Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

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

Page 283

PROGRAM OF
Monday, December 7, 2009
Michael C Slaby works for the international Earth Charter Secretariat and coordinates the Earth Charter Programme on Religion and Sustainability. Since 1996, Michael has been involved in youth activism and has led civil society initiatives on sustainable development, human rights and refugee aid on national and international levels. From 2003 to 2006, Michael volunteered as Earth Charter Youth Coordinator, and helped to establish the network of youth organisations that form the Earth Charter Youth Initiative.
Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp is President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, European Region, and co-recipient of the 2005 International Alliance Peace Award with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. He is an award-winning human rights advocate, lecturer, writer, environmental activist and champion of civil society worldwide.
Brendan Mackey is a professor of environmental science at the Australian National University, Fenner School of Environment & Society. His primary scientific research and teaching are in the field of environmental biogeography, with a focus on the role of natural forests in carbon storage. Brendan has an abiding concern for the ethical bases to nature conservation and human-nature relations. Brendan currently serves on the Earth Charter Council, and is a member of the IUCN Council. Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne is the founder and president of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. He was the recipient of the 1996 Gandhi Peace Prize, the Niwano Peace Prize, the King Beaudoin Award and many other international honours for his work in peacemaking and village development.
Religion's Imperative to Present
'the Other' Faithfully (Session 1] Rabbi Dr Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Moderator Tariq Ramadan
Marcus Braybrooke
Paul Knitter
Arvind Sharma
Balwant Singh Dhillon
Fr John Pawlikowski
Room 211
What is the religious imperative to present 'the other' faithfully? The need to accurately present traditions other than one's own is, to a large extent, a novel imperativegrowing out of our contemporary interfaith reality and a growing movement which seeks to cultivate harmonious intrareligious relations. Against a history of caricature and scorn that have long characterised the portrayal of the other in each of our traditions, we are now challenged to consider: what is the theological and spiritual basis that requires us to present the other faithfully? How can we turn to our traditions and find within them the call to represent the other faithfully-even positively-and how do we replace the older scornful view with an alternative presentation of the other?
Alon Goshen-Gottstein is the director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute and director of the Centre for the Study of Rabbinic Thought, Beit Morasha College, both in Jerusalem. He was ordained a rabbi in 1977. Projects of the Elijah Interfaith Institute include the bi-annual meeting of the board of World Religious Leaders, the Educational Network, as well as the Jewish and the Muslim Theology of the Religious Other.
11:30am-1:00pm
INTERRELIGIOUS SESSION
Conflict Transformation and Peace Building
Stein Villumstad Jacqueline Ogega
Dr William F Vendley Room 212 Training Session
This workshop, held by the group Religions for Peace, will focus on the power of multireligious cooperation in conflict transformation. Open to all religious leaders, women of faith, youth and other stakeholders, the program seeks greater awareness of and commitment to multireligious action to end violent conflict and build peace. Group discussion will address various forms of violence and
its victims, helping to contribute to an exchange of ideas regarding prevention, peace building, and knowledge of best practices. By further strengthening religious leaders' knowledge of how to effectively lead conflict transformation, peace building initiatives can emerge through multireligious cooperation.
Stein Villumstad has extensive and distinguished experience in international development, conflict transformation, and human rights. He served as regional representative for Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) in Eastern Africa, where he oversaw development activities in ten countries and managed five regional sub-offices. Previously, he held the position of assistant general secretary of NCA, managing the Department for Policy and Human Rights.
Jacqueline Ogega is the Director of the Women's Program at the World Conference of Religions for Peace. She has served as the African Women's Project Director at Religions for Peace in Africa, where she established the African Women of Faith Network. She has experience and skills in gender, peace building and development programming. She holds a Master's degree as well as a post-graduate diploma in gender and development, both from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Dr William F Vendley has served as Secretary General at Religions for Peace since 1994, coordinating international activities and projects in more than 70 states around the world. He has led negotiations that have helped to prevent conflicts, mediated peace and rebuilt societies in the aftermath of violence. Under his leadership, Religions for Peace and its affiliates have engaged religious communities to assist the more than 12 million orphans of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Private Property, Religion
and the Environment
Paul Babie
Peter Burdon Room 214 Lecture
Climate change is a private property problem. Specifically, the presently dominant model of private property, implemented and operating in legal systems worldwide, prioritises self-interest over obligation towards the community. This presentation argues that this underpins and makes possible those human activities which lead to ecological destruction. Yet climate change is more than a legal or a political issue. It is also a moral and spiritual challenge, which requires the application of spiritual or religious thought as part of the solution. The presenters
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