Conference on Spiritual Activism

[lilithu]

I (and about a hundred other people standing in line for the book signing) was personally asked by the good Rabbi last night to pass this information along. So here it is:

Rabbi Lerner has a new book out, The Left Hand of God.

And his Network of Spiritual Progressives is sponsoring a Conference on Spiritual Activism. (And it's being held at my church! :jiggy: )

As the website says,

Want an Alternative to the Religious Right?
Then help us build it! Come to the Conference, Read The Left Hand of God, Join The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)

May 17-20, 2006 Washington, D.C.

(excerpted)

Building on the July, 2005 conference in Berkeley, this will be the National conference to launch a prophetic spiritual politics agenda to the media and the politicians in D.C. and to train organizers who will take the agenda into their communities. The conference will also celebrate the release of Rabbi Michael Lerner's new book The Left Hand of God, with its proposed Spiritual Covenant for America and the release of the paper back version of Jim Wallis' God's Politics.

We will bring the Spiritual Covenant for America (based in part on the conversations that took place at the July 2005 conference and developed into a platform in Rabbi Lerner's The Left Hand of God) to the attention of the U.S. Congress and the liberal and progressive forces headquartered in D.C.

Unfortunately, liberals and progressives, even when they try to articulate an alternative program, too often revert to a technocratic and economistic alternatives that miss the spiritual dimension of human needs. That is why we are building a movement of spiritual progressives that is both a challenge to the Right and to the anti-religious and anti-spiritual tendencies within some parts of the Left.

Our conference is part of that process, and we will be highlighting a Spiritual Covenant with America that is as much an alternative to the tepid and visionless rhetoric of some sections of establishment liberals as it is to the moral insensitivity of some sections of the Right. Our perspective is unabashedly visionary and "unrealistic" in the sense that it challenges the contemporary denizens of political realism and insists that the challenges facing the human race today require a major jump in consciousness and poltiical courage.

 

[lilithu]

Maize, I posted this info in the UU forum. It's not meant to be limited specifically to UUs by any means. In fact, we're supposed to let anyone know who would be interested. But I didn't know where else to put it because I didn't want to offend anyone who might identify as a religious conservative. Feel free to move the top post where ever you think it should go.

And come to the conference if you can!

 

[Green Gaia]

Awesome!

Can I pass this on to some at my church?

 

[Green Gaia]

Maize, I posted this info in the UU forum. It's not meant to be limited specifically to UUs by any means. In fact, we're supposed to let anyone know who would be interested. But I didn't know where else to put it because I didn't want to offend anyone who might identify as a religious conservative. Feel free to move the top post where ever you think it should go.

And come to the conference if you can!

I'll leave it here for now. The more liberal among us usually read the UU forum too.

 

[lilithu]

Awesome!

Can I pass this on to some at my church?

Of course! Spread the word! And if there are people who are really interested warn them that the conference "sold out" last year (when they had it at Berkeley) and they actually had to turn people away. So no waiting til the last minute!

 

[lilithu]

Conference on Spiritual Activism
May 17-20, 2006* All Souls Church, Washington D.C.

Tentative Agenda :

Wednesday, May 17
8:00 am Registration
9:00 am* Opening Religious/Spiritual Rituals.
10:00 am Introduction to the Conference: Robyn Thomas and Rev. Robert Hardies
10:30-12:00 am Understanding Spiritual Politics Sister Joan Chittister, Peter* Gabel and Harvey Cox
12:00-12:30 pm* Small Groups and then:
12:30-1:30 pm ** *Lunch with small groups
1:30-3:15 pm** *Keynote Plenary: Rabbi Michael Lerner and U.S. Senator Barack Obama*
3:30-5:15 pm** *Trainings focused on the Spiritual Covenant with America to prepare participants for presenting these ideas to their elected representatives
5:30-6:30 pm** *Workshops on spiritual politics
6:30-8:00 pm** *Dinner break
8:00-11:00 pm** *Concert and speakers on the Role of Spirit and Religion in Politics Rev. William Sinkford, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, Abdul Aziz Said, Rabbi Brian Walt, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Rev. Tony Campolo

Thursday, May 18
7:30-9:00 am*** Prayer breakfast to pray for our country and its leadership, and to pray for receptivity to the Spiritual Covenant with America Jim Wallis*
9:00-1:00 pm** *Teach-in to Congress on Spiritual Politiics at the Capitol Building 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Individual meetings with elected representatives by participants
1:00-3:00 pm**** Pray-in for peace outside the White House
3:30 pm Workshops on spiritual politics
5:00-6:30 pm** The Struggle for the Heart & Mind of Traditional Religious Communities Rev. Paul Sherry. Rev. Jim Winkler, Glen Harold Stassen, and more
6:30-7:30 pm** *Dinner break with small groups,
7:30-8:15 pm** *Song and Inspiration from Holly Near and All Souls Choir
8:15-9:30 pm** *Iraq and New Visions for Foreign Policy Cindy Sheehan
9:30-10:30 pm** *Evening Plenary: How to Make the Liberal World Diverse Not Only in Race, Sex and Gender, but also in Class and* Religious Orientation Rev. Lynice Pinkard, Rabbi Arthur Waskow
10:30-12:00 pm** *Young People’s concert and discussions

Friday, May 19
7:30-9:00 am** Spiritual and Religious Practices
9:00 am** *Plenary on Science, Spirituality and Evolution *
10:30 am** *Plenary on Spirituality and Sexuality* Rev. Ama Zenya, Rev. Donna Schaper, Rabbi Debora Kohn, Rev. Penny Nixon
12:00 Noon** *Small group meetings and lunch
1:30 pm** *** *Plenary on How to Bring a Spiritual Poltiics into the Heart of the Democrats and into the Liberal and Progressive Social Change Movements.* Directions for 2006, 2008 and beyond. Christopher Hedges,*and many more
3:30 pm** *Workshops focused on the Spiritual Covenant with Americans
5:00 pm** *Workshops on Spiritual Politics
6:30 pm** *Dinner Break
7:30 pm** *Shabbat Service
8:00 pm** *Evening Plenary:* Spiritual Progressives Facing The Globalization of Selfishness (the globalization of capital, the environmental crisis)* Charlene Spretnak , Jonathan Granoff, Robert Thurman, and more.

Saturday, May 20
9:00 am** *Spiritual Practices: Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Native American and Jewish Shabbat Services
9-10:30 am** *Other Spiritual workshops
10:30-11 am** *Small group meetings 11 a.m. Plenary:* The War in Iraq and the Spiritual Contribution to an AntiWar Movement. Speaker: Cornel West, Arun Gandhi ** *** *** *
12:15 pm** *Small groups and lunch
2:00 pm** *Summaries of discussions on the Spiritual Covenant with Americans
3:30 pm** *Strategies for the NSP in the coming year
5:30 pm** *Dinner break
7:30 pm** *Poetry
8:00 pm** *Human Rights, Spiritual Wisdom and Planetary Sanity: Roshi Bernie Glassman, Harry Knox, Michael Posner, Thea* Levokowitz and Pamela Taylor Evening Concert Performance from the play "Motherblood," humor from Swami Beyondonanda and music from Michael Franti.

•** *Invited but not yet confirmed

Workshops
Among the workshops being presented at the conference:
*** Spiritual Economics. What would an economy look like that was guided by our highest spiritual vision? Alana Hartzok and John Surr and more

*** The Spiritual Crisis in Our Lives Generated by the War in Iraq Stacy Bannerman

*** Non-Violence Training* Janet Chishold, Episcopal Peace Fellowship

*** Ecology and Spirituality* John Seed

*** Torture: Building a Spiritual/Religious Campaign Against Torture Rabbi Brian Walt

*** A New Bottom Line in Professions: Peter Gabel and Nanette Schorr

*** War and Pacifism: A Progressive Evangelical Christian Approach:* Michael J. Gorman, Ph.D., Dean,

*** Religion and Faith in the GLBT Community, Harry Knox, Director, Religion and Faith Program, Human Rights Campaign

*** End of Life Decisions: Barbara Coombs Lee and others

*** The Right Wing Assault in Protestant Denominations: How can progressives most effectively counter the attempts of the Right to splinter the Protestant world and assault those who take seriously Biblical injunctions to pursue justice and peace?

**** Rebuilding the Spiritual Life of Clergy: Changing the Bottom Line in our churches, synagogues and faith-based institutions.

•** *Youth Caucus: creating a progressive spiritual culture for twenty- and early thirty-somethings-and reaching out to high school and college students.
•** *Spiritual but not Religious People Uniting with Progressive Religious Folk!

 

[lilithu]

It was a smashing success and we made the front page of the Washington Post!! Wish you guys were all there.

From WashingtonPost.com:
Religious Liberals Gain New VisibilityA Different List Of Moral Issues By Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 20, 2006; Page A01

The religious left is back.

Long overshadowed by the Christian right, religious liberals across a wide swath of denominations are engaged today in their most intensive bout of political organizing and alliance-building since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s, according to scholars, politicians and clergy members.

In large part, the revival of the religious left is a reaction against conservatives' success in the 2004 elections in equating moral values with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Religious liberals say their faith compels them to emphasize such issues as poverty, affordable health care and global warming. Disillusionment with the war in Iraq and opposition to Bush administration policies on secret prisons and torture have also fueled the movement.

"The wind is changing. Folks -- not just leaders -- are fed up with what is being portrayed as Christian values," said the Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior minister of First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio, and a founder of We Believe Ohio, a statewide clergy group established to ensure that the religious right is "not the only one holding a megaphone" in the public square.

"As religious people we're offended by the idea that if you're not with the religious right, you're not moral, you're not religious," said Linda Gustitus, who attends Bethesda's River Road Unitarian Church and is a founder of the new Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture. "I mean there's a whole universe out there [with views] different from the religious right. . . . People closer to the middle of the political spectrum who are religious want their voices heard."

Recently, there has been an increase in books and Web sites by religious liberals, national and regional conferences, church-based discussion groups, and new faith-oriented political organizations. "Organizationally speaking, strategically speaking, the religious left is now in the strongest position it's been in since the Vietnam era," said Clemson University political scientist Laura R. Olson.

What is not clear, according to sociologists and pollsters, is whether the religious left is growing in size as well as activism. Its political impact, including its ability to influence voters and move a legislative agenda, has also yet to be determined.
"I do think the religious left has become more visible and assertive and is attempting to get more organized," said Allen D. Hertzke, a University of Oklahoma political science professor who follows religious movements. "But how big is it? The jury is still out on that."

"My gut tells me that all this foment [on the religious left] is bound to create more involvement in politics," he said. "I don't know whether there's going to be more of them numerically, but you don't need greater numbers to have a political impact; all you need is to be more active. You already see that in Ohio and some other states, where Christian conservatives no longer have a monopoly on faith in politics."

for the rest of the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901813.html

 

[Green Gaia]

That's great Lilith! :clap2: