Country: United States
City:
Building Interfaith Awareness at Phillips Academy
World Interfaith Harmony Week, February 1–7 this year, was established by the United Nations in 2010 and has been celebrated at Andover since 2015. Its purpose is to “spread the message of harmony and tolerance among the followers of all the world’s religions, faiths, and beliefs” by promoting their common basis of “Love of God or Love of the Good, and Love of the Neighbor.”
At Andover, student faith and cultural clubs will meet together and the interfaith prayer blanket project—supporting the Welcome Blanket organization that serves immigrant families—will again be active on campus for the month of February.
Rev. Quardricos Driskell (Christian-Protestant, Baptist)—Pastor, policy expert, federal lobbyist in issues of health disparities, adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management
Dr. Shashikala Dwarkanath (Hindu)—Physician, educator, spiritual leader; founder and spiritual head of Chinmaya Mission, Boston, one of New England’s largest Hindu spiritual centers
Dr. Celine Ibrahim (Muslim)—Author of
Women and Gender in the Qur’an (2020), international speaker on issues of religion and civic engagement, faculty and chaplain at Groton Academy
Dr. Yehezkel Landau (Jewish)—A dual Israeli and American citizen, interfaith educator, and consultant active in Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations and Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding for over 40 years
Mr. Chris Stedman (Humanist/Atheist)—Writer, activist, professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minnesota; author of
IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020); founding director of the Yale Humanist Community; former humanist chaplain at Harvard
Dr. Lawrence Sullivan (Christian-Catholic)—Papal Counselor–Pontificium Consilium pro Dialogo inter Religiones, the Vatican; former professor at University of Chicago, Harvard University, and Notre Dame University