Religions for Peace - USA 2005 E-Newsletter

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In This Issue:

From Our Executive Director…

$500 Mini-Grants for Your Community Dialogue! - The People Speak 2005
They're back!! Our popular mini-grants are back for a second year! They are simple and easy to apply for, and we have twice as much funding to give out this year as last. Apply early, as they will go fast!

Why are we doing this? We want to see you and your neighbors discussing the role of the US in the world and examining the significance of the United Nations. The People Speak is a series that brings thoughtful discussion and debate about foreign policy to hundreds of thousands of Americans and foreign citizens.

From September 1 to November 30, 2005, you can join participants across the United States and around the world by hosting your own forum or joining one in your area. This year's discussion will focus on what is perhaps the United States' most important foreign policy consideration: its leadership and membership in the United Nations.

The official theme of The People Speak 2005 is: Building a Safer World: Defining the U.S.-U.N. Relationship for the 21st Century

Participants will address this in dialogues on one of four topic areas:

1. Environment
2. Poverty, Hunger, and Health
3. War and Conflict
4. WMD and Terrorism

It's easy to get involved. Peruse The People Speak website and select a topic, meeting date, and location. Depending on the size of your event, you will get between $50 and $500. Remember to select "Religions for Peace" in the simple two-page registration process. Click here to register for The People Speak! Once you're registered, you'll have access to a toolkit, topic guides, and everything else you need to host or attend your own The People Speak event.

Want some advice? Got a question? Give us a ring (212-338-9140) or drop a line (thepeoplespeak@rfpusa.org). We are here to help.

Stonewalk for Peace
How are you remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki? In one month, we will all have the opportunity to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the suffering of the Japanese people resulting from the atomic bombings. The Peace Abbey and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows are two organizations leading STONEWALK JAPAN, the fifth global walk honoring civilians killed in war. The stone will be pushed/pulled by volunteers for 340 miles from Nagasaki to Hiroshima. The Hibakusha, survivors of the bombings, will also participate in the walk. Tune in for ways you can honor the anniversary in your community.

Religions for Peace -USA's Executive Director, Bud Heckman is seen here speaking about Peace in the Middle East at a workshop at the UUA GA. Note the white bracelet. Diverse celebrities such as Nelson Mandela, Brad Pitt, Pat Buchanan, George Clooney, and Bob Edgar can be seen wearing them - all in an effort to bring attention to the ONE Campaign. Find out more at www.one.org.

The ONE Campaign
What if every country gave 1% of it's budget towards external aid for the fight against poverty, hunger, and HIV/AIDS? The human race would realize the power of one. If you haven't heard about this campaign, you should! Find out why so many religious leaders and celebrities wear the ONE campaign wristband everyday at www.one.org. General Secretary of the NCCCUSA (National Council of Churches in the USA), Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar wears one. So does Religions for Peace-USA Executive Director, Rev. Bud Heckman. So does Bono, George Clooney, and Pat Robertson. It is extremely vital that you act now, as the G8 summit is on July 6, and world leaders have an historic opportunity to offer up a remarkable combination of trade, debt relief, and aid. People of faith must speak up!

According to the One campaign, "ONE links directly to the international effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. 1% more of the US federal budget would help save millions of lives and be a major commitment towards achieving the internationally agreed upon United Nations Millennium Development Goals. If it is delivered, we would achieve 0.35% of national wealth going to Official Development Assistance - half way to the international commitment to achieve 0.7%."

Saving Darfur: How Many Have to Die?
500 people are dying every day in Darfur. 15,000 every month. Professionals from the University of Toronto and Northwestern University estimate that between February 2003 and April 2005, nearly 400,000 people have died in Darfur. Two out of every five are killed by the Janjaweed militias or by Sudanese government forces. Three of every five dies from disease, starvation, and complications that arise from the displacement and misery.

When do we say enough is enough? When we get to a half million dead? It is a genocide. Kofi Annan said, "It is a race against time….if violence and fear prevent the people of Darfur from planting and growing crops next year, then millions will have to be sustained by an epic relief effort which will stretch international capacity to the maximum." It is time. Act today. Visit www.savedarfur.org.

Reality TV Meets An Interfaith World?
We know. We know. You are sick of reality TV shows! So are we. They bring out the worst in human nature. But as people of faith we believe in approaching each new thing in its own right. What if reality TV tackled religious pluralism? Well, it is doing just that. Sort of.

Do you remember Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, the clever documentary (www.supersizeme.com) that followed what happened to one man as he ate nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days? (In case you missed it, it wasn't pretty). It inspired FX, a cable television channel, to run a new reality show called 30 Days. This Wednesday, July 6, at 10 p.m. ET/PT the show will feature a Christian Evangelical from West Virginia who moves in with Muslims in Michigan. Will this down-home diversity get past the gaffes committed by a pork-loving hillybilly to enable dialogue over meal principles? We will see. Tune in to "Muslims in America."

Respect for the Qur'an: Responding by Doing
How did you respond when you heard reports that the Qur'an is being defiled or disrespectfully treated by US military representatives in "Gitmo." One local interfaith group decided to make a public and positive act of witness by buying Qur'ans in mass. The Interfaith Peace Network of Western New York (IPNWNY) worked with local religious leaders and a hometown bookstore to purchase 55 Qur'ans as an act of public witness and solidarity. One of the many interfaith peace groups that have arisen largely as a result of 9/11, IPNWNY uses the same asset-based model as Religions for Peace.

New Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Program
The Institute on Religion and Public Policy announces the launch of a new Program on Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. The new center will be headed by Delacie Hester For more information contact Ben Marsh at 202-835-8760 or write to irpp@religionandpolicy.org.

Faith Communicators Forum 2005
Ms. Mariane Pearl will speak Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at the Religion Communicators Council's Washington D.C. Chapter Luncheon at the National Press Club. Ms. Mariane Pearl, journalist and documentary filmmaker, will share her experience of terrorists kidnapping her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl.

The Faith Communicators Forum is Monday, September 12 - Thursday, September 15, 2005 at the Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C.. For more information see www.FaithCommunicatorsForum.info.

World's Religions after September 11: A Global Congress
A summit of the world's religions specifically in light of 9/11? It is happening in Canada next year. Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University and President of this Congress invites you to consider attending this September 11-15, 2006 gathering. Paper abstracts must be submitted by February 28, 2006.

For detailed information, please visit the website of the Congress at www.worldsreligionsafter911.com or contact the Congress Secretariat at 625 President Kennedy, Suite 1010, Montreal, Quebec Canada H3A 1K2. Tel: +1 514 499-8920. Fax: +1 514 499-8921. E-mail: info@worldsreligionsafter911.com.

Summer Peacebuilding and Development Institute
The Summer Peacebuilding and Development Institute of American University still has openings for its July courses. The first example is the July 5-9 course on "Training Course in Media and Peacebuilding: Concepts, Actors and Challenges," taught by Ross Howard, a Canadian journalist.

Some of the other courses running through July include: Training for Trainers in Peacebuilding & Development; Development in Conflict: Practical Approaches to Recovery; Bridging Human Rights Conflict Resolution & Development; Arts Approaches to Peacebuilding & Development; and Islam and the West: Strategies for Peace. For more information, visit www.american.edu/sis/peacebuilding or contact Saji Prelis at 202-885-2014.

Spiritual Activism Conferences
It is not too late to sign up for the first of two conferences for "spiritual activists." The July 20-23 conference in Berkeley still has openings. The next one is in Washington D.C. during February 10-13. The Network of Spiritual Progressives is a project of the Tikkun. For more information, see here.

Religious Leaders and Media Training
Due to their popular success, Auburn Media will be offering Auburn Media Speaker Training Workshops again this fall. The beginner session is on November 14 and the new advanced course is on November 15. These workshops prepare religious leaders, clergy and lay people to convey their message powerfully.

Workshops are designed and led by a team of award-winning broadcast and film producers. For more information, contact Auburn Media at 212.662.4315 or visit www.auburnsem.org. Ask for Kellie Anderson-Picallo at 212-662-4315.

Dr. William Vendley, Secretary General of Religions for Peace, addresses attendees of the Unitarian Universalist's General Assembly in Ft. Worth, Texas. He spoke about Track II Diplomacy and Multireligious Conflict Transformation.

Religions for Peace facilitates inaugural African meeting of Faith and Ethics Network of the International Criminal Court (FENICC).

From May 9-11, 2005, Religions for Peace hosted an experts meeting, entitled “African Faith Based Communities Advancing Justice and Reconciliation in relation to the International Criminal Court.” The gathering was convened by the Steering Committee of the Faith and Ethics Network of the International Criminal Court (FENICC), a coalition of religious, ethics and interfaith organizations working to promote awareness of the International Criminal Court among their communities. Religions for Peace, an international steering committee member of FENICC, has taken on a key role in this endeavor.

Attendees, including representatives from the FENICC Steering Committee, the International Criminal Court and the Inter-religious Councils of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda agreed to initiate a project designed to raise awareness of the ICC among African religious communities and to increase their participation in its undertakings.

The gathering also deepened their commitment towards education, outreach, and action around the ICC and strengthened their capacity to achieve these goals by establishing the African Faith-Based Network for the ICC, to serve as a conduit for the exchange of pertinent information, experiences, and initiatives.

As an outcome of the meeting, FENICC is planning a training and outreach campaign in Africa intended to engage religious communities in justice and reconciliation processes in relation to the Court. To this end, FENICC will create a Justice and Reconciliation Manual on the ICC geared towards faith-based communities. The manual, intended to facilitate discussion, education, advocacy and action, will be complimented by the African Faith-Based Network for the ICC, which will serve as a coordinating body for the manual’s dissemination. The manual is to be launched in November 2005.

In its own network of African IRCs, Religions for Peace is raising awareness among religious leadership and faith-based communities of the Court’s purpose and activities, as well as to define and develop the role of these actors in advancing justice and reconciliation.

Religions for Peace co-facilitates experts working group for international conflict conference.

As part of the upcoming Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) Conference at United Nations Headquarters, Religions for Peace, in conjunction with the Life and Peace Institute, will facilitate a working group entitled “Faith-based Initiatives for Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding.”

Aimed at achieving a shift in global policy from reaction to prevention of armed conflict, the GPPAC Conference will challenge participants to develop specific, practical initiatives for implementing the Global Action Agenda for the Prevention of Violent Conflict with a focus on enhancing the effectiveness of civil-society organizations and promoting improved interaction between these organizations, the United Nations, and national governments.

The Faith-based Initiatives working group, under the leadership of Conflict Transformation Program Director Angela Oliver, and Executive Director of the Life & Peace Institute, Peter Brune, will meet over three days to explore effective methods of supporting the conflict transformation and peacebuilding capacities of faith based organizations and religious leaders.

The group of twenty-five experts, representing diverse faith traditions and geographic locations, will evaluate present initiatives, derive best practice guidelines, and formulate a clear set of strategies to strengthen collaboration between faith-based communities, civil society, and governments. At the close of the conference their recommendations will be presented to the participants and included in the final conference report to be shared with the Secretary General’s office of the United Nations.

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 Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation.

Imam Mahdi Bray (left) makes a point during a forum on race relations at Boston College as Rev. George Wells, Church of Our Saviour Episcopal in Milton, and Catholic Archbishop, Sean O'Malley listen in. A new study by Howard University Researchers shows widespread perceptions of discrimination in the Boston area.

The Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation is a component of the Muslim American Society, America's largest Muslim grassroots, religious, social, cultural, and educational organization. MAS Freedom's goal is to build an integrated empowerment process for the American Muslim community through civic education, participation, community outreach, coalition building, and to forge positive relationships with other institutions that will ensure the protection of civil rights and liberties for American Muslims and all Americans. Additionally, on a national and international level, MAS Freedom advocates for human rights and religious freedom for all people, regardless of ethnicity, gender or national origin. Its Executive Director, Imam Mahdi Bray, is a long-time national, civil and human rights activist. He also represents the Muslim American Society in the Council of Presidents in Religions for Peace - USA.

The Foundation is well known in the Muslim community for its American civic empowerment and community activist training programs. To date, they have trained over 4,000 civic and community activists nationwide. Recent projects include lobbying for minimum wage and fair immigration reform legislation, hunger awareness programs, leading an interfaith peace delegation to Sudan and the Darfur region, nationally televised citizen hearings on civil liberties post 9/11, and participation in the Harvard University Civil Rights Project on Racism.

E-mail: info@masfreedomfoundation.org
Web: www.masnet.org/
Subscribe: MASFreedomFoundation-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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.

Power of Nonviolence - Writings by Advocates of Peace
Introduction by Howard Zinn
A stirring anthology of writings about peace and nonviolence from Buddha to Arundhati Roy. As you read this, America is at war. President Bush declared a "war on terrorism" and a majority of the American people originally believed he was doing the right thing. But is there another way? From Buddha in the pre-Christian era to the most recent declaration of peace principles by Nobel laureates, nonviolence has always been an alternative.

With an introduction by Howard Zinn about September 11 and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks, The Power of Nonviolence presents the most salient and persuasive arguments for peace in the last 2,500 years of human history. Included are some of the most original thinkers and writings about peace and nonviolence—Buddha, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience," Jane Addams, William Penn on "the end of war," Dorothy Day's position on "Pacifism," Erich Fromm, and Rajendra Prasad. Supplementing the classic voices are more recent advocates' arguments for peace: Albert Camus' "Neither Victims Nor Executioners," A. J. Muste's impressive "Getting Rid of War," Martin Luther King's influential "Declaration of Independence from the War in Viet Nam," and Arundhati Roy's "War Is Peace," plus many others. ISBN: 0807014079

Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas
by James Hodge and Linda Cooper
Disturbing the Peace covers the remarkable life journey of Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois, from his youth in the Cajun bayous of Louisiana to such disparate places and realities as Vietnam, Latin America and Iraq. It is also the story of the movement he founded to close the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas. The story delves into the events, the people, and the faith that inspired Bourgeois to make the momentous choices that defined his extraordinary life. The first of these inspirations came in Vietnam, when then Navy Lieutenant Bourgeois visited an orphanage run by a humble missionary priest, Fr. Oliver. Seeing this one man’s quiet efforts to bring love, rather than the destruction of war, into the lives of these youngest victims of war caused Bourgeois to rethink his plans for his future. Upon returning home, Bourgeois shocked his family and friends by announcing a change in his career plans—from striking it rich in the oil fields to becoming a missionary priest! ISBN: 1570754349

Transforming the Faith of our Fathers - Women who Changed American Religion
Edited by Ann Braude
An anthology of essays about religious feminism in the late 20th century. The roster of writers includes Rosemary Radford Ruether, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Judith Plaskow, Carol Christ and Delores Williams. Other contributors, such as Lois Miriam Wilson, the first female moderator of the United Church of Canada, are not household names, but readers will be fascinated by their experiences. The contributors come from mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, Mormon, Buddhist and goddess backgrounds. As the women share their spiritual journeys, they talk about how religion has both limited and empowered them. ISBN: 140396460

Stop the Next War Now
Edited by CODEPINK Cofounders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, with a Forward by Alice Walker, and Introduction by Arundhati Roy
How can we humanize each other and act as responsible global citizens? Stop the Next War Now, shares expert insight on the issues and powers-that-be that can lead us to war - including the media, our elected politicians, global militarization, and the pending scarcity of national resources. It aims to educate and reflect on the effectiveness of peace-movement activities and offers hope, through shared ideas, action steps, and practical. ISBN: 1930722494

"Even if a Muslim comes to me and said, 'I want to be Christian,' I would not accept. I would tell him to go back and try to be a good Muslim and God will accept you." - Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq's largest Christian community, as quoted in the Washington Post on June 23, 2005, in response to the proliferation of proselytizing Evangelical Christians in the wake of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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