Rediscovering justice: awakening world faiths to address world issues : an interfaith conference for youth on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations

266 Pages·1998·0.62 MB·English

by  Joseph T. Angilella

Rediscovering Justice : Awakening World
Faiths to Address World Issues : an
title: Interfaith Conference for Youth On the
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the
United Nations
author: Angilella, Joseph T.
publisher: Fordham University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0966405919
print isbn13: 9780966405910
ebook isbn13: 9780585125329
language: English
Religion and justice--Congresses, Youth--
subject
Religious life--Congresses.
publication date: 1998
lcc: BL65.J87R43 1998eb
ddc: 291.1/78
Religion and justice--Congresses, Youth--
subject:
Religious life--Congresses.
Page iii
Rediscovering Justice
Awakening World Faiths to Address World Issues
An Interfaith Conference for Youth on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the
Founding of the United Nations
edited by
Joseph T. Angilla, S.J. and Alan Ziajka
University of San Francisco
Association of Jesuit University Presses
1998
Page iv
Copyright © 1998 by the University of San Francisco
ISBN 0-9664059-0-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-9664059-1-9 (paperback)
LC 98-22229
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rediscovering justice: awakening world faiths to address world issues:
an interfaith conference for youth on the fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of the United Nations / edited by Joseph T. Angilella and
Alan Ziajka.
p. cm.
A collection of the presentations given by the major interfaith
speakers at the interfaith conference for youth, held at the University
of San Francisco from June 22 to June 24, 1995.
ISBN 0-9664059-0-0 (hardcover: alk. paper)ISBN 0-9664059-1-9
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Religion and justiceCongresses. 2. YouthReligious
lifeCongresses. I. Angilella, Alan.
BL65.J8/R43 1998
291.1'78dc21 98-22229
CIP
Marketing and distribution:
Fordham University Press
University Box L
Bronx, NY 10458
Printed in the United States of America
Page v
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Foreword ix
Preface xiii
Part I:
The Conference
People Who Learn and Teach 3
The Participating Students 3
Resource Participants 9
Themes and Structures 12
Integrating the Themes 12
The Structure of the Conference 13
Enriching the Conference Dynamics 14
Part II:
Major Addresses
A Challenge to the World of Religions 19
Rt. Rev. William E. Swing
On Justice the World Depends 24
Rabbi David Davis
A New "We": The Bridges That Bring Us Together 29
Dr. Diana Eck
Jewish Values and the United Nations 42
Dr. David Saperstein
Redemption Lies in the Hand of Memory 60
Dr. Alfred Gottschalk
Responsibility for Justice 78
Dr. Javid Iqbal
The Koran Informs Me and My Decisions 90
Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Page vi
Religious Faith: The "Subversive" Road to Justice 102
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Without God in My Life, I Could Not Do This Work 109
Betty Williams
Part III:
Conclusion
Reflections on the Conference 117
Epilogue: The Voice of a Student 124
Appendix I: Conference Participants 127
Appendix II: Sponsors and Finances 135
Page vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to express our thanks to the many people who have made
this volume possibleespecially, the benefactors of the Conference on
Rediscovering Justice. The editors also wish to express their special
gratitude to Janice Fee, Nimisha Patel, and Sarah Stack for their many
hours of editing, typing, and retyping the first drafts of this book, and
to Father Edward Stackpoole, S.J., for his careful reading of the
manuscript and his many excellent suggestions.
This volume is dedicated to the 200 young people who took part in the
conference. The future is theirs.
Page ix
FOREWORD
This book developed out of an interfaith conference for youth to
commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the signing in San Francisco
of the charter creating the United Nations. The conference, entitled
Rediscovering Justice: Awakening World Faiths to Address World
Issues, was held at the University of San Francisco from June 22 to
June 24, 1995, and was co-sponsored by the University and Grace
Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of California. For three intense
days, 200 young people, aged 18 to 25, from diverse cultural and
religious backgrounds, engaged in passionate dialogue on issues of
global justice, religious understanding, race, ethnicity, war, and peace.
To help guide these young people in this dialogue, the conference also
invited more than fifty distinguished individuals, representing all the
world's great religions, to give presentations, lead small-group
discussions, and serve as facilitators for the deliberations of the young
people. This book is representative of the issues discussed during the
conference and includes the presentations given by the major
interfaith speakers.
It is altogether fitting that the University of San Francisco, a Catholic
and Jesuit institution, should serve as the site for an interfaith
conference for youthas a crossroads where the ideas and traditions of
the world's great religions could be discussed freely and openly. For
more than 450 years, Jesuit institutions have served as intellectual,
cultural, ethical, and religious meeting points, and individual Jesuits
have gone to all parts of the world to meditate at these cultural
intersections: Xavier to Japan, Ricci to China, and Kino to the
Southwest of the United States, to give but a few historical examples.
It is a deeply held Jesuit belief that at any crossroads of the intellect,
the heart, or the human spirit, the courage must be engendered to take
the risk to discover the new and different and to listen and learn from
others.
The University of San Francisco's sponsorship of a youth con-