Building an interfaith community

July 27, 2015 - August 14, 2015
Offered by
Celigny
Switzerland
Course Website

 

This 3 week residential course is designed to enable participants to encounter each other in mutual respect, to learn together, and to challenge and overcome stereotypes. While fully respecting and affirming each particular faith identity, the overall question to be explored is: What can we, as people of faith, do to respond and to overcome, the pressing challenges of our time as violence and conflict and build together mutually accountable societies based on respect and cooperation ?

Building an interfaith community, Bossey, 27 July to 14 August 2015

This 3 week residential course is designed to enable participants to encounter each other in mutual respect, to learn together, and to challenge and overcome stereotypes. While fully respecting and affirming each particular faith identity, the overall question to be explored is: What can we, as people of faith, do to respond and to overcome, the pressing challenges of our time as violence and conflict and build together mutually accountable societies based on respect and cooperation?

The participants will learn from each other through shared experiences, life in community, and academic work and to have been prepared to make a future positive contribution to interreligious engagement in their own contexts. The structure of the program is as follows:

Spiritual sharing

Every day will begin with devotion and meditation, for which each faith group will organize its own “sacred” space and taking turns, each will lead morning devotions in the presence of the others.

Scriptural Reasoning

Selected texts related to the theme of the course from the sacred scriptures of each faith community will be studied in turn.

Lectures, panels and workshops

Formal lectures will be given by specialists from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. Further reflections will be done through plenary discussions, through panels, group discussions, workshops and community building exercises.

Exposure visits

Group visits to places of worship along with opportunities to interact with members of different faith communities present in Geneva.
The course is open to young people between 18-35 years, with a maximum of 30 people to be accepted on the course. The goal is to have 10 Jews, 10 Muslims and 10 Christians from a vast geographic and cultural representation. Participants should be well grounded in their own faiths and be positioned to influence the thinking of members of their wider faith communities after completion of the summer course. Those responsible for the course are working towards eventual accreditation for the course by the University of Geneva.

This seminar is co-organised by the Ecumenical Institute Bossey, the WCC Programme on Inter-religious Dialogue and Cooperation, the Inter-knowing Foundation (Muslim) and the Racines et Sources Foundation (Jewish). It will involve programme executives from various WCC focus areas, (i.e. inter-religious dialogue, economic justice, women, etc.) giving short-term lectures during the seminar.

The course will be led by Prof. Lawrence Iwuamadi with Dr. Clare Amos, Ms Anu Talvivaara and colleagues from the Jewish and Muslim partner institutions.

Categories: Communications  |  Seminars  |  World Religions