In This Issue:
1. Executive Director's Updates:
>Mini-Grants and Global Issues Dialogue Toolkits Available Now
>"Return to Earth" Brochure/Study Guide
>9/11, Religion-related Violence, and Religious Resources
>What About Iraq?
>Special Resources
>International Day of Peace
>Darfur/Sudan Crisis
>Staff Recognition
2. Sri Lankan Religious Leaders Pursue Peace and Reconciliation
3. An Introduction to The Episcopal Church
4. "Creating Interfaith Community"
5. Food for Thought: Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr
6. Donate to Religions for Peace - USA
7. Subscribe/Unsubscribe

• American Power and Global Security
• Energy Choices and Environmental Challenges
• Prosperity in a Global Economy

Interested individuals and communities can learn more here. Mini-grant applications and a toolkit, which includes an advertising strategy guide and a dialogue moderator's guide, are available at our website.

"Return to Earth" Brochure/Study Guide
What can your religious community do to create reconciliation with Native Americans? Our "Return to the Earth" project offers several simple steps. Color brochures are now available to interpret the "Return to Earth" project. A study guide will be released this fall. Write to us at rfpusa@rfpusa.org, if you are interested in receiving some of them. Please be certain to include the requested quantity and your complete contact information.

Staff Recognition
This summer RFP-USA boasted a great team of associates. One of them is headed back to school. Mr. Krishan Patel returns to Michigan University. At the same time, we are also welcoming two others, Ms. Caitlin Deschenes-Desmond and Christina Park. RFP-USA would like to recognize their hard work and dedication to the organization's mission and objectives. Thank you!

This month we highlight the pursuit of peace and reconciliation by Sri Lankan religious leaders as part of the work of Religions for Peace worldwide.

Religious differences are often perceived to be the cause of violence and war. However, as our experience has shown, it is not religion itself, but extremism and intolerance that can be a root cause of conflict and terrorism. This misuse of religion is a perversion of humanity’s most sacred teachings. Religions for Peace knows that, in fact, when religious communities come together in mutual respect and bridge their differences to work together, religion can be a stunningly powerful force for peace.

In Sri Lanka, Religions for Peace is putting this truth into action. Working with Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian leaders, they are helping them collaborate to strengthen the current peace process to end a conflict that has claimed an estimated 64,000 lives.

Since the declaration of Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948, the Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese have been engaged in some stage of conflict over issues of political, cultural, and economic control. A ceasefire agreement in 2002 between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE or Tamil Tigers) and the Government of Sri Lanka brought a tenuous end to a decade of brutality, terrorism and violence. However, outbreaks still occur, including a suicide attack in early July that killed four policemen and injured twelve others in Sri Lanka’s capital city, Colombo.

On June 28 of this year, the Mahanayakas joined a Religions for Peace-sponsored peace-building event in a former war zone in northeast Sri Lanka. The event inaugurated a project in which rain-fed water tanks for the region will be rebuilt by Sinhalese and Tamils working together, a symbolic and substantive act toward reconciliation. Approximately 500 local religious leaders and villagers as well as representatives from Religions for Peace-affiliated Interreligious Councils from 16 Asian countries comprising the Asian Conference of Religions for Peace attended the event. As a mark of their commitment to a multi-religious solution to the tensions, the Mahanayakas held inter-religious services at Buddhist and Hindu religious sites.

In addition to fostering dialogue between warring groups, Religions for Peace, through our affiliated and first ever Interreligious Council of Sri Lanka, plans to focus on trust- and confidence-building activities that promote peaceful coexistence through other concrete projects including constructing agricultural irrigational channels and a peace bridge to connect the government controlled and rebel controlled areas.

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 Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church is made up of between two and three million worshipers in about 7,500 congregations across the United States and a few related dioceses outside the US. The Anglican Communion During the Reformation in the 16th Century, Henry VIII declared the Church of England independent of the Roman Catholic Church with himself as its head. It was the result of many factors, some political and some theological, but it has given rise to a distinct form of Christianity, known as Anglicanism. The Episcopal Church is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the churches around the world that trace their roots to the Church of England, and maintain a “communion” with it, hence the name “Anglican.” Other members of the Communion include the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Nigeria. In fact, most Anglicans now live in Africa. The member churches of the Anglican Communion are joined together by choice in love, and have no direct authority over one another. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, is acknowledged as the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, but while respected, the Archbishop does not have direct authority over any Anglican Church outside of England. While there are other churches that call themselves “Anglican,” only one Church in any country can be considered “in full communion” with the Church of England, and the Episcopal Church is the American member of the Communion.

A particular program of interest in the interfaith movement is the Episcopal Church's new Children of Abraham Peace Forum.

As French Muslims contend with the government's recent ban on headscarves -- and as Jews were urged July 18 by Israel's prime minister to flee France amid what he called a rising tide of anti-Semitism -- the need for understanding among members of Abrahamic faiths has again been underscored locally and globally. In this context, a new online forum has been launched from "trialogue" talks held in June at the American Cathedral in Paris.

The bilingual conference, titled "The Children of Abraham and the Art of Peacemaking: Christians, Muslims, and Jews who work together for peace," featured lectures and workshops by internationally-known experts on the traditions of peacemaking in all three religions.

The conference's more than 700 participants were Christians, Jews, and Muslims coming from Israel, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Great Britain, the United States, and France.

The objective of the three-day gathering was to bring together Christians, Jews, and Muslims seasoned in interreligious dialogue, to search together for models and inspiration for those working for peace in situations of religious tension and conflict. The new online version of the Forum is the first tangible result of the conference. The Forum has news, articles, and discussions via the Internet. The Forum is offered in English (www.childrenofabrahampeacemakers.org) and in French (www.lesenfantsdabrahampourlapaix.org). To read more please visit here.

In this section we feature interesting, replicable projects of our member religious communities or thought-provoking publications for our common mission. In this issue we highlight the book "Creating Interfaith Community" with text by Marston Speight and study guide by Jacob and Glory Dharmaraj.

This book calls us to create an interfaith community with all people from the many different religious groups in the United States. The corresponding study guide offers group activities to help a leader bring the material in the text into their own community for action and reflection.

The question put to Jesus, "Who is our neighbor?," has taken on new urgency. The theme of this contemporary study is the need to understand our neighbors of different faiths and to find ways of getting to know each other better, while being grounded in our own faiths. Through much of American church history, Christians have been fairly oblivious to other religions in their midst. But today we cannot ignore them. Learn what an interfaith community involves and the possibilities for such community. While written principally for the benefit of a Christian audience of persons attending the summer schools of mission of the United Methodist Church, this is an excellent resource to explore what "interfaith community" might mean.

Before his retirement in 1992, the Reverend Dr. R. Marston Speight was Director of the Office for Christian-Muslim Relations of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and a member of the adjunct faulty of Hartford Seminary. Prior to those appointments he served as a missionary in North Africa from 1951 until 1979. He pastored churches in Algiers, Algeria and Tunis, and Tunisia and lectured in a number of countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is an ordained minister in The United Methodist Church and lives with his family in Connecticut.

Glory E. Dharmaraj, Ph.D., is Executive Secretary for Justice Education for the Women's Division, General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. She is also the administrator of the Seminar Program on National and International Affairs at the Church Center for the U.N. Her husband Jacob S. Dhamaraj, Ph.D, currently serves as a pastor in the New York Annual Conference.

"Oases of Peace in the Desert of War"
A independant project is currently afoot to collect religiously-inspired reflections on war and peace for a forthcoming publication.

Sermons, reflections, and meditations on war and peace crafted since September 11th or, more especially, since the current conflict in Iraq are welcome. Submissions are welcome from all faith traditions (as an inline or MS Word attachment). Please submit them to jboyerholt@optonline.com or write for more details.