UNIQUE INITIATIVE BRINGS WOMEN OF FAITH INTO NATIONAL POLITICAL DIALOGUE PRE ELECTION
SheSOurce.org & AuBurn Media Present “The Power of Faith: Devotion and Division in the 2008 Election”
NEW YORK – September 17 – Next Tuesday, September 23, SheSource.org and Auburn Media will launch the innovative Women of Faith Media Initiative with “The Power of Faith: Devotion and Division in the 2008 Election.” The panel will be the first opportunity for media and the public to hear from an elite cadre of women experts on faith, including ministers and rabbis from a multitude of faiths, ministry leaders and activists, non-profit advocates, and academic authorities, in a public conversation about religious values in American life this election season.
The present dearth of women’s voices in the public conversation about faith in America led Auburn Media and SheSource.org—leaders in the fields of elevating religious voices and women’s voices, respectively--t o form the Women of Faith Media Initiative in the summer of 2008, with support from The Sister Fund. From major television talk shows and opinion-making programs, to radio, news magazines and editorials, women of faith experts continue to be all but invisible in the national conversation.
"The need to bring the voices of women of faith into the public square could not be more urgent than it is today in the midst of this pivotal Presidential election," said Marie C. Wilson, White House Project President and co-founder of SheSource.org.
During the 2004 election, when religion and "moral values" were part of the political conversation in a way they hadn't been in decades –the only voices that the American public heard from were white, Protestant, conservative, males hailing from Red States. Four years later, Auburn Media and SheSource.org are changing the way faith is talked about by changing the people who are doing the talking. A full list of participants is included below.
WHO: Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, author of God's Troublemakers: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World and Executive Vice President, Auburn Theological Seminary, will moderate a discussion between Rev. Irene Monroe, Presbyterian minister, religion columnist, and Ford Fellow, Rev. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church, Valarie Kaur, Award-winning filmmaker, “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath,” Anisa Mehdi, Emmy Award-winning journalist and Artistic Director of “Documentary Voices: Pulling Focus,” Dubai 2008, and others to be confirmed.
WHAT: Pooling their expertise on issues spanning immigration, gay marriage, abortion rights, youth civic engagement, environmental justice, corporate responsibility, and poverty, the group will tackle the implications of the Palin pick, the evolving power of religious voting blocs, the presence of faith in policy decisions, the enduring distortions of Obama's religious practices, and everything in between.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 6 PM
WHERE: The White House Project Penthouse
434 W 33rd Street (between 9th + 10th Avenues)
New York, NY 10001
The panel is open to the public, and members of the media are encouraged to attend. To RVSP, please click here
SHESOURCE.ORG
SheSource.org is an online braintrust of female experts on diverse topics designed to serve journalists, producers and bookers who need female guests and sources. SheSource.org includes spokeswomen from a variety of backgrounds, representing demographic and ethnic diversity as well as expertise in areas, ranging from security, the economy, and politics to law, peacekeeping, humanitarian crisis, and more.
SheSource.org is the cornerstone of an initiative by The Women's Funding Network, The White House Project and Fenton Communications to foster a more representative public discourse by increasing the number of women whose opinions are reflected in the news media.
AUBURN MEDIA
An initiative of Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn Media seeks to lift up the many religious voices that speak passionately on social and political issues, and do so with a respect for both religious freedom and religious diversity. With the belief that there are many inspiring voices that are not being heard - voices that can help build a more compassionate and just society, Auburn lifts up these voices through the Auburn Media Speakers Bureau, media training workshops, original programming, faith community outreach and consultations.
- Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR, a vibrant Jewish Spiritual Community in Los Angeles dedicated to the integration of spiritual and religious practice and the pursuit of social justice. She was included in the Forward's annual list of the 50 most influential members of the American Jewish community for three years in a row, and was recently noted in Newsweek as one of the leading rabbis in the country.
- The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell is an ordained minister with standing in two Christian denominations, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Church. She is also Director of the Department of Religion at the Chautauqua Institution.
- Patricia Daly is a Dominican Sister of Caldwell, NJ and has worked in Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investing for over 25 years. She serves as the Executive Director of the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, an organization of 40 Roman Catholic Dioceses and Congregations of Women and Men in the NY metropolitan area. Pat represents these institutional investors to the national Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
- Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning New York-based journalist and commentator and an international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues. Her opinion pieces have appeared frequently in the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post and the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper and she has also published opeds in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Egypt's al-Dostour and Lebanon's Daily Star. She is a board member of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America.
- Valarie Kaur, founding director of the Discrimination and National Security Initiative at the Harvard Pluralism Project, is a third-generation Sikh American writer, public speaker, lecturer in religion and ethics, and award-winning filmmaker, who has emerged as a powerful voice for religious and racial dialogue out of a new generation of leaders in post-9/11 America.
- The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the sixteenth president of Union Theological Seminary and Union's first woman president, effective July 1, 2008. Dr. Jones, the Titus Street Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, comes to Union after seventeen years on the Yale faculty. At present she also serves as chair and faculty member of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Jones has held faculty appointments at Yale Law School and in the Department of African American Studies and Religious Studies. Dr. Jones is a prolific and popular scholar in the fields of religion and gender studies.
- Alexia Kelley is the Executive Director and co-founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good in Washington, DC. She worked for nearly a decade at the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Catholic Church’s national anti-poverty program.
- Farhana Khera recently left her position as Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights to join Muslim Advocates as Executive Director. She also serves as the Executive Director of its sister organization, the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML.) In the Senate, Ms. Khera worked for six years directly for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI), the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, where she focused substantially on the USA PATRIOT Act, racial and religious profiling, and other civil liberties issues raised by the government's anti-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001.
- Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, has been the Senior Rabbi of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (CBST) since 1992. Under her leadership, CBST has become an important voice in Judaism, in the world-wide discourse on the nature of religious community, and in the movement to secure basic civil rights for gay people everywhere.
- Irshad Manji is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University's School of Public Service. Her bestseller, The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, has been published in 30 countries, including Pakistan, India, Lebanon and Indonesia. For her leadership on issues facing America and the world, Irshad receives both death threats and awards such as The World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader distinction and The American Society for Muslim Advancement's Muslim Leader of Tomorrow.
- The Reverend Irene Monroe is an ordained Presbyterian minister, religion columnist, public theologian, and a Ford Fellow based in Cambridge, MA. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Monroe's columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on critical race theory, African American, queer and religious studies.
- Rev. Alexia Salvatierra is the Executive Director of CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), an organization of religious leaders throughout Los Angeles county who come together to respond to the crisis of working poverty by supporting low-wage workers in their struggle for a living wage, health insurance, fair working conditions and a voice in the decisions that affect them.
- Rabbi Amy Joy Small has been the rabbi of Reconstructionist Congregation Beth Hatikvah in Summit, NJ, since 1997.Rabbi Small is a Vice Chair for the National UJC Rabbinic Cabinet. She also serves on the boards of Religions for Peace USA, the National Interreligious Leadership Delegation for Peace in the Middle East, the JRF (Jewish Reconstructionist Federation) Israel Committee, the Metrowest Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life, the Metrowest UJC Board, and the American Zionist Movement. Among her interfaith activities, she co-teaches an intensive course, Building Abrahamic Partnerships at the Hartford Seminary.
- Rev. Susan G. Sparks, an ex-lawyer, turned standup comedian and minister, is the first woman Senior Pastor in the 160 year history of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York, NY. Her expertise lies in the areas of the inclusion of the LGBT Community in the Church, the healing power of humor, and spirituality.
Alexie Torres-Fleming is the founder and Executive Director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (YMPJ), a center for urban ministry dedicated to fostering peace and justice through youth and community development and organizing in the Bronx. Ms Torres-Fleming has a strong and extensive background in the area of faith based youth development and community organizing. - Rabbi Melissa Weintraub is Co-Director and Co-Founder of Encounter-North America, an educational organization dedicated to providing Jewish Diaspora leaders from across the religious and political spectrum with exposure to Palestinian life. Melissa also serves as Director of Education and Outreach at Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, and is the author of several articles treating the subjects of human dignity, war ethics, and human rights in Jewish sources.
- Diane Winston, who holds the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, is a national authority on religion and media. Her expertise includes religion, politics and the news media as well as religion and the entertainment media.
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