Spirituality & Social Justice

A New Series at the Presidio Interfaith Chapel

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 7:00 - 9:00pm
From Gandhi to King
Presenter: Robert McDermott, Ph.D
California Institute of Integral Studies

Gandhi developed satyagraha (non-violent soul-force) against racism and social injustice; and beginning in 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr. applied Gandhian principles in service of the American civil rights movement. Gandhi drew from the Bhagavad Gita and the Sermon on the Mount; King drew from American Black Protestant Christianity and from Gandhi. Both Gandhi and King extended their religious roots, Hinduism and Christianity respectively, in the service of social justice world wide.

Robert Mc Dermott, Ph.D. in philosophy, Boston University, is president emeritus and professor of philosophy and religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His recent publications include The Bhagavad Gita and the West (2009) and The New Essential Steiner (2009). He is currently writing Unique Not Alone: Steiner and Others.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
The Renewal of Dialogue: the Religious Renewal of Interreligious Relations
Presenter: Jacob Sherman Ph.D
California Institute for Integral Studies

The importance of interreligious dialogue – for negotiating issues of justice, diversity, and peacemaking, both at home and abroad – is more apparent in the twenty-first century than perhaps ever before. This talk will consider the way that interreligious dialogue is today being reinvigorated by a new appeal to the particularity of religious traditions. Rather than minimizing religious differences, the most extraordinary examples of dialogue today encourage participants to plunge deeply into their own respective religious traditions, even into those places where they most disagree, for it seems that only in this deep plunge are the transformative and liberative energies released into the very act of dialogue.

Jacob Sherman is Assistant Professor and core faculty in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He received his PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Cambridge and was previously a Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at King's College London. He is the editor, with Jorge Ferrer, of The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies, and his writings have appeared in journals such as Religious Studies, Modern Theology, and the Heythrop Journal.

 

Tuesday, December 14, 7:00-9:00 pm
St. Francis of Assisi and Franciscan Economics: Medieval & Modern
Presenter: William Short, OFM, STD, Professor of Spirituality,
Franciscan School of Theology, Graduate Theological Union

St. Francis of Assisi refused to claim ownership of anything on earth, yet saw the whole world as God's gift. He believed that almsgiving was a matter of justice, not simply of charity. Son of the rising business class, the Poverello was opposed to using or even touching money. Yet his followers developed early European credit unions, double-entry bookkeeping, and the theory of a "just profit" in business. These complex traditions help to form what can be called a "Franciscan Economics," the subject of tonight's presentation.

Brother Bill Short, with a special love of things medieval, is a scholar equally comfortable in the fields of spirituality, Christian history and the Franciscan tradition. He researches, writes, lectures and translates in four languages. A long-time member of the Board of Trustees of the Franciscan School of Theology, and a former dean and president of the school, Bill continually uses his varied talents to meet the administrative, academic and spiritual needs of the people within and outside his own community.

 

Tuesday, November 9, 2010, 7:00-9:00 pm
Women of the Streets:
Leadership & Service by Lay Women in the Early Franciscan Tradition
Presenter: Darleen Pryds,
Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality and Medieval History
Franciscan School of Theology, Graduate Theological Union

An exploration of the strong leadership that lay women in the Franciscan tradition took in the 13th and 14th century in a way that offers models of lay leadership today. Rose of Viterbo, an adolescent street preacher; Margaret of Cortona, a woman who offered pastoral care; Angela of Foligno, a teacher of theologians, and Sancia of Naples, a queen who served the poor: these four lay women and others were all recognized by their peers as leaders in faith and service. Their stories are inspirational and educational for people today of all faiths.

Dr. Darleen Pryds' research investigates lay leadership in the Catholic tradition. Her books include The King Embodies the Word: Robert of Anjou and the Politics of Preaching (2000) and most recently, Women of the Streets: Early Franciscan Women and their Mendicant Vocations (2010). In her spare time she enjoys playing tennis competitively and volunteers at Zen Hospice in San Francisco.

 

Sponsorship

 

The Interfaith Center at the Presidio was created to welcome, serve, and celebrate the diverse spiritual wisdom and faith traditions of the Bay Area. At home in the Main Post Interfaith Chapel, the Center is networked with hundreds of interfaith groups locally and globally. We share a common commitment: to promote daily, enduring interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.

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