Editorial
The interfaith movement needs a space where it can be thought out, built up, and move people. RFPUSA’s special edition of The Interfaith Observer (TIO) each month – Religions for Peace USA Connect – is just such a space for creative conflict, interesting exchange, and internet activism. Our special edition started two months ago, and we’re just getting a sense of what it can become.
Today I want to speak directly about the purpose of Religions for Peace USA Connect, which combines RFPUSA stories and announcements with TIO’s news and opinion. In particular I want to explain what we hope to accomplish with this new Connect to enhance and further the work of RFPUSA and its religious communities.
RFPUSA’s mission asserts that it is an organization of leaders representing their communities of faith and goodwill working for peace and justice. This mission serves to guide our activities in our common work as well as those things only some of us have the capacity to engage. We are placed strategically to mobilize, organize, educate, and develop our own communities. RFPUSA Connect provides a platform for us to watch the interfaith movement grow in diversity and depth, all the while highlighting our contributions to the movement. We see Connect as a publication where the interfaith movement can be thought through, challenged, and built up.
So far, we have featured stories and editorials covering interfaith activism, the importance of building interfaith spiritual friendships, the state of the interfaith movement today, the role that young people are playing in the interfaith movement, and several stories from our religious member communities themselves. We will continue to become more focused and theme-based, beginning with this issue’s announcement of our interfaith activism and immigration reform webinar. Going forward we will announce events that highlight important topical issues related to our religious communities and your interests. Our focus has been and will continue to be national and global in the attempt to engage with and reach out to our global RFP family.
Religions for Peace USA Connect provides an opportunity for our ‘family’ to exchange and participate in the interfaith movement online, as well as share successes and trials of this work on the local and global level. It is the chance for you to get your own community’s work out there, and read about important work from across the RFP family.
We hope you will continue to enjoy reading this new publication. Please share this valuable resource with your colleagues, and contact Aaron Stauffer with your stories and editorial pitches.