One Family

The Newsletter of the World Congress of Faiths

January 2006

Website: http://www.worldfaiths.org                                 Charity Number: 244096

 

 

 

70th Anniversary Year

 

 

Faith Meeting Faith: a rich resource for life

 

The World Congress of Faiths seeks to bridge the almost unbridgeable: to make bonds of friendship based on knowledge and understanding and to celebrate the differences between religions. While accepting the differences of history and belief between faith communities, we affirm and support each of the faith groups represented at our gatherings.  We seek to bring together those who are firm adherents of their own faiths, and who wish to learn from others in a non-judgemental and supportive fashion. In this way, hopefully, we work towards ending the destructive enmity that so tragically dogs the relationships between so many people of faith.

 

 

Sheikh Dr M. A. Zaki Badawi KBE

 

As One Family was going to print, news was received of the death of Dr Zaki Badawi.  He was of profound importance both to the world of interfaith and wider society.  His scholarship of the Qur'an, and his words of great wisdom and sensitivity, will be greatly missed.  The World Congress of Faiths offers its condolences to both his family, and members of the Muslim community. He will be greatly missed.

 

An appreciation of Dr Badawi will be included in the next edition of One Family; however, a copy of the announcement of his death from the Three Faiths Forum, of which he was a co-founder, is included in this edition.

 

World Congress of Faiths: Forthcoming Events:

 

February 18:    A Heart for the World: The Interfaith Alternative.  This is the third in a series on

Fideology - Faith as Trust, at Croydon Unitarian Church at 9.30 a.m. for 10.00 a.m.

March 5:          Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sir Francis Youghusband: What is their Message for Today?  Golders Green Unitarian Church from 11.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

April 27:          Younghusband Lecture and WCF a.g.m. at St. John's Church, Waterloo (opposite
Waterloo mainline railway station).

May 12-14:      WCF Conference, at Fintry House, nr Godalming, Surrey.

July 23:             'Forgiveness'.  Speakers include:  Dr Anne Primavesi and Ms Alexandra Asseily 

September 5:   Visit to the British Library to see Hebrew manuscripts from 5.30 p.m. to 7.45 p.m.

September 10: Service for Animals: Golders Green Unitarian Church.

October 23-24: International Interfaith Conference, organised jointly with Birmingham University, Department of Theology and Religion. Further details: e-mail: mailto:D.CHEETHAM@bham.ac.uk

November 20:  Moral Maze: Morality without Religion.

 

There will also be a special anniversary edition of the WCF journal Interreligious Insight in July, including a history of the involvement of the World Congress of Faiths in interfaith work, and reflections on the meaning of interfaith relations today. See www.interreligiousinsight.org

 

Further details of all WCF events can be obtained from the WCF office: 125 Salusbury Road, London NW6 6RG,

 telephone number: 01935-864055; e-mail:events@worldfaiths.org or by visiting the WCF website: www.worldfaiths.org

 

Third Annual Fideology Conference:

 

A Heart for the World,

The Interfaith Alternative

 

18 February: 9.30 a.m. for 10.00 a.m.

 

Croydon Unitarian Church, 1 The Flyover (near East Croydon Station)

 

Speakers include:

In the morning: Rev Dr Marcus Braybrooke, who will  be speaking on his new book 'A Heart for the World, the Interfaith Alternative', Rev Alan Race, and Imam Abduljalil Sajid

In the afternoon: Jay Lakhani of the Vivekananda Centre, London,  Dr. Daryl Balia, Gen. Sec., International Assoc. for Religious Freedom, and Alan Ruston, Past President of the Unitarian General Assembly.  

 

Further details: Rev. Anne McClelland, telephone:  020 8679 2626; e-mail:  AnneMcClel@aol.com

 

Please bring a bag lunch; Registration at the door £5.00 

 

 

Report of the Fideology Conference 2005

 

This was held on November 12th at Croydon Unitarian Church, and discussed the topic of ‘Global Consciousness'.   

 

Rev. Cal Courtney and Dr. Joy Barrow gave excellent presentations noting that human beings have moved from isolated tribes to conscious participation in a 'global village'.  Both noted joyful interfaith experiences, as well as new tensions as government funding comes both to fundamentalists and to liberals.  Jehangir Sarosh, President of WCRP Europe, told of the good work of Religions for Peace.  Pejman Khojasteh told of his vision for www.globalbelief.net, a web site he hopes to open early in 2006.  For forty five minutes those present divided into three small groups to continue the discussion of the difference between 'Belief, Faith, and Trust'.

 

In the afternoon, Richard Boeke and Catherine Yang told of the March 2006 IALRW and IARF Congress at the Fo Guang Monastery in southern Taiwan, see www.iarf.net. The afternoon closed with thoughts from two books of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, 'The Faith of Other Men' and Belief and History'.

 

 

 

Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda

and Sir Francis Younghusband

What is their message for today?

 

on

 

Sunday, 5 March

 

from

 

11.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

 

Golders Green Unitarian Church, 31 Hoop Lane, Golders Green, London NW11 8BS

 

Speakers include: Professor Hal French from the USA, Rev Dr Marcus Braybrooke and

Swami Dayatmananda

 

Further details: Rev Feargus O'Connor 020 7837 4472; e-mail: ggunirev@aol.com

 

 

 

News from Marcus Braybrooke

 

The President of India, H.E. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam received members of the recent conference on 'The Inner Voice of Peace' at Rashtrapati Bhawan - the Presidential Palace - in Delhi India. The Rev Dr Marcus Braybrooke, Co-Founder of the Three Faiths Forum and President of the World Congress of Faiths, who was a co-chair of the Conference, presented a bouquet to the President. The conference, which was organised by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, brought together about forty peace-workers of different countries from around the world. Participants stressed the need for people of each faith to stand up for the rights of people of all faiths.

 

Marcus Braybrooke also attended the recent Peace Council meeting in New York. The highlight was an interfaith service in Riverside Church at which HH The Dalai Lama gave an address.

 

 

 

 

Congratulations:

 

Congratulations to Alan Race, who has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) by Leicester University in acknowledgement of his contributions to interfaith relations.

 

 

 

 

David Patterson CBE: June 10, 1922 - December 10, 2005

Vice-President of The World Congress of Faiths

 

An appreciation: Rabbi Jackie Tabick, Chair of World Congress of Faiths

 

David Patterson was born in Liverpool in 1922. His parents were part of the great wave of Jewish emigration to the West which followed the pogroms in Eastern Europe of 1881. This family experience taught him the value of promoting harmony between different religious groups.

 

Leaving school in 1940 he worked as an engineering draughtsman until the end of the war. He then went to Manchester University where he read modern and medieval Hebrew and Arabic. Modern Hebrew literature was his great love. With a first class degree behind him he and his wife Jose went to live in Israel in 1951. He worked first on kibbutz (a collective farm) clearing the land of volcanic rock and then travelled the land, taking whatever jobs emerged. He returned to England in 1953 to take up a post teaching modern Hebrew literature at Manchester university. In 1956 he became the Cowley lecturer in post-biblical Hebrew at Oxford.

 

His greatest achievement was the establishment in 1972 of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies (now the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) at Yarnton Manor. This was acquired by the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust. Patterson had felt keenly the lack of modern Jewish studies at Oxford. Apart from modern Hebrew literature, which had been taught in the department of Oriental studies, modern Jewish history, literature written in other languages, such as Yiddish, together with the history of the State of Israel and many other Jewish topics had been largely disregarded by the university. Within 15 years of its inception the centre had become one of the leading institutions in the world for the study of an impressive range of Hebrew and Jewish subjects, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Yiddish literature.

 

Patterson was appointed CBE in 2003 in recognition for his work as fundraiser, administrator and teacher for this new and important institution which brought Anglo-Jewish scholarship onto the world stage.

 

His desire to establish this new centre of Jewish learning arose out of his wish to try to repair some of the losses to Jewish scholarship caused by the Holocaust, when thousands of Jewish educational institutions had been destroyed. Once more, his studies in this area led him to understand the need for fellowship and dialogue across religious divides, so that such enmity could not arise again.

 

 

 

 

THE THREE FAITHS FORUM

 Christian/Muslim/Jewish Trialogue

 

Founders:                                                                                           Star House, 104 Grafton Road, London NW5 4BA

Sheikh Dr M A Zaki Badawi KBE                                                             Tel: 020 7485 2538   Fax: 020 7485 4512

Sir Sigmund Sternberg KCSG JP                                                         Email: Sidney@sternberg-foundation.co.uk

Revd Dr Marcus Braybrooke DD                                                             Website: www.threefaithsforum.org.uk

Coordinator:

Sidney L Shipton OBE

 

 

 

24th January 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that our revered Co-founder Sheikh Dr. Mohammad Abul Khair Zaki Badawi K.B.E. passed away this morning at a Conference in London. 

 

The Three Faiths Forum send its deepest condolences and sincere sympathies to his family and expresses the hope that they will bear their lost with fortitude and courage knowing that the thoughts of so many of us worldwide, who had the privilege of knowing and working with Dr. Badawi are with them at this sorrowful time.

 

Further information as to his funeral and burial arrangements are not yet available.

 

 

 

 

Sidney L. Shipton OBE 

Co-ordinator of the Three Faiths Forum

 

 

 

WCF Fintry Conference

12 to 14 May

 

Medical Issues of our Age

 

This is your opportunity, within the peaceful surroundings of the countryside at the Fintry Conference Centre, to consider some of the medical dilemmas of our time.  During the conference speakers from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths will reflect on some of the contemporary medical ethical problems of our day.

 

There will be the opportunity both to consider different religious viewpoints, and

 to participate in small group discussions.

 

On the Saturday morning, participants have been invited to attend the Shabbat ceremony in a local synagogue.

 

The cost of the conference is £90 if booked before 31 March and £110 after that date.

 

 

WCF Anniversary Conference

October 23-24

 

(In association with Birmingham University, Department of Theology and Religious Studies)

 

Seeking the Transformation of a Fractured World

 

This is a major international conference at which papers will be presented by scholars from several different countries.

 

Contact: Dr David Cheetham, telephone:  0121 415 8335: e-mail: D.CHEETHAM@bham.ac.uk

 

 

Local Interfaith Events:

 

The Abbey, Sutton Courtney.

March 2:  ‘Whether I toil fly with angels, fall with dust’, poetry with Barbara Vellacott.

March 3-4: ‘Working with the Tree of Life – Close Up and Personal’, speaker: Jennie Benedict.

March 9: ‘Praying Together’, speaker: Marcus Braybrooke.

March 16: ‘Outsider Art’, speaker Julia Elmore and the Oxford Art Society.

March 23: ‘Soul Awakening Through Music’, speaker: Trish Lyth

March 30-31: ‘Nonviolent Communication’, speaker: Bridget Belgrave.

Contact: Telephone: 01235 847401;

e-mail: admin@theabbeysc.demon.co.uk; www.theabbey.uk.com

 

Alister Hardy Society:

April 22 at Friends’ Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford. ‘Writing the story of a Life’, speaker: Shirley

 

Local Iinterfaith Events (continued)

 

du Boulay.  From 10.30 a.m. for 11.00 a.m.

Cost: AHS members: £10.00, non-members £15.00

Contact: Marianne Rankin, telephone: 01684 772417;

e-mail: marianne@johnrankin.demon.co.uk

 

Ammerdown Centre, Radstock, BA3 5SW:

February 10-12: 'Psalm Reading and Writing', speaker: Sarah Fordham, creator of Psalm Readings. 

March 6-10: 'Learning non-violence from Gandhi and Friends', speaker: Professor Hal French.

Contact: telephone: 01761 433709;

e-mail: centre@ammerdown.org

 

The Third Edinburgh International Festival on Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace
February 8 to March 12: 4, William Black Place, South Queensferry, Edinburgh, EH30 9PZ.
Contact: Neill Walker, telephone: 0131 331 4469;

e-mail: njwalk4300@hotmail.co.uk,

website: www.mesp.org.uk