Rifqa Bary Case in Central Ohio
The board and staff of ICP wrote a letter on November 20th to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch regarding the Rifqa Bary case that is once again in the headlines here in Central Ohio. If you're interested in our thoughts, click here to read what we sent.
Children of Abraham Conference News Articles
Thank you to everyone who came to our Children of Abraham conference! See below for some recent news articles about the Interfaith Center for Peace and this conference.
Click here for the October 26th Columbus Dispatch article about our conference.
July 2009 Article: Being Part of the Larger Interfaith Movement: Reflections from NAIN Connect 2009
In June, I went to the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN) Connect conference for the second year as a repesentative of the Interfaith Center for Peace. NAIN Connect was hosted this year outside Kansas City at Unity Village, the world headquarters of the Unity Church movement. NAIN's annual conference is a meeting ground for interfaith groups from the U.S. and Canada to meet and share thoughts, experiences, and best practices, and to envision the growth and future of the interfaith movement. This year I was one of four young adult scholarship recipients from around the country, and was asked to be on the opening panel, "Young Adult Perspectives: the Interfaith Movement 2009 and Beyond." Though I attended last year's event at the University of San Francisco, helping to open this year's event by sharing my thoughts on a young adult panel led to far different experience. Not only did I get to collaborate with my co-speakers, who represented the United Religions Initiative, the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada, and the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, but I was approached by many other people throughout the conference that were interested in my comments and ICP's work in Columbus.
When asked where I'd like to see the interfaith movement go, I described a vision for all of us who are involved in interfaith work to see ourselves as agents of social change. I challenged the conference participants to think about interfaith work as part of a larger process of social change in which we build stronger communities and societies by honoring differences among our faith communities and by working together to find the spiritual and practical resources in our traditions that help us to build the peaceful world we envision.
Many of my thoughts were echoed by other young adult scholars at the event - such as the need to bring more marginalized groups, such as non-traditional faith groups, ethnic minorities, young people, and women into the interfaith movement - groups that are often on the periphery of the movement. Have we created a relevant leadership space for such people in our work? Are we addressing their concerns, or are we asking for them to care about ours? Interfaith work is, at its heart, very deep intercultural work. In Columbus, our religious differences are often along lines of race, ethnicity, nationality, language, and culture! The connection between interfaith work and these other dividing lines in our community presents a wonderful opportunity to dive into more complex issues at the heart of peace and justice in Columbus and the world.
Regarding methodology, we need to be working on developing ourselves and our communities at several levels: head, heart, and hands. The "head" refers to our awareness, our thoughts, and the mental processes we go through when we encounter religious (or other) differences, conflicts, and violence. The "heart" refers to our feelings, our emotional reactions to situations and to people different than us, and a level of empathy or compassion. The "hands" refer to the skills we have that help us to build peace. What are the models we use for dealing with conflict? Do we teach our children to step back for a moment and soothe themselves or others when they are upset? Are we daily becoming stronger mediators, leaders, and teachers who are able to bring our values of a just and peaceful world into reality?
NAIN once again affirmed to me that the interfaith peace work we are doing right here in Columbus is truly part of an international interfaith movement. What we do here not only affects us, but helps to direct, clarify, and strengthen the work of our colleagues in other places. Our experiences and our efforts to find new ways of building bridges in our community across religious lines for the sake of peace and justice is not taking place in a vacuum! I met many people both this year and last year at NAIN who are very interested in the Interfaith Center for Peace because what we're doing is cutting-edge.
We are unique in that we've been working for almost 30 years on peace education and capacity development, and are currently re-envisioning ourselves as the intersection of the peace and interfaith movements. Focusing on the connection between interfaith work and peace, and helping religious communities and people of faith and conscience come together to build their capacity for peacemaking adds a necessary specificity and purpose to the interfaith movement.
I returned from NAIN blessed and refreshed for our continuing our work in Central Ohio. I look forward to working with you to keep building our local interfaith efforts and strengthening the larger interfaith movement!
