{"id":4832,"date":"2018-11-15T14:59:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T21:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/"},"modified":"2018-11-15T15:06:41","modified_gmt":"2018-11-15T22:06:41","slug":"the-worlds-religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/the-worlds-religions","title":{"rendered":"The World’s Religions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2018\u00a0Parliament of the World\u2019s Religions<\/a>\u00a0in Toronto\u00a0was a positive experience for me!<\/span><\/p>\n

I spent much of my time working with the Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv<\/a>), for which I am a senior partner. The Institute organized a major track exploring issues of religion and justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

My colleagues and I worked for more than a year recruiting and administrating a host of speakers and panels. Perhaps the most effort went into developing a 3-hour plenary assembly. I\u2019m happy to say all of this work was a great success!<\/span><\/p>\n

I could say much about my Parliament experience. But I\u2019ll briefly mention five highlights for me:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I was proud to be part of the team that constructed and implemented the plenary assembly on justice. Philip Clayton, the President of\u00a0EcoCiv<\/a>, hosted the three-hour event. \"\"<\/a>The assembly featured activists from Africa, South America, Asia, and North America, artists, and faith leaders. John Cobb concluded the session by encouraging the audience to imagine a future in which ecology was our civilization\u2019s guiding motif.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. I gave a presentation on the meaning of love. Xiaoan Li of the\u00a0Fetzer Institute\u00a0<\/a>offered a response. I felt good about my lecture, although it was quite brief. The audience responded well to it. \"\"I felt even better about the friendship I developed with Xiaoan. I look forward to working with him on future projects.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The themes of ecological civilization were well articulated in several justice track sessions. Among the speakers who articulated those themes well were Isabella Alexander, John Cobb, Ken Kitatani, David Korten, Josh Kureethadam, Ron Phipps, Andrew Schwartz, Vandana Shiva, and Mary Evelyn Tucker. More needs to be done to explain why and how changes must be made to avoid catastrophes and establish a loving world.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Alexis Waggoner moderated a discussion between\u00a0Jihad Turk, Shai Held, and me.\u00a0We talked about\u00a0love and justice from Muslim, Jewish, and Christian perspectives. The insights that emerged were thrilling! I was especially grateful for the exchange between Shai and Jihad on the state of the Israel-Palestine conflicts.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Finally, it\u2019s such a joy to renew long-time friendships and establish new ones. I saw former students in action as speakers, which was so cool. I ran into friends whom I\u2019d not seen in person for years. And I made new friendships I hope will deepen in the future. Although I\u2019m a big fan of technology and social media that links me to others, there\u2019s something powerful about being together in person!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    After the Parliament, a few friends who did not attend asked me what had been \u201cdecided\u201d in Toronto. To many people, the word \u201cparliament\u201d suggests a decision-making body with the power to implement those decisions. My friends wanted to hear what consensus had been reached.\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

    The Parliament of the World\u2019s Religions doesn\u2019t take votes or make binding decisions. It\u2019s more about people offering ideas, sharing wisdom, learning about traditions, and exploring interfaith issues. It\u2019s a \u201ccome one, come all\u201d gathering not an elected congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Of course, it would be good if people left the meeting determined to be more loving and to care for each other and the planet. I suspect some walked away with such determination. I know I did. And that\u2019s something worth celebrating!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The 2018\u00a0Parliament of the World\u2019s Religions\u00a0in Toronto\u00a0was a positive experience for me! I spent much of my time working with the Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv), for which I am a senior partner. The Institute organized a major track exploring issues of religion and justice. My colleagues and I worked for more than a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[119,414,6378,6397,6398,6399],"yst_prominent_words":[6385,6396,6394,6393,6392,6391,6389,6388,6387,6386,1269,6384,6383,6382,6372,5708,4802,2739,1646,1349],"class_list":["post-4832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postmodern_philosophy_theology_and_culture","category-and_the_kitchen_sink","tag-religion","tag-muslim","tag-parliament-of-the-worlds-religions","tag-toronto","tag-ecociv","tag-institute-for-ecological-civilization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4832"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}