The Spirituality and Social Justice Symposium

April 16th

2 PM ET (check your timezone)

Join us April 16th for an exploration of the intersection of spirituality and social justice. Learn from leading thinkers and activists on how their spiritual beliefs and principals motivate them to work for a more just world. Use this opportunities to reflect on your own spiritual journey and how you can use your spirituality to make a sustainable impact.

The symposium will include a panel discussion, followed by breakout sessions in the areas of inclusion, prophetic empathy, politics and spirituality, and conflict resolution.

Attend this free symposium, and then continue your learning with optional workshops. (All times Eastern/New York Time)

Symposium

• April 16 (2-3:30PM)

Follow-up events

• April 22 (2-5PM): Practicing the 12 Steps of Inclusivity (Shariff Abdullah)

• April 23: (noon-3PM) Prophetic Empathy and Revolutionary (Rabbi Cat Zavis)

Panelists

• Shariff Abdullah is a long-time activist who in the early 1960s he helped found the Black People’s Unity Movement (BPUM), an organization dedicated to self-help and development in the inner city of Camden. He later became an attorney and received national awards for innovative self-help and community-empowerment activities. Despite these successes, Shariff became increasingly disillusioned with the adversarial process as a means of social change. He founded the Commonway Institute and widened his focus, from attempting to change society via community and economic development projects, to transforming society by shifting consciousness and creating sustainable, inclusive, empowered and value-driven individuals and organizations.
• Lucas Johnson is the executive director of The On Being Project's Civil Conversations & Social Healing team and a human rights advocate and public theologian with deep, global experience in conflict resolution and community organizing. He was a leader in the U.S. community of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), the world’s oldest interfaith peace organization and H has been shaped by his time learning from veterans of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., most closely Vincent Harding and Dorothy Cotton, and by his work with human rights activists around the world, especially in Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
• Rabbi Cat Zavis is the Exectuive Director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and a long time activist in social change work. She has worked as a volunteer with the American Civil Liberties Union, and with prisoners' rights organizationas, domestic violence victimes, the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, and many others. She's worked as a public defender and then as a women's rights lawyer. Cat grounds her life and work int he wisdom and spiritual traditions and brings these values into her work everyday.

Follow-up Events

• Practicing the 12-Steps of Inclusivity: April 22, 2-5 PM (Shariff Abdullah).

This workshop will teach you how you live in the world as a sacred being, interacting with other sacred beings… including those who don’t act sacred toward you! In our highly polarized social environment, it's more critical than ever to learn the practice of inclusivity. And to realize that it's a primary human value, not just a "good idea" or something involving race relations or social justice issues. The registration cost of this workshop includes the cost of the popular workbook, Practicing the 12 Steps of Inclusivity, also available on Amazon.com.

• Prophetic Empathy and Revolutionary Love: April 23, noon-3 PM (Rabbi Cat Zavis). Explore how to marshall the wisdom of the Hebrew prophets and combine this wisdom with an empathic discourse to help build a loving and just world. Rabbi Zavis will share how we can create activist movements that avoid demeaning people on any side of the political spectrum and envision the world for which we yearn - a world of love, compassion, generosity, and justice. Join us to engage in rich teachings, explorations, and learning.