Religions for Peace - USA September 2006 E-Newsletter

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In This Issue:

From Our Executive Director…

Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace – An International Day of Peace Conference
On September 21, religious leaders will join with representatives of 15 United Nations system organizations and leaders from dozens of government missions to the UN in an examination of the best practices in interfaith cooperation. The high-level conference on interfaith cooperation for peace will meet under the title of “Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace: Contributing to Peacebuilding and Development.”

Speakers from the Religions for Peace family include: Bishop Joseph Humper of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Interreligious Council of Sierre Leone and Jacqueline Ogega Moturi, the new Women’s Program Director. See Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperations’s website for more information

UN Resolutions and Initiatives on Interreligious Cooperation

RFP-USA intern Maria Vanikiotis

For the event described above, a summary report was created that analyzes UN resolutions and initiatives on interfaith cooperation in the last several years. The report was prepared by Religions for Peace-USA intern, Ms. Maria Vanikiotis, in coordination with the Bureau of the Committee of Religious NGOs and the leadership Troika of the Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace. The report is available for download through the wesbite of the Committee of Religious NGOs.

The People Speak 2006: Working Together With the World
The People Speak 2006 is officially launched. The People Speak is a forum about the world for every Americans. Videocasts, blogs, podcasts, and study documents are the main focus of this year’s forum.

Religions for Peace-USA is one of the main partners (click the link on the left side of the main page), along with the United Nations Association of the United States of America, Americans for Informed Democracy, the League of Women Voters, the International Debate Education Association, and the National Forensic League.

New York City 9/11 Unity Walk
On September 11, 2006 approximately 200 individuals of diverse faith and cultural traditions joined together to commemorate 100 years of Gandhian nonviolence and to honor the memories of the victims of the September 11th tragedies, celebrating unity and hope instead of revenge and despair.

Participants walked from the Union Square Park Gandhi Memorial to the World Trade Center site, stopping along the way at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Eldridge Street Project, the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order and ending with an interfaith ceremony at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.

The New York City 9/11 Unity Walk was organized by Religions for Peace-USA. To learn more about the walk, visit www.911unitywalk.org.

Helping Hurricane Victims One Year Out: Hope for Children
The partners - Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota’s Camp Noah program, The STAR program at Eastern Mennonite University, Turning Point Partners, and the Louisiana Interfaith Disaster Response Network – in Religions for Peace-USA’s “Hope for Children” project met in New Orleans on September 13, following a region-wide Interfaith Summit on Disaster Response issues. A collage of photos from site visits in the lower 9th ward and other affected regions is included here.

Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans Top Center: Religions for Peace - USA intern Zachary Shaeffer surveying a solitary effort at rebuilding.

Through this partnership, Religions for Peace-USA is enabling one-week day camps for hurricane-affected youth and trauma awareness and resiliency training for older youth and adults who work with youth. Working off a curriculum designed by Christian partners, both Muslim and Jewish versions of the curriculum have been created and tested. An interreligious version is currently under consideration.

A summer intern for Religions for Peace-USA, Ms. Joanne Tien, created a concise summary report on the conditions of poverty in the United States and Gulf Coast region both before and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A copy of this report is available for downloading here. For any questions, or to learn more, e-mail hopeforchildren@rfpusa.org.

Peacekeepers Leaving - Act on Darfur Today!
Tens of thousands gathered in cities across the globe to speak out about Darfur on Sunday, September 17, following a week of intense activities. Religions for Peace-USA’s Executive Director attended the UN Security Council arria-style meeting with George Clooney and Elie Wiesel that drew a great amount of press attention. Religions for Peace-USA’s religious leaders started off the New York Rally with words of invocation, led by Harpreet Singh Toor of the World Sikh Council-America Region and of the Sikh Cultural Society.

As the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations starts this week, it is essential for you to speak up today before peacekeepers are withdrawn at month’s end. For more information on acting, visit www.savedarfur.org/now.

Women in Religion in 21st Century – October 17-19
The Interchurch Center is hosting a special conference for women of faith during October 17-19. Over 60 female scholars, activists, and leaders will be presenting at “Women in Religion in the 21st Century.” Endorsed by over 40 organizations, the Conference will look at the role of women in the history of religion, as well as imagine those relationships in the future, and it will explore: the roles of leadership for women, the impact of women in religious communities, how religion affects women’s lives, and the historical perspective of women in religion.

With a summer intern placed in the Interchurch Center offices, Religions for Peace-USA is cooperating with the Interchurch Center on this event. Located at 475 Riverside Drive, the Interchurch Center is home to more than 60 faith and non-profit agencies.

To register online or for more information, visit www.womeninreligion2006.org.

North American Interreligious Women’s Network
Religions for Peace-USA is working with Religions for Peace – International and the organizers of the Women in Religion in the 21st Century conference to explore the development of a North American Interreligious Women’s Network.

Jacqueline Ogega Moturi is the new Director of the Women’s Program at Religions for Peace. She is one of the featured speakers at the above conference and has begun working with RFP-USA and the Canadian chapter on the development of a North American Network.

A New Survey – Images of God and Foreign Policy Perspectives
Baylor University’s Intitute for Studies of Religion and Gallup have a released a new survey that shows a new way to look at Americans beliefs. Forget red state vs. blue state, forget progressive vs. conservative, liberal vs. Evangelical, this survey discovers four distinct conceptions of the divine as being telling factors in a person’s view of the world. For example, only 14% of those interviewed were willing to described themselves as "Evangelical," showing a marked difference from when outsiders seek to label religious people. The researchers determined the “four Gods” categories – Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical, and Distant - by breaking down the results from the 77 questions from a survey of 1,721 Americans. For more information see Baylor University’s release or for a quick overview see the USA Today cover story article of September 12, 2006.

New Census Data – American Community Survey
According to U.S. Census Bureau’s mid-decade “American Community Survey,” the number of immigrants living in American households rose by 16 percent over the past five years. It is believed that this was fueled largely by recent arrivals from Mexico, but the patterns are disperse and show a much greater penetration into regions like the Southeast, the Upper Midwest, New England, and the Rocky Mountain States, than previously known.

What about your neck of the woods, you say? Detailed data is available for nearly 7,000 geographic areas, including all Congressional districts and counties or cities of 65,000 or more. However, it is important to note that the American Community Survey covers only what census officials call "household" population. It does not measure people in "group quarters," like universities, long-term care facilities, and prisons. For more information, please see U.S. Census Bureau’s website.

Happy Birthday, Peace Corps!
Today’s government service programs, such as Job Corps, AmeriCorps, and Freedom Corps, all owe an historical debt to the Peace Corps. Why mention this in a e-newsletter about interfaith and peace happenings? Besides being a positive face of American volunteerism, Peace Corps, in turn, owes an historical debt to religious programs of humanitarian service that were its forerunners, such as the United Methodist’s US-2 program, one of the programs studied by Peace Corps founders.

On Friday, September 22, Peace Corps will mark the 45th anniversary of Congressional approval to fund the U.S. Peace Corps. By 1966, over 15,000 volunteers were in the field, and today over 180,000 Americans have served in 71 countries.

New Staff Member: Yuko Shiomi

Yuko joins Religions for Peace as our new Associate for UN and Interfaith Relations.

Yuko is a recent graduate from the University for Peace in Costa Rica, and is interested in inter-religious dialogue. During her undergraduate years at Soka University of America, she had been active in interfaith dialogues in which she felt the need to gain more experiences and understanding in order to contribute at a broader level. Thus, through engaging in activities as an intern at RFP-USA, she hopes to learn various ways of encouraging interfaith understandings and cooperation towards peace within the society. She is currently working on a Millenium Development Goals Guide and with the Committee of Religious NGOs.

World Assembly of Religions for Peace
Three and a half decades after the historic first World Assembly of Religions for Peace began in Japan, over eight hundred religious leaders joined together in the beautiful city of Kyoto for the Eighth World Assembly of Religions for Peace.

Representing all major religious traditions and every region of the world, delegates from over one hundred countries convened at the world's largest and most representative multi-religious gathering to address the theme: “Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.” For four days Religions for Peace Interreligious Councils shared best practices and religious leaders from zones of conflict came together in special working groups to advocate for peace.

At the conclusion of the Assembly the delegates endorsed the Kyoto Declaration on Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security, issuing a multi-religious call to action. “As people of religious conviction, we hold the responsibility to confront violence within our own communities whenever religion is misused as a justification or excuse for violence. Religious communities need to express their opposition whenever religion and its sacred principles are distorted in the service of violence...Religious communities are called not only to reject war and foreign occupation, sectarian violence, weapons proliferation, and human rights abuse, but also to identify and confront the root causes of injustice, economic inequalities, governance failures, development obstacles, social exclusions, and environmental abuses.”

To read the full text of the Kyoto Declaration, click here.

Women's Assembly of Religions for Peace
On August 24-25, 2006, four-hundred female religious leaders of the world’s major faith traditions gathered from over sixty-five countries for the Women’s Assembly of Religions for Peace entitled “Women of Faith: Assembling for Action.”

As the first of its kind, the Women’s Assembly aimed to strengthen the global network of women of faith by providing practical support in organizing women’s networks, equipping them for action, and mainstreaming women into leadership of inter-religious bodies. The Assembly also provided an opportunity to build and strengthen national, regional, and global women of faith networks to transform conflict, build peace, and advance sustainable development.

The Religions for Peace Women's Assembly forged partnerships among religious communities and representatives of inter-governmental organizations and civil society. The delegates of the Assembly drafted and passed the Women's Declaration and nominated and elected the new members of the International Women's Coordinating Committee (IWCC), the body that guides Religions for Peace’s Women’s Mobilization Program.

To read the full text of the Women's Declaration, click here.

Youth Assembly of Religions for Peace

North American Religious Youth Delegates at the Youth Assembly of Religions for Peace.

Approximately 300 young religious leaders from all regions of the world gathered together in Hiroshima and Kyoto, Japan to declare, “We choose hope because that is the only way forward.”

The first Youth Assembly convened in Japan from August 21-25, 2006 to address the theme: “Religious Youth for Peace: Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.” Inspired by the story of Hiroshima, a city devastated by the atom bomb and rebuilt into a city of peace, youth leaders discussed the unique role of religious youth in preventing violence and worked together to develop a plan for youth-led multi-religious advocacy and action for shared security. Together they discerned six goals and issued a call to action to religious leaders, governments, members of the media, and the leadership of Religions for Peace. Delegates of the Youth Assembly also nominated and elected the International Youth Committee, the coordinating body of the WCRP youth structure.

To read the full text of the Hiroshima Declaration, click here.

Five-Party Talks on Korean Peninsula
Despite having the Prime Minister of Japan in attendance, as well as a fascinating array of religious and civil society leaders, the one thing that captured a great deal of the media’s attention was the inability of North Korean delegates to enter Japan to join the Assembly, despite having made advance arrangements. The Japanese government – for reasons still not known – denied their entry visas.

So instead of planned Six-Party Talks concerning the shared security of the Korean Peninsula. Five representatives from Religions for Peace-USA joined counterparts from four other countries – South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia – to initiate Five-Party Talks that complement the long-stalled Six-Party Talks in the political sphere.

Rev. William Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universialist Association, led the delegation and offered a statement. His comments were followed by those of Rabbi Amy Small from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. They both were joined by Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia of the World Sikh Council-America Region and Rev. Dr. Doug Mills of The United Methodist Church, as well as the RFP-USA Executive Director.

Continued conversation with the South Koreans and Japanese delegates laid groundwork for a future venue for full Six-Party Talks in an effort for religious communities to help articulate a positive future of shared security for the Korean Peninsula.

With over 60 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 Church of the Brethren.

The Church of the Brethren differs from many Christian denominations in its path to continue the work of Jesus – instead of a focus on doctrine and creed, the Church of the Brethren encourages members to live “peacefully, simply, together,” following the Scriptures, giving aid, and listening to and conversing with others.

In fact, the Church of the Brethren is one of the “Historic Peace Churches.” It first began as a small gathering of religious dissenters in Schwarzenau, Germany, who in 1708 performed the illegal act of a second baptism. Though they did not differ from Protestants in their beliefs, these Brethren also believed in peaceful action and simple living. Persecution led to their emigration to the United States, where the first congregation was organized in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1723. As settlers found their way across the New World, so did the Church of the Brethren.

Now the Church of the Brethren has over 1,000 congregations in the United States and Puerto Rico – but congregations also thrive in Nigeria, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, and mission staff continue to move outward, to India, China, Ecuador, Sudan, and South Korea.

With a guiding umbrella, Phil Jones, Director of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office at the New York 9/11 Unity Walk

As a Peace Church, the Church of the Brethren opposes war and the Brethren do not participate in war. Instead, they begin peace projects that aim to help the world’s poor – Heifer Project International provides livestock to poor families; SERRV Project International supports craft producers in developing countries. Locally, Brethren

participate vigorously in disaster relief, homeless shelters, day-cares, and other volunteer services.

The General Secretary of the Church of the Brethren, Stan Noffsinger, serves on the Council of Presidents of Religions for Peace-USA. Phil Jones, Director of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office, is on RFP-USA’s Executive Council.

Religion and the Future Global Civilization
What will happen to the relationships between religions 20 years from now? 50 years from now? Thomas R. McFaul offers an outline of his forthcoming book “The Future of Peace and Justice in the Global Village: The Role of the World Religions in the 21st Century” in a recent magazine article in “The Futurist.” The potential options he outlines - without apparent credit (at least in the magazine article) to their initiator, Alan Race, or great popularizer, Diana Eck – are exclusivism, pluralism, and inclusivism. Seeing a tie between “interreligious defensiveness” and the “current state of globalization,” McFaul expects to see exclusivism on the rise globally until at least 2025, when there will be a shift to pluralism. Why? See the forthcoming book by Praeger press or the article in the September-October issue of the The Futurist.

A Digital Qur’an and Islamic Mega Book
Do electronic gadgets make our lives easier or harder? These new gadgets should make it easier and help foster interreligious understanding – a “Digital Holy Qur’an” and “Islamic Mega Book” were unveiled at a trade fair in Malaysia, making the Qur’an more searchable and accessible to millions of people. Both devices contain the meaning of the Qur’an in multiple languages – including Arabic, English, French, and Urdu – while the Islamic Mega Book has many add-ons, including the audio of the more well-known Tafseer and Hadith. Try www.alibaba.com or your favorite store to take a peek.

The Preacher and the Creatures: Seeing Green, Believing Green
Edward O. Wilson, the renowned entomologist and Harvard professor emeritus, has released “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.” Written in an accessible style as a series of letters to an imaginary Baptist minister, the work brings a more personable angle to those seeking to work out the tensions between religion and science. Wilson, in fact, refers to religion and science - somewhat strangely, albeit - as “the two most powerful forces in the world today.” He wants to shape them together and invite his religiously grounded but environmentally disinterested reader to understand the alarming rate of environmental degredation. (W.W. Norton, 2006, 160 p., ISBN 0393062171)

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