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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

Associate Dean of RPL Diane L. Moore, Associate Director of RLPI Susan O. Hayward, and CRPL Students, from left, Camilla Gray, Prabhroop Kaur Chawla, Kevin Keystone, Ariella Gayotto Hohl, and Auds Hope Jenkins.

An Anchor and a Path: Student Reflections on the Certificate in Religion and Public Life

July 10, 2023

When Susie Hayward, associate director of the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative, came to Harvard Divinity School as a student, she knew that she wanted to pursue a career in foreign policy, peacebuilding, and diplomacy.

“I wanted to bring an understanding of religion into those spaces where a lack of it was preventing progress,” she says. “But I quickly learned that I would have to forge my own way at HDS to develop the relationships and pragmatic skills needed to work in policymaking and diplomacy post-graduation.”

Hayward is one of decades of HDS students who have wanted to pursue vocations outside the two defined dimensions of HDS programs—academia and traditional forms of ministry. When Religion and Public Life (RPL) was created, it responded to this student need with one of its two curricular components, the Certificate in Religion and Public Life (CRPL).... Read more about An Anchor and a Path: Student Reflections on the Certificate in Religion and Public Life

Religion and Public Life

Religion and Public Life Announces 2023-24 Fellows

June 26, 2023

Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) has announced its 2023-24 Fellows in Religious Literacy and the Professions. This cohort of expert practitioners bring deep expertise and social justice commitments to a range of professions (government, education, journalism, organizing, humanitarian action, and arts and popular culture) and to our 2023-24 focus issue—Native and Indigenous rights.

The 2023-24 Religion and Public Life Fellows will join HDS in the fall to support the certificate in religion and public life available to students in the School’s master of divinity and master of theological studies degree programs. Throughout their fellowships, they will remotely support the Religious Literacy and the Professions course, mentor students, work with the program to identify student internship opportunities, and participate in webinars.... Read more about Religion and Public Life Announces 2023-24 Fellows

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