Religions for Peace - USA November 2005 E-Newsletter

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In This Issue:

From Our Executive Director…

Upcoming Events in RFP-USA Program Series

Faith, Violence, and World Affairs
Nov. 4 at 10:30 am - Mr. Richard Parker, senior fellow and lecturer at Harvard and co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, spoke at the Church Center for the United Nations and helped Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos, Associate General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, to do an interfaith launch of “For Peace of the World.” To order or preview “For Peace of the World,” please visit here.

The Role of Religion in the Millennium Development Goals Dec. 8 at noon - Ms. Gillian Sorensen, former Asst. Sec. General of the UN and current Senior Adviser and National Advocate at the United Nations Foundation, will be speaking at the Interchurch Center in NYC on the MDGs and the role of religious communities. The event will also feature Rev. Chloe Breyer, contributor to What Can One Person Do?: Faith to Heal a Broken World.

The Third Side: Re-framing Conflict Resolution
Jan. 17, 2006 at 1:15 p.m. - Dr. Andrea Bartoli, Director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, will be speaking at the Church Center for the United Nations on “The Third Side” in religious conflict and the role of religious actors in the midst of it.

RFP-USA’s New TV Commercial
Faith and Values Media recently filmed a PSA, featuring RFP religious leaders from several traditions – Catholic, Muslim, Sikh, UUA, Shinto, Jewish – coming together for light-hearted conversation and a meal. The new PSA will be broadcast on the Hallmark Channel and local stations throughout the country at the close of this year. We are especially thankful to Faith and Values and New City Pictures, because this was F&VM’s most complex PSA shoot to date and it all went off very smoothly. We can’t wait to share with you the results.

You might catch the PSA when you watch “New Morning” with new host Naomi Judd at 7 a.m on weekday mornings on the Hallmark Channel. The Grammy Award Winning host will premiere the new one-hour format of the show on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 at 10:00am (EST/PST).

Rx for Child Survival
Interfaith leaders and religious leaders helped to launch the Rx for Child Survival campaign in early November with events in New York City and around the country. Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy and Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar spoke at the Interfaith kick-off.

Rx for Child Survival premiered on PBS on Nov. 1-3. The show with host Brad Pitt will be replaying throughout the month. Check your local listings.

Visit the Global Health Council at www.globalhealth.org to learn more about the involvement of religious groups in advocating for children’s health and how you can participate. Religious groups across the country are participating in a range of activities from offering prayers, reflections and sermons to organizing prayer breakfasts and interfaith events aimed at increasing child health awareness and action.

UN’s 60th Birthday – Hurray!
The United Nations celebrated its 60th anniversary in late October and the religious and spiritual communities supported a big celebration under the title of “The Spirit of the United Nations: Markings for the Future.” If you missed it, you can still view the celebration, by viewing here.

Want to know what else is going on at the United Nations? Sign up for the UN Wire to you are wired to what’s happening -- sign up for the free daily news service. Refer a friend and you could win a $25 American Express gift card, redeemable at more than one million stores and restaurants. The UN Foundation will pick one winner a week for the next four weeks, so start sharing!

International Prayer for Peace 2006
For the first-time in the US, the Community of Sant’Egidio and partners are offering the international prayer for peace experience. In the spirit of Assisi, The Archdiocese of Washington, the Community of Sant’Egidio, Georgetown University, and The Catholic University of America are co-sponsoring the event on April 26-27, 2006 at Georgetown University. For more information, write prayerforpeace2006@georgetown.edu or call 202-687-7862.

The 26th InterFaith Concert of IFCMW
Many interfaith organizations around the country have annual fundraisers and activities, especially during the month of November, when many interfaith initiatives are celebrated. Few in the country have as long a history and are of the scale of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington’s Annual Concert.

On Tuesday, November 8, 2005 at 7:30 p.m., The Many Voices of One Nation Under God will be held at the magnificent Washington National Cathedral. It will feature sacred song, dance, and chant from the Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu-Jain, Islamic, Jewish, Latter-day Saints, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Sikh faith communities and a combined choir led by the Cathedral's Director of Music, Michael McCarthy.

The Concert will also be the national release of the forthcoming book, One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, II. Signed copies will be available for purchase after the concert. See www.1NUG.com for more information

Higher Expectations Week: November 13-19
Wal-Mart Watch is calling on religious communities of America “to stand for the environment, women and people of color, working poor, children, mom and pop businesses and others who are effected by a super center opening in their area.”

On November the 13th, Robert Greenwald’s film, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices” will debut nationally. During Higher Expectations Week, November 13-19, 2005, Wal-Mart Watch is asking groups to host rallies, vigils, town hall meetings etc. to help in educating about the negative effect Wal-Mart has on rural and urban America. They have sample sermons, bulletin inserts, and other material at www.walmartwatch.com. Direct questions to jjohnson@walmartwatch.com or (202) 557-7476.

Cause for Hope?: Warfare on the Decline
A new study suggests that, contrary to popular perceptions, the number of wars taking place around the world actually is decreasing. In fact, they are down 40%, since 1992.

Supported by five governments, published by Oxford University Press, the Human Security Report is the most comprehensive annual survey of trends in warfare, genocide, and human rights abuses. The Report, which was produced by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia, shows how, after nearly five decades of inexorable increase, the number of genocides and violent conflicts dropped rapidly in the wake of the Cold War. The study also found fewer people are being killed by the wars that do take place and efforts at conflict prevention and postconflict peacebuilding are paying increased dividends.

The Report can be downloaded from here. It will be published by Oxford University Press in November 2005.

The Palace of Peace and Accord
The famous architect of London’s Millennium Bridge, the Millau Viaduct (France), and the Reichstag (Berlin) is putting his skills to a religious enterprise. Architect Norman Foster’s pyramidial design will grace the urban landscape of Kazakhstan's capital city, Astana, as a global centre for religious understanding, renunciation of violence and the promotion of faith and human equality. Workers are trying to finish its construction by next year.

Mr. Nurtai Abykayev, the Speaker of Kazakhstan's Senate and also Secretary for the Second Congress of World and Traditional Religions, says the structure will be ready just in time for the September 2006 Congress. The First Congress was held in September 2003, and is the brainchild of Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

North American Inter-religious Youth Network is Born

November 1, 2005 marked the Summit of North American Religious Youth Leaders, which bore the theme “Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.”

Citing the gathering as the first ever of its kind and noting that Generations X and Y were the first to live fully within the post-Nostra Aetate and post- 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act era, “this is an historic moment in interfaith relations,” said Reverend Bud Heckman, Executive Director of Religions for Peace-USA, coining a phrase that would be repeated by speakers throughout the day.

Attended by representatives from more than four dozen religious communities, the Summit was a regional meeting designed to create a sustainable inter-religious network for young people and to prepare North America’s young religious leaders (ages 18-35) for the Seventh World Youth Assembly, to be held in Kyoto and Hiroshima during August of 2006, directly before Religions for Peace’s World Assembly.

During the opening session, religious leaders highlighted the importance of interfaith dialogue while encouraging the nearly sixty youth leaders present to “make the future worth living for,” in the words of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, delivered by Mr. Baker al-Hiyari, Deputy Director of Jordan’s Royal Institute for Inter-religious Studies. The Very Reverend Leonid Kishkovsky, Moderator of Religions for Peace-USA and Vice-Moderator of the World Conference of Religions for Peace, brought greetings from the extended Religions for Peace family, offering words of greeting from senior religious leaders.

The first Plenary Session featured a presentation from Reverend Kyoichi Sugino, Chief Coordinator for the Seventh World Assembly. He covered the World Assembly, Religions for Peace models and mechanisms, and the role of youth leaders, stressing humanitarian and interfaith actions that are underway worldwide, such as HIV/AIDS awareness in Cambodia and religious leaders in Iraq trying to attain harmony. Ms. Kinza Ghaznavi of Religions for Peace-USA followed up with a presentation of the Pan-Asian youth gathering at Ambon, Indonesia, where the negative effects of religious exploitation have violent ramifications.

Violence was the particular theme of the second session, during which Mr. Gregory Mancini of the Harvard Divinity School offered explanations of several kinds of violence threatening North America, and Dr. Eboo Patel, Founder and President of the Interfaith Youth Core, recalled great leaders in history who incorporated interfaith multilateralism to their work, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela.

“There was an interfaith dimension to the movements of the twenty-first century,” said Dr. Patel. “We have to help each other in order to make it. It’s the only way we’re going to make it.”

The third session offered advice from Dr. Patrice Brodeur, a professor of Theology and Sciences of Religions at the University of Montreal, and Mr. Ziad Moussa, Religions for Peace International’s Youth Coordinator, on how to build a North American Inter-religious Youth Network. The North-American Inter-religious Youth Network would work alongside regional networks of other continents – however, the North American network would have the considerable advantage of easier speech and assembly, along with close proximity to United Nations and WCRP headquarters.

Mr. Moussa suggested three keywords to consider: representativity, action-oriented, and sustainability. “Young people have the power to do what the older people did not,” he said. Mr. Moussa also pointed out that less than a hundred delegates would have the power to reach 30,000 to 40,000 youth.

Students broke out into five working groups between sessions in order to share their best practices and brainstorm guidelines for the new youth network. At the end of the plenary sessions, each group presented their reports. Oppression, ignorance and apathy were pointed out to be main causes of violence – education, service learning, and interaction across religious lines, among others, were offered as solutions.

Further development with regards to the emerging structure, mission focus, and strategies and action plans of the North American Inter-religious Youth Network will be delineated in the immediate term. The summit was in consensus that the delegates needed to be exchanging information and ideas back and forth between their religious communities and the inter-religious network. Additionally, the delegates showed a lot of enthusiasm. One working group reported that all members agreed they wanted to get to work right away.

The summit closed with remarks from Mr. Moussa, Mr. Sugino, and an invitation from the Japanese Host Committee to attend the Eighth World Youth Assembly.

In lieu of the normal member feature here, we are offering word of the upcoming VIIIth World Assembly of Religions for Peace and notice of a Gathering of National Religious Leaders.

VIIIth World Assembly: Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security

The VIIIth World Assembly of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (Religions for Peace) will be held in Kyoto, Japan on 26-29 August 2006 under the theme “Religions for Peace: Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.” The Assembly will be preceded by special events for women and youth.

As the world’s largest multi-religious assembly of senior religious leaders and representatives of governments, development agencies and civil society, the VIIIth World Assembly will forge the constructive roles of religious communities in resolving conflict, building peace, and advancing sustainable development.

The VIIIth World Assembly promises to be the most representatitve and senior gathering ever of religious leaders from the world’s major faith traditions. Previous Assemblies have been held in Kyoto (1970), Leuven (1974), Princeton (1979), Nairobi (1984), Melbourne (1989), Riva del Garda (and The Vatican) (1994), and Amman (1999). This VIIIth World Assembly, therefore, marks a historic return to the site of the first Assembly.

Religions for Peace, as the world’s largest coalition of religious communities, builds, equips, and networks inter-religious councils in four regions and fifty-seven countries to transform conflict, promote peace, and advance sustainable development.

Gathering of National Religious Leaders: The Role of Religious Leaders in the 21st Century

In preparation for the Kyoto Assembly and in light of the interest in developing deeper and more effective working relationships between senior US religious leaders and their communities, Religions for Peace-USA is hosting a “Gathering of National Religious Leaders” in Chicago during January 23-25, 2006.

This is an invited retreat for senior US religious leaders. Outcomes from the meeting will be made available to the general public. For more information, contact the Executive Director of Religions for Peace-USA, Rev. Bud Heckman at 212-338-9140.

In this section we feature interesting, replicable projects of our member religious communities or thought-provoking publications for our common mission.

Religion by Region: A New Series on American Religious Public Life
For any of you who have traveled for any significant time or who have lived in other places, you know that religion can take on a much different life in different regions of the country. Edited by Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh, a new eight book series by Alta Mira Press analyzes eight distinct segments of the US. From the “none zone” in the Pacific Northwest to the evangelical crossroads of the South, America’s religions have a regional cultural flavor. The study relies on the North American Religion Atlas (NARA) via Glenmary Research Center, information from The American Religious Identification Survey, political polling by the Bliss Center at the University of Akron, and orchestrates a little narrative ingenuity in reading between all of them.

Peace One Day Greetings Card
Looking for something different for the holiday season or end-of-the-year notes? Try greeting cards from Peace One Day. For a little less than 6 bucks you can get a a pack of 10. As with all the items on the Peace One Day Shop, all monies raised from the sale of the cards will go directly to Peace One Day to support raising awareness of World Peace Day, September 21. Visit here.

Among the People: Facing Poverty in America
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is the domestic anti-poverty, social justice program of the U.S. Catholic bishops. For more than thirty-five years, CCHD has been addressing the root causes of poverty by helping the poor to participate in the decisions and actions that affect their lives, empowering them to move beyond poverty. Produced by CCHD, "Among the People" is a short (6:31 min) videostream that examines some of the many ways in which the Catholic Church works with impoverished communities throughout the United States to break the cycle of poverty. "Among the People" is available for purchase by calling: 1-800-235-8722. Visit here to preview.

New Survey of Interfaith Education
The World Council of Churches launched a global interfaith education survey in late October. As part of the Interfaith Education Project, which is conducted in consortium with Hartford Seminary, the survey analyzes efforts toward molding resources for education in faith communities and education systems. Project Coordinator, Christy Lohr, says “The IEP is a noteworthy endeavor that recognizes the importance of religious diversity around us today.” You can take the survey here.

Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action
AltaMira Press
From time to time, we tell you about a book before it is available. This is the case here with an exciting new book by Dr. Eboo Patel, Executive Director of Interfaith Youth Core, and Dr. Patrice Brodeur, founder of Youth in Peace Education and Professor at the University of Montreal. Both are friends of Religions for Peace and participated in the recent inaugration of the North American Inter-religious Youth Network (see above). The book is available for pre-purchase from AltaMira Press.

Violence committed by religious young people has become a regular feature of our daily news reports. What we hear less about are the growing numbers of religious young people from all faith backgrounds who are committed to interfaith understanding and cooperation. Building the Interfaith Youth Movement is the first book to describe this important phenomenon. Contributions include concrete descriptions of various interfaith youth projects across the country—from an arts-program in the South Bronx to a research program at Harvard University to a national organization called the Interfaith Youth Core based in Chicago—written by the founders and leaders of those initiatives. Additional chapters articulate the theory and methodology of this important new movement. This book is a must-read for college chaplains, religious leaders who work with youth, and students and scholars of contemporary religion.

Bound Together: A Theology of Ecumenical Community Ministry
Pilgrim Press by A. David Bos
From the founder of the Interfaith Community Ministry Network (ICMN) and one of the most respected figures in ecumenical and interfaith work comes a careful theological reflection on the grassy frontlines of intra-faith and inter-faith organizing. Drawing on several decades of experience and two decades with the ICMN, the Presbyterian clergyman David Bos introduces clever summations like the concept of “embedded unity,” which are then explored through real life anecdotes and examples. One draw back for those of us in the interfaith business - there is little clarity offered for the distinction between ecumenical and interfaith and most of the book focuses in reality only on the prior. As such it describes more so where we have been, than where we need to go in an increasingly religiously diverse world.

"Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside of yourself." - St. Augustine

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