Thanks to Kona and March program

A very special thanks to Kona Goulet for her wonderful talk to kickoff our "Faith and Finance" series. It made us think about: does the way we spend our money reflect our higher values? I'd recommend tracking your spending (to the penny) for one week and you'll be surprised where the money goes. Give it a try.

We look forward to seeing everyone on March 27th at 7pm for the 2nd talk of our "Faith and Finance" series.

"Economic Turmoil and Financial Abundance"

Andrew Wang, Senior Vice President at Runnymede Capital Management, addresses the importance of financial health in one's pursuit of physical, mental and spiritual well being. Drawing from personal and professional experience, Andrew discusses the subject of money from a Christian perspective as it relates to materialism, giving, prosperity and success. Amidst the back drop of a contracting economy, global banking crisis, and corporate malfeasance, Andrew shares the foundation of his financial ministry and how Christian views on money apply to the current economic turmoil.

Andrew is a Senior Vice President and an Equity Portfolio Manager at Runnymede Capital Management, a registered investment adviser that serves individuals and institutional clients. Runnymede Capital Management was recently nominated as investment "Manager of the Year" for 2008 by the editors of Financial Investment News. In 1996, Runnymede coined the term "Financial Hurricanes." In the face of major downturns, Andrew believes that you must take defensive positioning which has benefits in terms of financial and emotional health. Andrew holds a B.A. in International Studies with honors from Trinity College.

2009 Kickoff event with Kona Goulet. Please join us February 27th.

Next week, we look forward to our first event of 2009. Please join us Friday, February 27th at 7pm at the Rubin Museum of Art. Our first speaker of the season is Kona Goulet, Director of Development for EnlightenNext.

"Keeping the Faith: Pursuing Higher Values in Challenging Times"

You may have heard the refrain, “If you want to know what you value in life, just look in your check book.” In these challenging times, when we tend to become more conservative, the question is, what are we conserving? Do we conserve that which matters most? After we cut out the “excess” in our lives, is what’s left a reflection of our higher values? Or do we succumb to survival instincts and leave our higher aspirations to times less troubling? In this talk, Kona Goulet, Director of Development for EnlightenNext, will speak about how in challenging times we must ask ourselves even more deeply just how much our lives (and finances) are expressing our faith and our deepest values.

Kona Goulet is Director of Development for EnlightenNext, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and dedicated to the evolution of consciousness and culture. She is one of Cohen’s senior students and has been practicing his teaching philosophy of Evolutionary Enlightenment for fourteen years. Goulet has worked for the past decade in the corporate and financial sectors in England, Australia and Holland. She first became the Managing Director for EnlightenNext in the UK in 2004 and two years later, became the Director of Development at the EnlightenNext World Center based in Lenox, Massachusetts. She is a passionate advocate for the potential of philanthropy to uplift and transform culture. Her work entails developing creative forums for philanthropists to come together as agents of transformation.

Faith and Finance

We're just two weeks away from our 2009 kickoff event with Kona Goulet on February 27th!!! With the financial turmoil surrounding all our lives, the Interfaith Experience team thought "Faith and Finance" would be an interesting topic to expand upon for our winter/spring season.

The roots of finance have seemingly been corrupted by greed and poor risk controls. The foundations of the global financial system are broken. The global divide between the rich and poor is ever increasing. The need for sustainable business models grows everyday in the wake of global climate change. All these matters are of profound importance for all of us and one wonders what faith communities and traditions have to say about these challenges and possible solutions in the years to come.

We look forward to exploring these issues with our speakers and hope that you can join us for the journey. Please join us on February 27th with speaker Kona Goulet.

February kickoff

The first Interfaith Experience event of 2009 will take place on February 27th. Please mark it down on your calendars. Stay tuned for more info.

If you are interested in volunteering and/or becoming an active member of the planning committee, please email Chris at cwang@runnymede.com.

November - Contemporary Paganism

We are pleased to announce that our November speaker is Wiccan High Priestess Judy Harrow. Published author and Chair of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Cherry Hill Seminary, Judy will give an overview of Paganism and the various beliefs and practices of its practitioners today. Her talk is entitled, "Contemporary Paganism: Living an Ancient Faith in the Modern World." Please join us on November 21st at 7pm at the Rubin Museum of Art. We look forward to seeing you at the event.

"Contemporary Paganism: Living an Ancient Faith in the Modern World."

Paganism, Neo-Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft: these words carry a whiff of weirdness. Are we talking about harmless eccentrics, people in the grip of dangerous delusions, defiant social misfits, or maybe even worse? Actually, Pagans look just like anybody else in the supermarket or on the subway. They have ordinary jobs, homes, and families, and the normal range of other interests. But they base their spiritual practice on some different core assumptions. Modern Paganism is a new religious movement, small but growing fast, that seeks to revive the long-suppressed shamanic, nature-based, polytheistic spiritual traditions of Europe, to live in a modern, urban environment while honoring Mother Earth and Father Sky, and following the Sacred cycle of the Seasons and the phases of the Moon. And, yes, they practice magic.

The Greening of Faith & Why It Matters

We are very pleased to announce that the Reverend Fletcher Harper will be leading our October 24th event. With global warming and climate change an ever increasing concern, Rev. Harper will discuss the role of religion in the environmental sustainability movement from an interfaith perspective.

Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition based in New Jersey. An award-winning spiritual writer and nationally-recognized preacher on the environment, he has developed a range of innovative programs to make GreenFaith one of the most respected religious-environmental groups in the US. A graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary, Harper served as a parish priest for ten years and in leadership positions in the Episcopal Church prior to joining GreenFaith.

Founded in 1992, GreenFaith is New Jersey’s interfaith coalition for the environment. GreenFaith inspires, educates and mobilizes people of diverse spiritual backgrounds to deepen their relationship with the sacred in nature and to restore the earth for future generations. At a time when religious conflicts dominate the headlines, GreenFaith unites people of diverse faiths toward the shared value of caring for the earth.

Through religious-environmental education programs, by greening the operation of religious institutions and the homes of their members, and through legislative advocacy and values-based environmental activism, GreenFaith helps religious institutions and people of all faiths put their belief into action for the earth and all its inhabitants.

Fall Kickoff - September 26th - Join Us!

We hope that everyone had an amazing summer as we are very excited for the upcoming fall season of the Interfaith Experience. The first event of the season is this Friday, September 26th at 7pm. Please join Seton Hall professor Peter Savastano as he discusses the African-based religions in the diaspora. Our October event will be held on the 24th with the Reverend Fletcher Harper of GreenFaith, an interfaith coalition for the environment.

"African-Based Religions in the Diaspora: An Exploration of Fluidity, Ambiguity, Relationality and Transformation."

When most people are asked to define religion, their response is often "religion is a set of beliefs", especially in those cultures historically associated with the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). While "belief" plays a role in the African based traditions in the Diaspora (i.e., Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria or Lucumi, Brazilian Candomble, and others), it is not dominant. Rather, in the African-based Diasporic traditions the focus is on the dynamics of healing ritual activity not creedal statements and/or doctrinal theological formulations.

In the African based traditions in the Diaspora, there is no Pope (to borrow from a Roman Catholic model), no cannon law, and no formal creed; they are African-based Diasporic traditions resisting institutionalization and centralization. They are dynamic and fluid, constantly expanding and contracting as the need arises. The African-based traditions in the Diaspora absorb and transform what is external to their ritual and symbol system, welcoming the "other" rather than building doctrinal walls to keep out that which is foreign. They are open-ended, rooted in the ritual action of the body, emotions, and intuition. They are innovative, improvisational and have a great capacity for ambiguity, while at the same time having a distinct world view, and a common set of symbols and ritual patterns on which practitioners draw in unique and different ways. These are traditions whose primary focus is on maintaining balanced relationships between the world of the living, the world of the ancestors, the world of the Deities (i.e., the Orisha, the Lwa or the Spirits) and when a practitioner's relationships is out of balance with any of these worlds, re-balancing is sought through divination, trance/possession, and various healing activities.

This lecture will explore the dynamic character of these traditions and the valuable contribution that they make to human spiritual life and to a richer understanding of religion.