challenges, especially those posed by nuclear weapons. Profits from the sale of this book will go to support efforts that reduce the threat posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and continue work in which the author was engaged to make the world more secure for present and future generations.

Combating the AIDS Stigma

Religions for Peace, in partnership with the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, recently completed a new educational resource for religious leaders and their communities on HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrimination. “Combating Stigma and Discrimination: The Role of Religion in Building Inclusive Communities Responding to HIV & AIDS” is a CD-ROM containing educational materials and tools to assist religious leaders and communities in eliminating the stigma and discrimination often experienced by people and communities living with HIV and AIDS. The CD-ROM is an outcome of a satellite session held during the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand that brought together senior religious leaders from different faith traditions, as well as people living with HIV. The CD-ROM has been produced in partnership with UNESCO, the Government of Norway, and Abbott Fund Global Care Initiatives and will be distributed to key stakeholders and conference attendees. Please email us if you would like to request a copy of the CD-ROM.

Jews in America: A New Website Launched

The Center for Jewish History has pulled together five partners – American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Le Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and Yivo Institute for Jewish Research - with over 100 million documents in their storehouses on Jewish history. Together the organizations offer a new super site for information about Jewish leaders – www.jewsinamerica.org. With over 350 years of Jewish history in America to cover, the website includes video documentaries, essays, photos, “pagethrough” books, and a spellbinding timeline of facts and links.

The iPod Generation has creative ways of plugging in, even religiously. Take for example the new ShasPod which provides a little technical aid to the cycle of Talmud learning that recently culminated in the Siym HaShas. The Siym HaShas is a celebration at the end of the 7 ˝ year cycle of readings known as the Daf Yomi. A 23-year old entrepreneur by the name of Yehuda Shmidman has been selling iPods for $399 - the extra $100 is for the pre-loaded digital version of what would otherwise be a 2,711 page book. (One hitch - What are the Orthodox to do on the Sabbath when turning on/off electronic things is forbidden?). Want to know more? Visit Shaspods.com or visit the rival at Torah Communications Network for a beefy version of the same.

Bruderhof Peacemakers Guide - Fighting For Peace

The Bruderhof Peacemakers Guide was created to inspire and empower you to work for peace, and to arm you with living proof of the power of nonviolence to effect change and resolve conflicts. Some of the peacemakers featured on this website are famous, others obscure, but all have dedicated their lives to building a more peaceful and just world through nonviolent means. For each you will find a short biography, an original portrait, and links to further reading.

The site also supplies you with ammunition to help convince those who doubt the practicality of nonviolence. In this section you'll find writings on nonviolence, reconciliation, conflict resolution, pacifism, and conscientious objection to military service, as well as freely downloadable e-books on peace-related themes.

In honor of the 25th anniversary of his death by assassination…

" Let us not be cowards. Let us not hide the talent God has given us…. But rather let us live the beauty and the responsibility of being a prophetic people…" - Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador