Panel // Bridging Divides: Interreligious Perspectives on Compassion - Mind & Life Institute

SRI 21|Session 6

Overview

SRI 21
8 sessions
June 5, 2024
Garrison, New York
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Speakers

Andrew Dreitcer is Professor of Spirituality, Director of Spiritual Formation, Director of the D.Min in “Spiritual Renewal, Contemplative Practice, and Strategic Leadership,” and co-directs the Center for Engaged Compassion at Claremont School of Theology. He founded a seminary program in spiritual direction, and served 15 years as a Presbyterian pastor. Current work includes comparative explorations of spiritual practices across religious traditions – and how these practices form lives of engaged compassion. Andrew has co-led workshops on compassion, healing, reconciliation, and restorative justice in Zimbabwe, the US, and the UK. He studied at Wabash College, Oxford, Yale, and the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley. A year at the ecumenical Christian monastery of Taizé and participation in an intentionally Afro-centric activist congregation have significantly shaped his own spiritual life. His book, Living Compassion-Loving Like Jesus, was named one of the “Best Books of 2017” by the website, “Spirituality and Practice.” Andy and his wife have two daughters.

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David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University. At the broadest level, his work examines the mechanisms of the mind that shape vice and virtue. Studying honesty and compassion, altruism and punishment, cooperation and trust, his work continually reveals the forces that underlie moral behavior. David is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association, for which he served as editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion. His work has been repeatedly funded by the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. He is the author of several books, including most recently “How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.” He frequently writes about his work for major publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Harvard Business Review. He also hosts the PRX podcast How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality. David received his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University.

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Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds, and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. His work has been supported by multiple foundations, including the John Templeton Foundation, and his writings about the intersection of religion and science have been published in the books Seven Days, Many Voices and A Life of Meaning, as well as on The Huffington Post, Nautilus, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and My Jewish Learning. He has been an adjunct professor at both the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion, and is an internationally sought-out teacher, presenter, and scholar-in-residence. From 2007 to 2014, he served as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, and he appeared on Jeopardy! in March 2016, and lives in Westchester County with his wife Heather Stoltz, a fiber artist, with their daughter and son.

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Pir Zia Inayat Khan, PH.D., is a scholar of religion and teacher of Sufism in the universalist Sufi lineage of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is president of the Inayatiyya and founder of Sulūk Academy, a school of Sufi contemplative study and practice. He is author of Immortality: A Traveler’s Guide, Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions, Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest, and Tears from the Mother of the Sun, forthcoming in 2025. Pir Zia divides his time between Richmond, Virginia and Suresnes, France.

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