Brookings Interfaith Council: January 2018

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

BIC Discussion topics for Spring '18 finalized! Hope to see you at the discussion sessions!!

Thu, February 15th
Title: The Golden Rules of Dialogue – II
Venue – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Thu, March 15th
Title: Prayers ( from different faiths)
Venue: Brookings Public library, Cooper Room A
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Thu, April 19th
Title: Stereotypes/Religious apparel
Venue: Brookings Public library, Cooper Room B
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Thu, May 17th
Title: Faith and approaches to Social Justice (Faith communities and how we can work together)
Venue – UCC
Time: 6:30 – 8:30 pm

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Please bring a potluck dish to pass, if you are able, or just show up for the evening. All are welcome. Invite a friend. Please be aware that many in our interfaith community do not eat pork or may be vegetarian.

The mission of the Brookings Interfaith Council is to foster genuine understanding, respect and appreciation of diversity among people of faith (including non-theists) in our community. The Council cultivates peace and justice by engaging in dialogue to bridge religious and cultural differences and to bring the wisdom and values of our traditions to bear on the challenges facing our society.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

January 2108 Program description

We have been engaged in Interfaith Dialogue for several years. Many of us will come and go and have taken our message the way we shared it with them. But, we never went back, reminded ourselves and tried to evaluate our practice and listen to our new participants. It is good time for us to start a discussion to remind and energize all of us on the basic rules of interfaith dialogues and share practice of other groups nationally and globally. Such an approach will reenergize and motivate us to bring more projects and discussion points. Dr. Leonard Swidler stated elegantly the three goals of interreligious dialogue as follows:

To know oneself ever more profoundly and enrich and round out one’s appreciation of one’s own faith tradition
To know the other ever more authentically and gain a friendly understanding of others as they are and not in caricature
To live ever more fully accordingly and to establish a more solid foundation for community of life and action among persons of various traditions

The purpose of our next Interfaith Dialogue meeting is to bring up for discussion the golden rules of dialogue and share with each other how to improve our practice and advance to the next level of dialogue. (http://brookingsinterfaith.org/p/principles.html)

We encourage you to check out websites of interesting groups like ours that have a collection of excellent articles. For example, (https://www.scarboromissions.ca/interfaith-dialogue/principles-and-guidelines-for-interfaith-dialogue).