Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 238

PROGRAM
Sunday, December 6, 2009
11:30am-1:00pm INTERRELIGIOUS SESSION
nizations and communities to advocate for global change. Learn of the deep connection that compassion has to the world's major religious and spiritual connections, its embrace by youth movements for service worldwide, and its relevance in addressing the critical issues facing the global community.
the priesthood in the Celtic Christian Church lan independent Catholic church in 2006, in which he now ministers to a small contemplative community. He has a number of publications and his primary theological interests lie in New Testament theology and Christian mysticism. Dr Padmasiri de Silva is a Buddhist philosopher in the Theravada tradition and has written a number of books about Buddhism in the modern context. He has held teaching positions in Sri Lanka, Singapore, the US and New Zealand, and is at present a research associate with the School of Historical Studies at Monash University
INTERRELIGIOUS 11:30am-1:00pm
Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Lindsay Falvey Paul Sanders John May Vincent Pizzuto Padmasiri de Silva Room 101 Interactive Workshop This program includes four parts. Firstly, panel members will discuss ways in which Christianity and Zen Buddhism have been able to learn from each other. The workshop fosters a spirit of enquiry and openness, which leads to a softening of prejudice and fear. Participants will be of fered examples from the Canonical gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, as well as writings from Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, and the Japanese Zen master Dogen. This workshop will present approaches to objectless meditation, and explore its vital place in uncovering wisdom. Secondly, presenters will aim to show how issues raised by dialogue in contexts of pluralism could be explored collaboratively by Buddhists and Christians by retrieving strands of tradition such as compassion, empathy, care and forgiveness. Thirdly there will be a presentation of the recently released book, 'Dharma as Man', which is an ancient story read each evening by an old man to his young son in rural India. It is a universal tale condensed to combine the world's stories, which renders Jesus life into Buddhist concepts in an ancient Indian setting. Fourthly. there will be a discussion of how traditions might better understand their shared vocation to alleviate suffering through interreligious dialogue and shared interspiritual contemplative silence. Lindsay Falvey is a professor of the University of Melbourne, where he was previously Chair of Agriculture, Dean of Land and Food Resources. and Dean of Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture. He is also a lite member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, at the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively on religion, agriculture and issues of sustainability from multireligious perspectives. Paul Sanders is director of the Augustine Centre and has trained inten Sively in contemplative spirituality in the US and in Australia. He leads retreats and programs in contemplative spirituality and is a senior Zen student John May has a doctorate in Ecumenical Theology. Muenster and a doctorate in History of Religions, Frankfurt. He was Ecumenical Research Officer in Papua New Guinea from 1983-1987 and Associate Professor of Interfaith Dialogue at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin from 1987-2007. He is from Melbourne originally. Vincent Pizzuto is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of San Francisco. He has a PhD in New Testament theology from Leuven, Belgium. Vincent was ordained to
Panentheism: God and World in an Ecological Age Joseph Prabhu Max Charlesworth Philip Clayton Purushottama Bilimoria Freya Mathews Room 103 Panel Discussion Panentheism means that all things are in God. It is distinct as a theological doctrine from pantheism, which says that all things are divine, and from theism, which distinguishes and separates God from the world. Panentheism. by contrast, distinguishes but does not separate God from the world. Many developments, sacred and secular, have led to panentheism, among them religious experience, feminist perceptions of the Divine and current ecological trends. This panel incorporates theological, philosophical, ecological and political insights stemming from this doctrine and furthermore seeks to make contact with and foster East-West dialogue on the topic. The monotheistic faiths have generally been considered dualistic and the Eastern faiths non-dualistic. The panellists, drawn from different religious, cultural and gender perspectives, will situate panentheism on this spectrum and attempt to expound the wisdom of panentheism and its significance for contemporary spiritual and social life. Joseph Prabhu, PhD. is a Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles and the President of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy. He has taught at universities around the world and is the author of Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspective and "Liberating Gandhi: Community. Empire and a Culture of Peace (forthcoming). He is a Program Task Force Chair and Trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. Max Charlesworth is an emeritus professor of philosophy associated with La Trobe University in Melbourne. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University and its Founding Dean of Humanities Charlesworth is also the Founder and first editor of Sophia, the Inowl international journal in metaphysical theology and philosophy of religion. He has written on a wide range of topics from the best in philosophical theology to the Aboriginal land rights to issues within the Catholic Church Philip Clayton is Ingraham Professor at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. He specialises in conflicts and connections between the sciences and religion, with particular focus on the biological sciences and the environmental crisis. He is the author or editor of seventeen books and over 100 articles, including the recent Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science' and 'In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World Purushottama Bilimoria is a Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Studies at Deakin University in Australia and Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne. He is a regular Visiting Professor at State University of New York (Stony Brook). Columbia University and the
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