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Faith & Society: Serving, Being Mad, & Blessing Same-Sex Love

April 19, 2012

Greetings!

  

Religion has always been controversial. This is only appropriate since it is through our religious beliefs, practices, and communities that humans express what matters to them. What do you see as just, good, and beautiful? 

 

Many of us struggle with the ways our faith impacts society and the ways society impacts our faith. How do we make our faith relevant? This month we are exploring dynamic relationships between religion and society, and would love for you to explore with us. 

 

We are diving into diverse topics and asking questions of each other: 

  • What can Wall Street and Wall Street protesters learn from interfaith dialogue?  How can we move beyond being mad? 
  • How do our religions bless same-gender love?  How do we create new rites for new times? 
  • How can people of different faiths serve the world together? How can youth make a difference for their neighbors?   
  • What happens when women gather to share their spirituality? How do we welcome each new season of life? 

The answers will come through self-awareness, struggle, and action. Faith House invites you to engage and experience faith and society through your neighbor.  We believe this will deepen your journey. Thank you for joining Faith House in stepping boldly towards understanding.

Special Event
Being Mad and What to Do about It:  

What the Occupiers and the Occupied Can Learn from Interfaith Dialogue

 
 
   
UTS Being Mad

 

Thursday, April 26

7 PM   

 

James Chapel
Union Theological Seminary

3041 Broadway at 121st Street

 

RSVP on UTS Website  

     

Dr. Samir Selmanovic, Christian pastor, cross-sector activist, and author will reflect on the current negative experience of capitalism in the United States. He will share his experience and philosophy of religious pluralism and discuss how it demands progressives/liberals such as himself to engage "the other." 

 

The evening will include a panel discussion with diverse interlocutors, time for sharing by all, and will be hosted by Professor Paul Knitter.

 

Guest Panelists:

  • Monika Mitchel, CEO of Good Business International and co-author of Conversations with Wall Street: The Inside Story of Financial Armageddon and How to Prevent the Next One (2011)
  • Allison Burtch, Occupy Wall Street Journal, contributing editor
  • Rev. James H. Cooper, Rector of Trinity Wall Street Church
Photo: Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Stierle meditates as police surround the Occupy Oakland encampment on Monday, Nov. 14, 2011, by Noah Berger.
Living Room 
Same-Gender Blessings: A Covenant of Love 
 
RingsWednesday, May 9  

 

Doors 6 PM

Program 7-8:30 PM

Followed by Snacks

 

Charlotte's Place

107 Greenwich Street  

btwn Rector & Carlisle St

 

                                                                      With Bowie Snodgrass  

 

Please RSVP on Faith House Website.  Free & open to the public.
Donations accepted online or at event. 

 

As same-sex marriage and civil union laws pass throughout the country, churches and other religious communities are struggling with their role in blessing LGBT covenants of love. In 2009, the Episcopal Church's General Convention (an 1100-person legislative body of bishops, clergy and lay deputies) daringly voted to produce resources for same-gender blessings, which will be proposed "for trial use" at this summer's General Convention.

 

Bowie Snodgrass will share from her experience as a member of the Task Group who created the new proposed rite for same-gender blessings.  The evening will include a dramatic reading of the liturgy, song, scripture, and ample time for discussion.  Whatever your perspective, come experience and engage this topic with your questions, doubts, excitement, and curiosity.      

 

For more information, visit the Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music's "Same-Gender Blessings Project"

 

Bowie Snodgrass is Executive Director of Faith House Manhattan, co-founder of Transmission, an emerging church, and was a member of the Task Group that produced a new liturgy for same-gender blessings for the Episcopal Church. She was Web Content Editor of EpiscopalChurch.org from 2004-2007 and before that worked in the Episcopal Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. She majored in Religious Studies at Vassar College and received her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a member of the Congregation of Saint Savior at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and lives in Harlem with her husband, George Mathew, and one-year-old son, Jacob.  

In faith,

 

Bowie Snodgrass, Executive Director  
Frank Fredericks, Community Development Administrator

Samir Selmanovic, Founder & Director for Strategic Planning and Community Engagement

WHAT'S HAPPENING?
4/26 Being Mad and What to Do About It: Special Event with Samir Selmanovic
5/9 LIVING ROOM Same-Gender Blessings: A Covenant of Love
4/21 Day of Interfaith Youth Service
5/19 Spring Women's Spirituality Circle
Website Repairs in Progress
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Day of Interfaith Youth Service 2012
World Faith
Saturday, April 21
11 AM - 2 PM
Harlem Success Community Garden, 134th Street, btwn Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell 
 
Join World Faith for the 6th annual Day of Interfaith Youth Service and help transform an abandoned community garden into a small farm for inner-city students. 
We will be doing gardening and other tasks for the Harlem Success Community Garden. All are welcome! Be dressed for getting dirty!
RSVP via Facebook or just show up! 
Spring Women's Spirituality Circle 

Saturday, May 19

3-6 PM

Upper East Side Home (with garden)

 

Spring has sprung. And so, we circle! Please bring something to nosh on and your beautiful selves. Looking forward to sitting together, gazing together, creating, giving, and receiving together. For women of all faiths or none. 

Deepest Peace, Ashley and Jill  

Learn more/RSVP, email Jill Minkoff 

Website Repairs 
in Progress
This weekend, we had a total website meltdown while trying to fix a small problem and install updates. Frank rescued the bulk of our site, but the remaining repairs may take a couple of weeks. Please be patient and contact Frank or Bowie if you can't find something. 

We are an experiential inter-religious community who comes together to deepen our personal and communal journeys, share ritual life and devotional space, and foster a commitment to justice and healing the world.