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Climate Justice Week

Video: Examining the Religious and Spiritual Implications of Climate Change

July 24, 2023

On April 14, 2023, Religion and Public Life hosted a conversation featuring Terry Tempest Williams, Matt Ichihashi Potts, Rev. Vernon K. Walker, and Anna Del Castillo who examined the religious and spiritual implications of climate change. What role does religion play in the movement for climate justice? How can religious communities serve as sites of organizing and activism? Panelists discussed these questions through the lenses of religious literacy, climate grief, climate ministry, and practices to guide communities through the perils of climate catastrophe.... Read more about Video: Examining the Religious and Spiritual Implications of Climate Change

Speakers Professor Aprilfaye Manalang, Jeanne Shin-Cooper, and Shin-Cooper's student Audrey Ro for the Educator Webinar: Religious Literacy and Nurses' Stories in the Age of COVID and Anti-Asian Hate

Video: Educator Webinar: Religious Literacy and Nurses' Stories in the Age of COVID and Anti-Asian Hate

July 24, 2023

On May 8, 2023, Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School hosted a conversation with Professor Aprilfaye Manalang of Norfolk State University to learn about her ongoing research on religious identity, grief, and COVID with Filipina-American nurses, as well as Jeanne Shin-Cooper of Buffalo Grove High School in Illinois whose students are taking part in this critical interview project. Prof. Manalang discussed her pedagogical practice of promoting Asian-American understanding at a Historically Black University, and the process of communicating this research to a public audience via podcast.... Read more about Video: Educator Webinar: Religious Literacy and Nurses' Stories in the Age of COVID and Anti-Asian Hate

Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, RPL Government Fellow

A Slippery Slope: What the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Mean for Religion in the U.S.

July 21, 2023

This summer, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued two major decisions with religion at the center of the cases. In Groff v. DeJoy, the court bolstered protections for workers asking for religious accommodations, and in 303 Creative v. Elenis, SCOTUS sided with a Colorado web designer who did not want to provide services to same-sex couples.... Read more about A Slippery Slope: What the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Mean for Religion in the U.S.

Poster thumbnail for Suzannah Omonuk's, MDiv '23, poetry reading event "In the garden we sat weeping."

Video: In the garden we sat weeping: A Poetry Reading with Suzannah Omonuk

July 20, 2023

On April 19, 2023, Religion and Public Life hosted a poetry reading featuring Suzannah Omonuk, MDiv '23. She said, "I see my craft as a poet as being first and foremost grief work. To re-imagine and commit ourselves to a more peaceful and just world, we must first grieve the harms that have necessitated this pursuit."... Read more about Video: In the garden we sat weeping: A Poetry Reading with Suzannah Omonuk

The Planet You Inherit by Larry Rasmussen Book Cover

Video: Book Event: The Planet You Inherit

July 20, 2023

On April 20, 2023, Religion and Public Life hosted a talk with Larry L. Rasmussen, Christian Environmental Ethicist, and Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary. He was in conversation with Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life; Lecturer on Religion, Conflict, and Peace; and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions, as well as Terry Tempest Williams, author, environmental activist, HDS Writer-in-Residence; and john gehman, MTS '24, Council of Student Sustainability Leaders.... Read more about Video: Book Event: The Planet You Inherit

Climate Week logo

Video: Examining the Religious and Spiritual Implications of Climate Change

July 20, 2023
On May 11, 2023, Religion and Public Life hosted an online conversation with Harvard Divinity School faculty members Matthew Ichihasi Potts, Janet Gyatso, and Diane L. Moore who examined the religious and spiritual implications of climate change. George Sarrinikolaou, executive director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, offered remarks as a respondent. This event was part of Harvard Climate Action Week.... Read more about Video: Examining the Religious and Spiritual Implications of Climate Change
From left, RPL fellows Cynthia Wilson and Teresa Cavazos Cohn and Associte Director of RLPI Susie Hayward in Bears Ears National Monument

Tend to Your Questions: Lessons Learned as the RPL Climate Justice Fellow

July 10, 2023

While at RPL, I’ve learned that the most vibrant interdisciplinary spaces may be unexpected and, by nature, emergent. I often wondered at the shape of the other fellows’ questions, the language they used, the way they engaged with their challenges. That process changed me as I put that creative energy into practice.... Read more about Tend to Your Questions: Lessons Learned as the RPL Climate Justice Fellow

Religion and the Legacies of Slavery Poster Thumbnail

We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest: Creating Space for an Honest Reckoning Through Religion and the Legacies of Slavery

July 10, 2023
“That which touches me most is that I had a chance to work with people 
Passing onto others that which was passed onto me. 
Not needing to clutch for power. Not needing the light just to shine on me. 
I need to be one in the number as we stand against tyranny. 
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize 
That teaching others to stand up and fight is the only way my struggle survives 
 
We who believe in freedom cannot rest. 
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes."
 

“Ella’s Song” by Sweet Honey in the Rock opened each of the six sessions of the Harvard Divinity School (HDS) webinar series, “Religion and the Legacies of Slavery,” setting an expectation for all those present. This series of six critical conversations that were built upon the The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Committee would be more than academically rigorous. It would be a place where personal reckoning became a community struggle.... Read more about We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest: Creating Space for an Honest Reckoning Through Religion and the Legacies of Slavery

Shir Lovett-Graff, MTS '23, in Israel/Palestine. Photo courtesy of Shir Lovett-Graff.

Paradox and Shabbat in Israel/Palestine: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine

July 10, 2023

Growing up, I was taught that Shabbat, the day of rest, is “a taste of the world to come”––“a palace in time” where we can imagine life as it should be. But in Israel/Palestine, sirens announced Shabbat like an echo of an incoming emergency, 24 hours in which essential public services shut down and time slowed without consent.... Read more about Paradox and Shabbat in Israel/Palestine: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine

Kevin Keystone, MTS ’23.

56 Years of Temporary: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine

July 10, 2023

When you get to the Ofer Military Court, you are nowhere. The parking lot is just a wide expanse of sand and gravel. The path to the court itself is long and winding. It sort of goes on forever. It’s a little bit like you're walking into no-man’s-land or the desert. But there are some giveaways.  

At the top of a tall embankment is a military base—clue number one. Along the other side of the path you walk down is a tall fence with barbed wire curled along the top—another giveaway. But at the entrance to that parking lot is a man who sells tea and snacks.  

It’s strange, this oasis in the middle of the desert, until you realize, oh, many people must come here, and that’s how he makes a living. He makes a living from the many Palestinians and just the handful of Israelis who come here. The Palestinians come as prisoners and their families and maybe an attorney or two. The Israelis are only ever soldiers and judges. Israelis are never prisoners here, which is, at some level, the root of the apartheid system.... Read more about 56 Years of Temporary: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine

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