Conviviality in a Multireligious Community

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 4:11PM

Dates: Feb 22-24, 2012
Location: Haddon Conference Room
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The World Parliament of Religions adopted Hans Küng’s precept that there will be "No peace among the nations without peace among the religions…without dialogue between the religions…without investigation of the foundation of the religions". Others add, that there will not be peace in this world, even with the unified force of the world’s religions and wisdom traditions, without justice among people, cultures and religions as well as within them. In one way or another, “unity” among religions, as based on justice and the will to accept the other’s religions and even irreligiosity as means of justice, will not prevail without an internal and external, spiritual, theological, philosophical and practical investigation into the very reasons for religious strife and fanaticism as well as the resources that people, cultures, religions and wisdom traditions might provide to disentangle them from the injustices of their host regimes, and to seek the “balance” that leads to a measure of universal fairness among the multiplicity of religious and non-religious expressions of humanity.

"Conviviality" expresses the depth and breadth of “living together,” which itself can be understood as a translation of a central term of Whitehead's philosophy and the process tradition—“concrescence” (growing together, becoming concrete)—as it is recently and increasingly used in different discourses to name the concrete community of difference of individuals, cultures, and religions in appreciation of the mutual inclusiveness of their lives.

Since the work of the Center for Process Studies, home of the process tradition of philosophy and theology for more than 40 years, reflects and is an essential part of the groundbreaking new multireligious university at Claremont, this conference seeks to bring together experts from different religious (and non-religious) traditions and spiritual persuasions and versed in process thought with members of the multireligious faculty at Claremont to suggest ways in which the living wisdom traditions might contribute to, and transform themselves into, a universal conviviality among the people, cultures and religions of this world for a common future. It wishes to test the resources that we can contribute to this concurrent and urgent matter, aware of Whitehead's call for a radical transformation of power and violence in thought and action as, perhaps, the ultimate theory of conflict resolution.

For more information visit The Center for Process Studies.