by Sable Manson
n the spring of 2020, I was working with my higher education colleagues to prepare for an interfaith retreat set on Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California. We had planned numerous…
Interfaith Retreat-in-a-Box
Editorial: We're Back!
In the two years we’ve been gone, the challenge in developing interfaith relations has received a body blow through the accelerating corruption of language and communication…
KAICIID Launches Peace Mapping Program
As world leaders prepared to adopt the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” at the United Nations on September 25-27, the Vienna-based International Dialogue Centre, known as KAICIID, launched the “Peace Map” in New York City: At the heart of its first phase, the Peace Map offers an interactive database of over 400 organizations that work to promote interreligious dialogue around the world.
Toward an Ecological Civilization
The image of an aspen grove in Southern Utah called “Pando” became both a symbol and wake-up call for some 1,500 participants – including 130 from China – who attended an extraordinary ecological conference held at Pomona College in Claremont, California, June 4-7.
Science and Spirituality Join Forces for Water
Two hundred participants – scientists, clergy, spiritual practitioners, artists, and concerned citizens – gathered for an all-day teach-in on Sunday, March 8, 2015 at Loyola Marymount University, exploring practical solutions to the global climate crisis and water shortage. Organized by the Southern California Parliament of the World’s Religions, “Seeds of Peace: Honoring Water, Source of Life” offered spiritual practice, sacred ritual, social action, and climate-based workshops, as well as a vibrant communal marketplace with 40 vendors all focused on the life-sustaining role of water.
Renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery/Reclaiming Mother Earth
Hidden Seeds of Natural Healing & Curing was held last July, a gathering of 33 indigenous representatives from six continents, including two youth, ages 13 and 14, a council of leaders gathered to reflect on the global situation they and their peoples face. Hosted by United Religions Initiative’s Global Indigenous Initiative, participants met for three days near Napa Valley in Northern California.
Dalai Lama and Karen Armstrong to Keynote 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Karen Armstrong will be keynoters at the Parliament of the Worlds Religions, to be held October 15-19, 2015 in Salt Lake City. The theme of the Parliament is “Reclaiming the Heart of Our Humanity: Working Together for a World of Compassion, Peace, Justice, and Sustainability.”
Climate and the People: September 19-23, New York City
Sunday, September 21, 2014, the UN International Day of Peace. The sky was clear, the sun shining, and the air was vibrating with excitement. You could sense an unmistakable whiff of history-in-the-making. Soon mid-town Manhattan would become a rolling wave of humanity, a moving festival of people of every age, race, ethnicity, nationality, and belief. Most wore casual attire, some religious garb, and others chose colorful costumes and body paint. An impressive assortment of headgear showed up as well: hijabs, turbans, kippas, garlands, feathers, panama hats, and baseball caps.
Bridging Borders and Boundaries in a Troubled World
On the first full day of NAINConnect 2014 last month, as 150 participants fanned across greater Detroit in bussed site-visits, a torrential 6.2 inches of rain fell on Detroit in a few short hours. Not since ten taxis failed to show up in San Francisco in 2008 to transport NAIN participants from the university to a dinner-cruise on the Bay, have NAIN planners experienced so much unexpected disaster. Except the consequences in Detroit were mind-numbing.
Global Grassroots Interfaith in a Room
Love between Israel and Iran – a History is Made!
This report is republished from the Euphrates Newsletter regarding the meeting between Ron Edry and Majid Nowrouzi, citizen peacemakers who have inspired each other but never met, at the Public Affairs Conference 2013 at Principia College in Illinois last month. Janessa Gans-Wilder, founder of the Euphrates Institute, is on the faculty at Principia. Ed.
SoCal Parliament of Religions Celebrates Latino Diversity
As noted in TIO last month, the third annual World Interfaith Harmony Week found life in thousands of settings around the world. The Southern California Parliament of Religions (or, more formally, SCCPRW, the Southern California Com
Interfaith, Interspiritual, Integral – The Big ‘I’ Reconvenes
The “interfaith seminary” movement profiled in these pages last September has developed into a national community of clergy, scholars, and seminarians. Sixty of them gathered early this month at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee, for the second “Big ‘I’” conference sponsored by OUnI (Order of Universal Interfaith). Eighteen presenters were each given 18 minutes period! – which left time for rich Q&A sessions that continued into the dining room.
NAIN Takes Interfaith Culture the Next Level
North American Interfaith Network’s (NAIN) annual conferences, held since 1988, are a family affair, a time to deepen old relationships and start new ones, a laboratory for innovative interfaith interaction, and a place to learn professional skill-sets you can’t find anywhere else. NAINConnects in recent years have been hosted by Vancouver, Richmond, San Francisco, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix. Each site comes with its own flavor and special gifts. Each introduces NAIN to vital, unique interfaith communities with multiple programs and collaborative interaction.
Climbing a Holy Mountain for Peace
In response to world crises, spiritual pilgrims often ascend mountains, sacred heights, for prayer, fasting, discernment, and ceremony. For the past three years people from different faiths have joined in an interfaith peace ritual on Mount Baldy, in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California, sponsored by the Aetherius Society. Rev. Paul Nugent, a director of the Society, describes it as "a unique event to draw together pilgrims of all ages and all walks of life. We walk together, climb together, sing together, and pray together for world peace."
Opening Many Doors to the Spirit
On April 21, 2012, Pacific School of Religion hosted a new event called Sacred Snapshots: A Sampler for the Spirit, a day-long event celebrating spiritual practices from a range of religions and tradition. Each hour during the day, participants could choose from an array of experiential sessions, worship rituals, and lectures on divinity in its many forms, taught by progressive leaders, thinkers, and practitioners of various faiths.
Occupy Faith National Conference: Let the walls come crumbling down!
Just before noon on March 20, in Berkeley, California, Rabbi Arthur Waskow blew the shofar, an act most often associated with the call to repentance on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Some say that the shofar, famous for causing the walls of Jericho to fall, awakens the Divine within each hearer.
First “Big I” Conference Held in Nashville
The first “Big I” conference (interfaith, interspiritual, and integral) was held Saturday and Sunday, February 4-5, at the Scarritt-Bennett Conference Center in Nashville, Tennessee. It felt like a mini-TED Conference on interfaith spirituality. Though brief, it included something for everyone passionate about building a world of interfaith harmony. With Rev. Timothy Miner and Rabbi Rami Shapiro at the helm, it was presented by the Order of Universal Interfaith (OUnI). Seventy-five attended, activists, clergy, scholars, and mystics from the broad area encompassing inclusive, interfaith, interspiritual, and integral ministry.
World Interfaith Harmony Week Uplifts UN General Assembly
A rare event took place in the UN General Assembly on February 7, 2012: religious and secular leaders from around the world gathered to affirm “Common Ground for the Common Good,” marking the close of the second annual World Interfaith Harmony Week (February 1-7).
Consultation for U.N. by The Interfaith Consortium for Ecological Civilization
On October 19, the Temple of Understanding in New York City brought together leaders of international interfaith organizations and other eminent visionaries. Their mandate was to form an advisory council for the Interfaith Consortium for an Ecological Civilization (ICEC), a new committee developed by the Temple of Understanding and other organizations in connection with the United Nations Environment Programme.