Religions for Peace - USA December 2006 E-Newsletter

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In This Issue:

From Our Executive Director…

Season of Giving - A Gift for You
Religions for Peace - USA is eligible for a handsome, anonymous bonus contribution if we reach our fundraising goal of $40,000 in operating support before the end of the year. Your gift may help put us over the top!

To show our appreciation for your help in reaching our goal, Religions for Peace - USA will send you a free copy of The Faith Club with your donation of $75 or more. The Faith Club is a moving story of three women of different faiths who create an open environment for themselves to confront their differences after the events of September 11th.

Donations can be sent in by mail or online. Thank you for your support!

Religious Leaders Blogging and Casting
After three months of intense dialogue, fun events, and learning new words such as "blog" and "podcast," The People Speak 2006 has come to a close.

But don't worry. Now that we've learned all this new technology, we don't plan to stop! Keep checking out our blog and podcasts to stay updated on current events and hear insightful interviews with prominent religious leaders. (And be sure to read up on and listen to what Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has to say about the Millenium Development Goals.)

Have something you want to blog about? Have a suggestion for a future podcast? Send in your blogs, podcasts, and suggestions here.

“Which Way Ahead? – The Real Iraq and the Role of Religious NGOs.”
On Thursday, November 30, 2006, the Committee for Religions NGOs, in cooperation with Religions for Peace – USA, hosted Sheik Mohammed Mohammed Ali in “Which Way Ahead? – The Real Iraq and the Role of Religious NGOs.”

Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali is a Shi’ite scholar of Islamic theology and history and mechanical engineer by training who has worked for more than 30 years with opposition groups to the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. He is a member and leader of the National Consensus Alliance, the Iraq Reconstruction Group, and other coalitions. He is traveling in the United States as a representative of the Hakim Foundation, a Shi’ite-based NGO which advertises itself as offering nondiscriminate humanitarian services in Iraq and as having over 470 employees and 80 offices throughout the country. The Sheikh reported on his most recent visit to Iraq, media perceptions of the current conditions, the debate over “civil war,” potential solutions to the crisis, and the role of religious NGOs in reconstruction. An Iraqi by birth and frequent visitor to Iraq, he is currently a PhD candidate in and resident of the United Kingdom. Read about RFP's Iraqi Interreligious Council below.

International Congress on Religions and Cultural Diversity
The International Congress on Religions and Cultural Diversity: Mediation Towards Social Cohesion will be held in Barcelona from the 18th to the 20th December 2006. This Congress is organized by Unescocat - UNESCO Center of Catalonia and coorganized by "la Caixa" Foundation Community Projects, under the auspices of UNESCO. This congress aims to develop reflection, analysis and exchange on interreligious mediation and prevention of conflicts in urban societies, with the contribution of the main international experts in this field.

For more information visit their website here or contact Cristina Monteys Homar at c.monteys@unescocat.org.

Interfaith Awareness Week: Doing It In Your Community
The Ninth Annual Interfaith Awareness Week in Wisconsin is going on right now! Since 1998, the Governor and the Dane County Executive have proclaimed the week inclusive of Human Rights Day as Interfaith Awareness Week. In 1999, the Mayor of Madison joined the annual proclamation.

This year, a multifaith committee has worked on coordinating a variety of locations and times for Interfaith Awareness Week events. Some of the faith traditions involved include: Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian, Eckankar, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Sufi Order of the West, Unity, and Wiccan.

For more information, or text copies of the proclamations, contact Rev. John-Brian Paprock at inroads@minister.com or visit http://interfaithsociety.blogspot.com/.

Jews, Christians and Muslims Come Together in a New Talk Show
A rabbi, a priest and an imam walk into a television studio. It may sound like the start of a joke but it’s actually the start of a new talk show being aired on the American Muslim network, Bridges.

The show, “Building Bridges: Abrahamic Perspectives on the World Today,” provides a platform for American Jews, Muslims, and Christians to clear the air on many of today’s burning topics. Each week for the next 18 weeks, show creator Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, vice president of CLAL–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, will sit down with a Muslim and a Christian religious leader to discuss topics ranging from God in the American public sphere to abortion to Jerusalem.

The show airs Mondays at 9:30PM ET and Fridays at 10:00PM ET. Watch the promo here.

Plowshares to Release New Academic Journal
The Plowshares Peace Studies collaborative in Indiana will issue an open-access, online journal devoted to the discussion of religion as both a source of conflict in the world and a source of peace. The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace debuts in September 2007.

The Journal will address topics from any discipline that can illuminate its central concern for peace. Perspectives on peace from any faith tradition and from secular perspectives are invited. Scholars and writers may send queries and electronic submissions for the journal to Julie Garber, managing editor, at jrcpeditor@plowsharesproject.org.

Nominations for the 2007 Most Endangered Sacred Sites
Sacred Sites International Foundation (SSIF) is currently accepting nominations for their 2007 Most Endangered Sacred Sites List. In the past, SSIF has recognized a diverse array of sites from around the world that are facing multiple threats that range from natural deterioration to careless destruction by development and resource exploitation. This year, SSIF would like to continue their efforts of bringing worldwide attention and validity to the struggles that sacred places face throughout the global community.

SSIF will accept nominations for sites of cultural, religious, or historical value. For more information on how to nominate a site, visit www.sacred-sites.org. All nominations are due by February 20, 2007.

ISNA 43rd Annual Convention – On Webcast!
If you missed the 43rd Annual Convention of the Islamic Society of North America, you still haven’t missed your chance to hear what some of your favorite speakers had to say. The main sessions have been uploaded as webcasts for your viewing and listening pleasure. Check it out at www.isna.tv.

Nothing But Nets – TPS Team
The UN Foundation has partnered with Malaria No More, the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, The United Methodist Church, and Sports Illustrated to create Nothing But Nets, a grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa.

A donation of as low as $10 can save a life. The $10 contribution purchases one anti-malaria treated bed-net and covers the cost of its delivery and related education. The People Speak has started its own team. Go online and save a life now!

RFP-USA Presents Interfaith Academies for Religious Leaders
The United States today is an increasingly multi-religious society, and many who are engaged in religious formation, training, and ministry are seeking opportunities to dialogue with people outside their religious tradition. The Interfaith Academies for Religious Leaders are intensive study programs for people engaged in or training for leadership in various religious traditions. The Interfaith Academy for Emerging Religious Leaders and the Interfaith Academy for Religious Professionals provide a forum where people from diverse religious traditions can learn about each other’s faiths with and from each other.

The Academies will involve lectures, seminars, and readings on a variety of religious traditions, as well as group visits to various places of religi ous observance. Most importantly, participants will have the opportunity to build relationships and learn from one another through conversation in the classroom, in dormitories, and at meals.

For more information, please visit www.rfpusa.org/interfaithacademy or send an e-mail to: interfaithacademy@rfpusa.org. More details will be available in early 2007.

Finding a Way Forward: Iraq
Religions for Peace-USA’s Executive Director was one of ten “citizen leaders” invited to engage with foreign policy experts and think tanks for the Stanley Foundation’s “Leveraging US Strength in an Uncertain World.” On December 7, they released a fascinating recent survey of Americans' opinions, following a morning plenary by Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Intitute. Care about US foreign policy? You will want to see the statistics here. Better yet, we thought you might want to listen to the fascinating array of speakers at the conference. Videocasts, podcasts, transcripts, and other materials are available at the Stanley Foundation’s site.

We also trolled through data in other recent surveys on Iraq, peace, and national security issues. We thought you might enjoy doing some quick cross checking as well, so we collected the sites. Please see: the Benenson Group’s report, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, Public Agenda and “Foreign Affairs” Confidence in US Foreign Policy Index, Democracy Corps’ various surveys, and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Iraq Study Group Report Available
The Iraq Study Group report is now available for download.

The study group, comprised of five Democrats and five Republicans, was created in March 2006 to conduct a forward-looking, bipartisan assessment of the situation in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region, and consequences for U.S. interests. The study group was assembled at the urging of a bipartisan group of members of Congress and has been welcomed by President Bush.

The Iraq Study Group is being coordinated by the United States Institute of Peace, with the support of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

On the Horizon: The Hindu American Foundation
Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs have public policy or advocacy groups that help articulate faith-based perspectives on Capitol Hill and to the media. But Hindus? Well, not until relatively recently. Enter the Hindu American Foundation. And it is another sign of the growth of religious pluralism.

In 2005 they issued a first-ever annual Hindu Human Rights Report, issuing amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on religious issues, and opening a full-time office in D.C. dedicated to Hindu American affairs this past fall. To learn more, visit www.hafsite.org and be certain to ask for their media toolkit “Omissions & Oversights.”

A New Fulbright Program: Interfaith Dialogue and Community Action
U.S. higher education institutions with practical relationships to communities of interfaith dialogue are being sought to host scholars/religious leaders for a 10-12 week program focused on interfaith cooperation and community action. Participants will come from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. The CIES will invite 10 scholars/religious leaders from diverse religious communities in countries with significant Muslim populations with the opportunity for discussion, debate, and collaborative learning centered on interfaith dialogue and community action. It will lead off with a summer seminar on “Interfaith Dialogue and Community Action” at the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life, University of California—Santa Barbara and then a 10-12 week scholar-in-residence experience at a host institution in a metropolitan area. For more of the nitty gritty, please visit the Fulbright newsletter for description.

Study Buddhism at a Traditional Chinese Monastery
Our friends at Buddha’s Light International Association are looking for undergraduate and graduate students to consider their 6th Annual Woodenfish Program, which enables (free of cost!) study for one month at the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Financial aid is available to help with travel costs, but all living expese are covered for the duration of the program. View more information and to download an application, click here.

Giving a Gift More than Once
When is the act of gift giving more than just a one way enterprise? When you purchase fair-trade or socially sensitive gifts. A few folks have asked about our list of places for doing that, remembering it from last year’s e-news. Here is the link, in case you have not done your holiday shopping just yet.

On December 5-6, 2006, Religions for Peace - International convened ten senior Iraqi leaders-- Sunni, Shiite, and Christian-- in Oslo, Norway. It is the ninth time Iraqi religious leaders have met under the auspices of Religions for Peace. These ten individuals came together in support of their commitment to address escalating sectarian violence. In a statement issued in Oslo, they stated that they stood “firmly against every person or group who tries to spread discord and extremism, be it religious, sectarian, or other.” They also rejected “labeling people ‘infidels’ and using this label as a pretext for killing or assaulting them by any means or attacking their holy places, committing themselves to stand together to face these criminal acts.

As these individuals sat drafting their statement, a U.S. bipartisan commission, the Iraq Study Group, issued their own statement deploring the “grave and deteriorating” situation in Iraq and calling for new diplomatic offensives with greater international and regional support (see links above). As violence continues to destroy any semblance of normality in daily Iraqi life, inter-religious cooperation becomes increasingly necessary—and urgent. Religious leaders and communities must also play a role in stopping the violence and building peace.

The Iraqi participants identified the concrete duties that religious leaders must undertake to advance the peace process. Among these duties were “asking the international community and the UN Security Council to help preserve the unity, independence, and sovereignty of Iraq” and “asking the Iraqi government to build a balanced Iraqi army and (that) the international community support the Iraqi government to achieve the complete sovereignty of the country and the protection of its citizens.”

Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque, is located on the corner of Lenox Avenue and 116th Street in Manhattan. This traditional mosque with an international congregation is a point of pride for the Muslims of Harlem.

The building was originally opened as a mosque in 1957, led by Minister Malcolm X. In 1965, Temple No. 7, as it was originally called, was firebombed and largely destroyed after the assassination of Malcolm X, also called Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. When it was reopened in 1969, renovations had introduced the traditional features of middle-eastern architecture such as arches and the aluminum dome, once topped by a golden crescent. In the late 1970’s, Temple No. 7 was renamed Masjid Malcolm Shabazz in honor of its first minister.

The mosque is now the center of a lively community that supports the private Sister Clara Muhammad School, a bookstore, restaurants and a range of social services for children, the sick and the elderly.The mosque’s leaders have helped develop an international market in a vacant lot across the street, a contribution to economic revitalization. Additionally, they plan to initiate construction of public housing and housing for the elderly on another corner of the mosque's intersection.

Imam Izak-el M. Pasha, resident imam of Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, became first Muslim chaplain of the New York City Police Department in 1999. He also serves on the Executive Council of Religions for Peace – USA, as a representative of The Mosque Cares/W.D. Mohammed Ministries, which is centered in Chicago.

Far Left: Imam Pasha at an Executive Council Meeting of RFP-USA.

Four Women, Three Faiths: Inspiring Spiritual Journeys
The vivacious and funny Cecile S. Holmes, former Religion Editor of “The Houston Chronicle” and current assistant professor of journalism at the University of South Carolina, has authored “Four Women, Three Faiths: Inspiring Spiritual Journeys.” It is a delightful entrée in the the life journeys and “soul stories” of four women who are religious leaders. Two Christians, one Hindu (Religions for Peace’s very own Arunima Sinha!), and one Muslim. Unlike the “The Faith Club,” this work is from the outside in, but it gives you enough of a window into the private thoughts and even journal entries of the women that you get who they are on a very real level. It is an easy, relatively short read. Harbor House, 2006, ISBN 1-891799-61-4.

Golden Rule Curriculum for Schools
Scarboro Missions has recently posted on its website a “Golden Rule Curriculum for Schools” This may be the most comprehensive Golden Rule curriculum ever produced in history.

This curriculum was written for a public school audience, but can easily be adapted for religious schools, private schools, and multi-faith education programs. It contains a thorough description of the history of the Golden Rule and an extensive listing of Golden Rules from ancient to modern times, along with excellent teaching guides.

The curriculum can be downloaded free here.

What the New Presiding Bishop Has To Say…
The Episcopal Church in the United States has a new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She is the first female primate in the 500 year history of Anglicanism. Wow. We are listening. Want to hear what she thinks? She has a new book out in January: “A Wing and a Prayer: A Message of Faith and Hope.” The title comes from her previous gig which included piloting her own twin-engine plane to remote parishes of the Nevada. Previously she was a professor at Oregon State University and an oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. Contact Morehouse Publishing at 800-877-0012 or at www.morhousepublishing.org.

New Resource for Journalists Who Report on Religion
The Religion Newswriters Association presents Religion Stylebook,an easy-to-use, authoritative guide created for journalists who report on religion in the mainstream media.

It includes entries on the major religions, denominations and organizations that journalists encounter in daily reporting, preferred spellings, capitalizations and usage guidelines for religious terms, definitions, pronounciation guides, accurate titles for religious leaders in different traditions, and much more!

A Moral History of War? - Religion and Violence in American Culture
Is a moral history of war possible? Upon surveying the mountains of data collected and shared about the Civil War, Yale Divinity School’s Harry S. Stout, asked where is the moral character being examined in the story? He set out to write a book that “offers moral judgments in the hope that lessons for life today may ensue.” Union and Confederacy alike identified itself as a moral nation with God on its side. Twelve years of research and writing went into “Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War,” and in it Stout measures the gap between those claims and the war's actual conduct. The results are surprising. Required reading for hawks and doves alike. Penguin, 2006, ISBN: 0143038761. Paperback is out in March.

New Hartley Classic DVD Collection
Elda Hartley, founder of the Hartley Film Foundation, invites you to travel the globe and view through her camera lens the endlessly varied and vibrant pastiche of religious rituals practiced throughout the world. During the 1970s and 80s, this award-winning filmmaker created documentaries on a number of the world's great religions that will open your eyes to the extraordinary differences and the striking similarities among individuals of different faiths. She collaborated with some of the foremost religious leaders and scholars including Margaret Mead, Joseph Campbell, Edgar Mitchell, Alan Watts and Huston Smith.

For more information on this comprehensive and compelling collection of documentaries, which can be purchased individually or as a set, please click on http://www.hartleyfoundation.org/classics/.

The PeaceFinder: Riley McFee’s Quest for World Peace
The PeaceFinder: Riley McFee's Quest for World Peace, by Joan McWilliams, serves as the new guide for establishing peace in the twenty-first century. Riley McFee, the book's main character, is a young boy with a mission—finding the answer to creating world peace. The book also features a special section that provides the process for developing peace within yourself and expanding that process to the world — The Eight Steps to World Peace: A Handbook for PeaceFinders. The PeaceFinder offers a roadmap for implementing true peace and changing the world.

Organizations can also help promote the message of peace by joining The Riley McFee Affiliate Program and earning income for each book purchased through their network. For more information on the affiliate program, visit www.peacefinder.com.

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