Stories We Live By: Relating to the Self and Other
Webinars
Monday, June 13 + Wednesday, June 15
The webinars will be offered with simultaneous translation English - Spanish.
Webinar 1: June 13, 2022, 5:00 – 6:30 pm UTC:
Stories of the Self and the Other: Religious Perspectives
This webinar will explore how people of religion, particularly Jews and Christians, express their religious identities as the overarching story of their community and how their history shapes the way they speak of the people of other religions, both positively and negatively. Specific attention will be given to strategies to avoid lethal and destructive stories and to nurture life-affirming stories instead. Furthermore, the speaker will reflect on the process of revising one’s sacred stories in the light of deeper interreligious understanding. In other words, how does the new relationship between Jews and Christians affect the interpretation and embodiment of one’s “master narratives”?
Webinar 2: June 15, 2022, 7:00 – 8:30 am UTC:
False Prophecies, False Prophets, False Hopes
At the start of the third millennium we see our world changing at an accelerated pace. New technologies allow for the high-speed circulation of information and create new families of thought seemingly outside the realm of space and time. Sectarian views and even lies motivated by ideologies are spread in a ubiquitous and instantaneous manner. Truth often becomes relative, reality does not seem to matter anymore. One of the major questions that arises from this reality is, What is truth? Is there an absolute truth? Can anyone claim to hold it? What factors shape the ways we relate to the other and the world as legitimate and “true”? Is it “source,” or “tradition”? If some stories bring about separation, disruption, and enmity, can they be held as true today? Our religions can provide us with resources to address these questions as religious stories seek to establish some form of truth that relies on tradition and transmission. However, these stories themselves need to be explored critically. This is what this webinar will strive to do. Ultimately, it will explore how the stories we hold as foundational and sacred can inform us about the world we live in and, even more importantly, how they can inform an increasingly secularized world, so that we do not fall prey to false prophets and false prophecies.
