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The
Lifelines Center
Founded
in the fall of 1999, the Center’s mission is to create an
environment where people can engage with one another face to face
around the issues that most deeply touch our lives, helping to
build meaningful community through dialogue and creative interchange.
The
Center sponsors lecture-and-dinner programs held at All Souls:
hour-long presentations by speakers (free and open to the public)
followed by dinner in Reidy Friendship Hall (for a nominal fee),
where guests discuss what they have just heard.
Past
speakers have included Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Gary
Hart, Geoffrey Canada,
Katrina vanden Heuvel, William Sloane Coffin, Eugenie Scott,
Dan Wakefield and Cornel West.
If
you would like more information on the Lifelines Center, call
David Robb at All Souls at (212) 535-5530.
Special
Lifelines Series:
RELIGION
IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE
Faith Responds to Religious Pluralism
Four Tuesdays in October
in Reidy
Friendship Hall
Perhaps at no previous time in this nation's history
has religion played such a prominent role in electoral
politics and governance. With crucial elections again
scheduled for early November, we pause to reflect upon
the role of religion and religious inquiry in our public
life, and that of the rest of the world.
Do we believe
faith has an authentic role to play in shaping our political
values and life? Does such a role
violate the doctrine of "separation of church and
state?" Is that doctrine what the framers of the
Constitution had in mind by the "non-establishment
clause" of the First Amendment?
Join us for this
provocative four-part series as prominent representatives
of four major faith traditions address
the role of religion in our own public life and in
our relations with other communities around the world.
October
3: The Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J.
 The Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare was President of Fordham University
from 1984 to 2003. Prior to coming to Fordham, Father
O'Hare had been the Editor-in-Chief of America, the weekly
journal of opinion published by the Jesuit Orders of
the United States and Canada, and he currently serves
as an associate editor of the journal. A native of New
York, Father O'Hare entered the Jesuit Order in 1948
and was ordained a priest in 1961. He received A.B. and
M. A. degrees from Berchmans College in Cebu City, the
Philippines, and served two separate terms on the faculty
of Arts and Sciences at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Father O'Hare holds licentiate degrees in philosophy
(1961)
and in theology (1962) from Woodstock College,
Maryland, and a doctorate in Philosophy from Fordham
University (1968). He is also currently a member of
the Council on Foreign Relations.
October
10: Rabbi David Saperstein
 Rabbi
David Saperstein has represented the national
Reform Jewish Movement to Congress and the administration
as Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform
Judaism for the past 30 years. He currently co-chairs
the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty and serves
on the boards of numerous national committees, including
the NAACP and People for the American Way. In 1999,
Rabbi Saperstein was elected the first Chair of the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
by a unanimous vote of Congress.
Also an attorney,
Rabbi Saperstein teaches seminars in both First
Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish
Law at Georgetown University Law School. His latest
book is Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice:
Tough Moral Choices of Our Time.
October
17: Dr. Peter Awn
 Dr.
Peter Awn is presently Professor of Islamic
Religion and Comparative Religion and Dean of General
Studies at Columbia University, and Adjunct professor
at Union Theological Seminary. He has been a visiting
professor at Princeton University and has lectured
widely to academic and business professionals on
the role Islamic religion plays in the current political
and social development of the Muslim world. Professor
Awn was the first recipient of the Philip and Ruth
Hettleman award for distinguished teaching and research.
He received a Ph.D. in Islamic religion and Comparative
Religion from Harvard University in 1978, and previously
earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Classical Languages,
and an M. Div. in Christian Theology. His book, Satan's
Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology is a study of the devil in Islamic mysticism.
October
24: Dr. Randall Balmer
 Dr.
Randall Balmer is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor
of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia
University, and an adjunct professor of church history
at Union Theological Seminary. He earned a Ph.D.
from Princeton University in 1985, is an editor-at-large
for Christianity Today, and has been a visiting professor
at Rutgers, Yale, Drew, Princeton, and Northwestern
Universities.
He is the author of ten books, including
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into
the Evangelical
Subculture in America, now in its fourth edition,
which was made into a three-part PBS series. He
is also a co-author of a history of American Presbyterians.
His
most recent book, published in July, is Thy
Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts
the Faith
and Threatens America.
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